"Physically Ill"

Yes you should. Feel that swirling motion? The drain's close-by.

Well, what I mean is, usually when one person goes bad, people often blame the parents, but it can't always be that - some people are just born twisted, I think, including most of the ones who torture animals when they're children or teenagers.

You know, maybe Jeffrey Dahmer's mother was at fault somewhere, but I don't really think so. She seemed kind of ineffectual, maybe, is all, and the father didn't seem to have done anything wrong. So I generally don't blame the parents and upbringing for something that could well be just a defect in genetics or biochemistry, or something, who knows what makes people like this, and often the parents are baffled by it, too.

But in this case - all three of them, all in college, all friends, all seemingly normal - I definitely do blame the parents for not instilling a modicum of humanity in these boys. Something big was missing in their upbringing, is my feeling.

coco

I agree with your assessment. (Which is what I meant by "Yes you should".)

Having worked with at-risk kids, and as a program liason to several high schools, I've observed that the amount of direct parenting your average child gets now-a-days is minimal at best. The prime behavior models for most kids I've observed are other kids. If one has a natural predisposition for cruelty, that behavior will spread to freinds - primarily because there are no earlier behavioral lessons to prevent it.

So, yeah. The parents are clearly at fault. And yes also, they don't hold responsibility in all cases, or for all thier own children's ills.

I understood ya, Jillian.

I was lucky to be able to work at home and be home with my kids always. Well, it wasn't all luck; I planned it that way since I was a kid. Partly because my mother worked always, and I always wished I had at least one parent at home. (Actually I wished I had more than one parent, lol.)

One of my girls' friends had working parents. What I thought was neat is this mother decided to stay home during middle school, the very time when most stay-home moms go back to work. She decided that because she figured that was the most dangerous age. And it is! My girls had a lot of friends who got into a lot of trouble during that stage and most of the parents were clueless about it.

It's a quandry, not just because of people needing money, but because women like me don't necessarily want to junk their entire careers for that length of time. But I swear, some of my girls' friends, their parents practically lead separate lives from the kids, working all week and going out without them all the time. But others, though they work, still manage to be very much there somehow, very much an interested and concerned presence. I think it's a mindset, more than simply working or non-working parents.

cocoblabson

I guess a big difference between humans and animals is that humans have a conscience, and animals don't (I don't think). So therefore these kids are basically animals, able to be purchased and sold.

Any bidders?

Well, I think many species of animals have a conscience. That's why dogs and cats can look so guilty when they know they've done something they weren't supposed to.

coco

You know what, that makes it even sadder...that would put them below animals. Sad either way.