Author Topic: Another viewing, and a revelation  (Read 18835 times)

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #40 on: October 28, 2006, 08:31:18 pm »
A couple of times I've seen a kid carrying on with his or her Mom in the store and walked by with Will and said, "It's a *fun* age, isn't it?"  They've always given me such a grateful look.  Just being reminded now and again that your kid isn't the only one who's ever behaved atrociously in public helps.

Thanks for this story, Barb.  Yes, sometimes I'm the mom hanging by not much, and sometimes I'm the smile.  I am always grateful to see another kid acting up.  we went to a birthday party at the Little Gym the other day, and I was so relieved to see a couple of kids not getting with the program, in terms of following the grop activity.  Miranda often marches ton her own drummer, and I usually feel self-conscious.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #41 on: October 29, 2006, 12:10:18 pm »
Thanks for this story, Barb.  Yes, sometimes I'm the mom hanging by not much, and sometimes I'm the smile.  I am always grateful to see another kid acting up.  we went to a birthday party at the Little Gym the other day, and I was so relieved to see a couple of kids not getting with the program, in terms of following the grop activity.  Miranda often marches ton her own drummer, and I usually feel self-conscious.

Oh, man, do I know from that kind of thing.  When Will was about 18 months old, I enrolled him in a Gymboree program (kind of Mommy & Me) down here.  He was always the *only* kid who was busily going in the opposite direction of everyone else.  Didn't want to sit on my lap and clap and attempt to sing like all the other little kids - he just wanted to chase balls around on the mats and roll them down stuff to see what they'd do.  The whole time.  I was so embarassed.  But Ed said "So he isn't a sheep like the rest of them.  Just means he'll be an interesting adult later.  Screw 'em."  The teacher was not very understanding about it, either, so that didn't help matters.

Now, at almost five, he sits in the center of every circle of kids and leads them in song.  We took him to a birthday party last weekend where there was a clown (a non-scary female one).  She was very interactive with the kids and actually did very entertaining magic tricks.  He was right there in the center responding enthusiastically to everything she said and did - he even got called up to assist her with a trick (he was a plant, actually ;)).  It'll come.  And in the meantime, just remember she'll be an interesting adult later.

Case in point:  The photo below is from his third birthday party.  I'm doing everything I can to hold him down while they're singing happy birthday to him.  Right after that, he took off and the other kids blew the candles out for him.



« Last Edit: October 29, 2006, 12:27:19 pm by ednbarby »
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #42 on: October 29, 2006, 02:44:06 pm »
Quote
And the threat of “I’m going to punish you for telling” paralyzes you because you cannot imagine what could be worse than what happened in the first place.

Too true.  There is no point, either as a child or adult, for abusers to be punished if they are not going to be prevented from contact with those they have victimized.

God, Del.  That's awful.  What makes some people such monsters?  Are they born or made?  I lean a little towards the latter but I'm sure it's a combination of a lot of things.  My brother punished me a couple of times, too, when I threatened to tell, but nothing like what your (boy) cousin did.

I don't know, barb.  I would have thought a bad homelife, you know, the abused becoming the abusers, but from all I can tell, their homelife was just fine.  Currently, they are good children to their aged parents, come over and help when they can, run errands, take them to doctor's visits....[shrugs].  It may be all a facade, but how can anyone who isn't on the inside tell?

I can only pray for karma, though your faith can be shaken by the slow response of the gods.  Right now, both these abusive cousins are what we would call successful, happy pillars of the community.  Both are married to loving caring spouses, are doing well financially, have children who show every sign of being extremely intelligent and doing their parents proud...my sister is divorced, living paycheck to paycheck, has 'let herself' go, is in remission for cancer, recently diagnosed with diabetes and while I maintain my health and a not much better financial situation, there doesn't look like there will ever be any loving spouse in my future.

Life really sucks sometimes, but things could be worse, much worse.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2006, 02:45:40 pm by delalluvia »

Offline isabelle

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #43 on: October 29, 2006, 04:13:53 pm »
God, Del.  That's awful.  What makes some people such monsters?  Are they born or made?  I lean a little towards the latter but I'm sure it's a combination of a lot of things. 

A little piece of information that might interest some of you here: I am reading a book by Lionel Shriver entitled "We need to talk about Kevin". It was inspired by the Columbine killings. The narrator, the mother of a 16 year-old mass murderer in a school, speaks in the first person through letters sent to her estranged husband. I have only read 50 pages so far but am hooked. Among other things, it addresses this big question: is evil innate or not?
 I also agree that it is a mixture of both.
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #44 on: October 29, 2006, 10:19:30 pm »
I think we're all born with tendencies towards things.  What we experience and how we react to it then pushes us more towards what our tendencies already are.  And I think that how each of us reacts to our environment is actually predetermined to a certain extent.  Not in a creationistic, fundamentalist Christian way - in a scientific one.  Our very genetic makeup dictates how our minds and bodies will react to trauma.  And no two people are truly identical, not even identical twins.  Because even though they have the same DNA, they can't possibly have exactly the same chemical makeup in their brains and bodies - they can't possibly experience exactly the same stimuli in exactly the same way, and thus the different stimuli each experiences will affect the chemical makeup of each differently.

OK, I'm blathering.  But nature vs. nurture has always been a fascinating topic to me.  I've seen really compelling cases made for each, but I can't shake the notion that monsters are born, not made.  Sure, most if not all serial killers come from abusive childhoods.  But so do a whole lot of other people who'd never hurt a fly.  Of course, mine is a very troubling notion.  It suggests that we can't change a human predator at an early age.  But I believe we can.  I've seen autistic children cured by hours and hours of intensive therapy weekly for a couple of years.  Like Marilyn Manson, of all people, said about the Columbine killers when asked if given the opportunity before it happened to talk with them, what would he say, "I wouldn't talk at all - I'd listen.  And that's what no one did."  I think I'm fascinated with serial killers because I want to know what exactly makes someone have absolutely no pity and no remorse for his fellow human beings and to think of them as animals that are somehow beneath him?  If we could know that - if we could know that there is a turning point in childhood that could be thwarted... Well...

I'm blathering again.  I really should get out more.
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Offline isabelle

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #45 on: October 30, 2006, 07:53:14 am »
I think I'm fascinated with serial killers because I want to know what exactly makes someone have absolutely no pity and no remorse for his fellow human beings and to think of them as animals that are somehow beneath him?  If we could know that - if we could know that there is a turning point in childhood that could be thwarted... Well...

I am fascinated by them too, so don't worry about blathering!

My partner is German; his mother was of Jewish descent, and his father found himself in the Hitler's youth at an early age, and on the Eastern front at age 18. So my partner is permanently haunted by what his father may have done, and what he did witness (his father died when he was 12, so he could never ask).
As a German, he still bears the weight of his country's history. Talking of mass murderers, the Nazis, the SS, were one kind. It seems too that the majority of the German people was convinced by the propaganda, that the Jews, the Gipsies, the Russians, gays, were "inferior" human beings, rats that had to be eliminated. It has always made me wonder. This example (what the SS did, and the people's consent at the very least) doesn't seem to have anything to do with an abused childhood, or predetermination. OR, it might well be that we are all predetermined, or rather capable, of evil-doing. The circumstances may or may not make you cross the line.

I read Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem", and was terrified at the banality of human capacities for evil.
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #46 on: October 30, 2006, 10:56:51 am »
Interesting (and disturbing) thought.  Perhaps we are all evil (or capable of evil) at heart and must will ourselves to do good.  Kind of gets into the existentialist dilemma - in a godless universe, if you can get away with atrocities, what's to keep you from committing them?  Conscience?  But what if you have none?  What's so scary about Hitler and the Nazis is that they encouraged ordinary people to be evil, and those people bought it because they were desperate with fear and resentment about their lot in life.  What's to keep someone in this country from having that kind of power again?  Yes, I know people hate it when one compares George W. Bush to Hitler, and of course it's not gone anywhere near that far.  But look at what he's done and is doing - he is able to convince people that they need to vote for him to "protect the sanctity of marriage" and to "protect unborn children."  They buy that, not seeing that in fact the state with the lowest divorce rate in this country is the one state that has legalized civil unions - Massachusetts.  They buy that, not seeing that by banning stem cell research, letting the assault weapons ban run out, and sending our young men and women to an illegal and unnecessary war, he's killing a whole lot of adult people who are already here.  He has encouraged them to be incapable of reason.  It's beyond scary.
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Offline Momof2

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #47 on: October 30, 2006, 06:06:44 pm »
I believe it is a little of both.  It is scary.  Sometimes people that do horrible unthinkable things to other people live next door to you.  I think child molestors and serial killers are sick people that can never be rehabililtated.  I DO NOT think they deserve a second chance.  It amazes me and makes me cringe at what humans can do to each other.  There is evilness everywhere.  I had a horrible, abusive childhood.  I think it made me more sensitive to others.  I knew how I had been treated and did not want another human to experience it.  My sister on the other hand wallows in it.  She can not get over it.  It has mad her a sad, bitter and addicted person.  So, is it genetics or nurture.  We both grew up in the same house treated the same way and both have the same parents.  Why did she choose one road and I another.  Not sure.  I just am glad I chose the one I did. 
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Offline Kelda

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #48 on: October 31, 2006, 05:08:12 am »
  I had a horrible, abusive childhood.  I think it made me more sensitive to others.  I knew how I had been treated and did not want another human to experience it.  My sister on the other hand wallows in it.  She can not get over it.  It has mad her a sad, bitter and addicted person.  So, is it genetics or nurture.  We both grew up in the same house treated the same way and both have the same parents.  Why did she choose one road and I another.  Not sure.  I just am glad I chose the one I did. 

Momo - I can very much identify with what you are saying there. How some can bounce back and use it in a positive way and others just can't seem to, and it effects their whole lives.. the choices they make, the temperament they have, the (bad) boyfriends and husbands they choose, how they can never finish anything, a college course or a book. Unfortunately depression is not a choice - sure, some people choose to make an effort and pull themselves out of depression - others just cannot. Whether its a choice to wallow - I'm not so sure. But you certainly are the luckier of the 2 siblings, thats for sure.
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Offline Momof2

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Re: Another viewing, and a revelation
« Reply #49 on: October 31, 2006, 10:41:52 am »
Thanks Kelda.  I do agree about depression.  It is unfortunately not a choice.  I was depressed for a very long time.  I saw it as a weakness and asking for help as an even bigger weakness.  I finally admitted that I could not handle everything on my own and did get help.  It has made a tremendous difference in my life and the lives that I affect.  I think that sometimes negative things from someones past affect them and they do not even realize it.  Our past shapes our future in good and bad ways.  You just have to take the good and forget the past.  I do agree that sometimes it is hard. 

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