After a lengthy reply I received to one of my posts... I won't say much else about that except thanks for being your wonderfully supportive selves... I started thinking. How would you handle it if: 1. You suddenly realized your kid was a ruthless dictator? 2. What if they had murdered someone? Would it matter why? 3. Become a cannibal? 4. A sexual Predator? 5. A thief? We all think these things can't happen if we are careful parents, but sometimes they do. I don't know what Hitler or Jeff Dahlmer, or Winona Ryder's folks were like but how should parents react toward crimes committed by adult children? Is there anything you can do? I think there is.
Honestly, I think if my child killed someone I'd be consumed with guilt. I'd wonder what I did or could have done to change my son's life so he wouldn't have ended up killing someone. I would want to know why he did it and wonder how I could have changed it. If my child was a ruthless dictator then I'd probably laugh and think, "wow he turned out a lot like his father", lol. If my child turned into a cannibal I'd probably come to the conclusion that maybe I shouldn't have raised him vegetarian since it must have made him flip out. lol If my child became a sexual predator then I'd probably wonder what I did in raising him to make him think he wasn't good enough to get a woman and had to rape people? If he became a thief then I'd feel like a total failure. There are certain values I plan on instilling into my childern's lives and if they grow up and rebel against them I won't be able to help feeling crushed. I guess what it all comes down to is the world we are living in. There seems to be so many drugs, so much hate and so much crime. Our kids will end up seeing this and it might impact them enough to join in with the madness or it might impact them enough to make a change. I think the only way we are going to get things to change around here is to teach our childern to love and feel and care about others and the world we live in. From there on it is their choice. We can only hold their hand and guide them along from there. I would wonder what I could have done if my childern grew up and did horrible things but I'd also have to think that they have their own minds and I tried my best. I will always try to help them, I will love them no matter what they turn into. If they are gay, straight, a killer, a thief, a father, a well rounded person, whatever I'd still love them. We can only help and change so much but we def. have a better chance if we start instilling this into our kids early on.
you just do all you can do so when and if the what if happens you can reply with a true well i did all i could do
I know Jeffry Dahmer's parents were horrified. They live in Ohio so our Ohio papers really over-covered them when all of their son's dealings came to light. They were so upset and irate...since they had raised him in a good home,he went to good schools,ect..they donated his brain to research so that studies could determine if serial-crimes are chemical rather then environmental. Jeffrey had had problems in his youth with killing stray animals but his parents and society had dismissed it as "boys will be boys". they know now that boys who consistantly and savagely brutalize animals are more likely to grow up to be abusive,rapists and murderers. I can't imagine how I would feel of my kids did anything heinous. I'd probably be upset with myself and evaluate how I parented them.Did I miss the tell-tale signs out of(as Shane put it)love and loyalty? Even if your kids are adults, you never stop being a parent.
My mother raised me and instilled in me the beliefs that her parents had her... "I will teach you what I think is right and wrong, what God says is right and wrong, and what the law of the land says is right and wrong. What you do with those teachings is up to you. Only you are accountable for your actions." I teach my god-daughter the same way. I would love her no matter what she happened to do in her life...but I would never feel as if what she did was my fault. My mom will never feel that what I do is her fault. She taught me what was right from wrong and that was all she could do... Holly
I am sure I would be consumed with guilt if my kid commited a heinous crime. However, my mom raised my brothers and I in the same household with the same values. We turned out very differently. My brothers seem like misogynists who think that the entire world is out to get them and therefore there is no reason for them to try to be responsible adults. They watch MTV (Or they did before their cable was cut off.) and have long, heated talks about how all women are whores who just use men for their money. If I am at my mom's when this is going on and they try to get a reaction out of me, I point out that they are saying all of this as they sit on their mom's sofa and eat her food. They claim that their lack of responsibility is my mother's fault because she didn't raise them to be responsible. They actually claim that she should take care of them for the rest of their lives. I have pointed out that I think we should give her some credit for raising three kids by herself, especially since our dad's bailed, but to them this is irrellevant. They say my mom shouldn't have had children with such losers, thus dooming my brothers to failure. My brothers' being total dorks is not the same as being a serial killer, but knowing them affects how I feel about this issue. I can see how someone could be a devoted, responsible parent who made an effort to instill their children with decent values, and still end up with totally whacked offspring. I mean, my mom has been the epitome of (my personal vision of) a hippy mom. She's been a vegetarian, at times commune-living, school bus converting, politically active, standing up for her rights, volunteering for causes she belives in hippy. I can't even begin to tell you what lengths she has gone to trying to make sure their educational experiences met their needs and didn't stifle them. Does this sound like someone who didn't try hard enough? I think not. And yet my brothers are jerks. I keep telling myself it's just a phase. So, I think sometimes it's just maybe biological, and some people are just messed up for whatever reason, and it's not always their parents' fault.
