Hi, KMT! Welcome to the Feelings thread.
I can tell from post, and the one behind it, that you care very deeply about what is going on with America's children. I think we certainly have different ways of looking at the causative factors, however. I don't think children are really very much aware of the abortion debate in this country, for example. Children who kill all seem to be deeply disturbed in some way, but children usually respond to their immediate environments and their day-to-day experience of life more than to the intellectual issues that adults debate.
From everything I have read, all of the children who went on rampages at school were hunters, and were extremely familiar with guns. To me, it must be very confusing to a child who has serious underlying emotional problems that killing animals for sport is exciting and pleasurable, but that killing humans is absolutely forbidden. I do think healthy children can easily understand the difference, however. Have any vegetarian children ever killed anyone, anywhere? This would be very interesting to find out. I think going vegetarian causes a spiritual shift of some sort, so that reverence for all life increases, and a general desire for peace and nonviolence as well.
As far as your comments on Darwin go, I have no experience with children around me believing that because of evolution they are simply animals. This was your statement--"When people are taught they're nothing more than a highly developed animal...nothing more than a sophisticated monkey...with no purpose, no reason for being...that devalues human life. Healthy parents who believe in evolutionary theory teach their children that because man can reason, human animals need to be very responsible and loving in the way they treat other humans, and animals as well, because animals have feelings. It has also been recently discovered that the higher apes have brain functions that were previously thought to occur only in humans, so while the lines may be blurring, I do not think that would imply that we have no reason or purpose at all. Did you know that man is the only animal who kills just for pleasure? I think, frankly, that we could learn a lot from animals.
I don't think fear of any kind is appropriate in rearing children. Have you ever read the differences in outcome in the different parenting styles? This result is typical of the autocratic parenting style:
""Autocratic--Children can be insecure, fearful, resentful; they obey out of fear of punishment, learn to subvert or
manipulate, are often out of control when parents aren't present, retaliate and strike out at times. Children can be
disobedient, sneaky, strong-willed, rebellious, and lacking in self-discipline."
ecst.csuchico.edu
ecst.csuchico.edu
My own personal feeling is that children who kill are full of rage because they have been made to feel fearful and powerless by very cruel, ineffective parenting styles, and finally explode. I would suspect that all of them were severely spanked, and even beaten. It is coming out now that Kip Kinkel's father was a very strict disciplinarian. If this parenting style worked well, I don't think this child would have mowed down his classmates, do you? Both his parents were Spanish teachers, and certainly should have been aware as educators that their child needed help. Torturing animals, as he did, is a sign of a very, very disturbed child. I believe it is the responsibility of every parent to get treatment for their disturbed children, instead of going into denial about it, or washing their hands of the matter, as his father seems to have done shortly before the shootings, from interviews with people who knew the family well.
Since you brought up the issue of abortion, I would have to say that while I personally would never have one, I think women need to be in charge of their own reproductive rights. Abortion is a very old medical procedure, historically speaking, so obviously there has always been a need for it. While many people are disturbed by the idea of abortion, certainly aborting a fetus early in pregnancy when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or the woman or girl is clearly emotionally and financially unprepared to become a parent, seems less cruel than bringing a child into the world who would end up being abused or neglected. It is also very much less cruel to abort a fetus than it is to watch women bleed to death, which was the situation when abortion was illegal in America. Wealthy women were able to go abroad to get safe, medical abortions in countries where they were legal, but poor women, many of whom had other children already, suffered and died. This was a tragedy not only for the women, but for their families as well. So if you are really pro-family, that is something to consider. I am personally very much opposed to partial birth abortions unless the actual life of the mother is in danger, or the fetus is already dead, which it almost always is not. I do agree with you that this practice is absolutely sickening, and I hope it is made illegal everywhere.
I think abortion should be legal, but very rare. In Europe today, teenagers become sexually active at the same average that American children do (15.5 years old), but because there is better sex education and less guilt about using birth control, the pregnancy rate is much, much lower there. If the religious right in this country were really serious about preventing abortions, they should look at the scientific/medical evidence, and support widely available birth control and sex education for children and teenagers. Instead, it seems more like they want to inflict their morals on everyone. When you combine that with the philosophy of intimidating people who are trying to enter abortion clinics, and even bombing them to kill and maim people, and assassinating doctors who perform abortions, certainly the message being communicated has little to do with sanctity of life.
It is true that people kill people, but having guns laying around everywhere makes it much easier to do that. Regardless of how many very disturbed children there are in America, if guns were not so readily accessible, the school massacres would simply not be occurring.
I am sure we totally disagree on almost everything, except our concern about what is happening with children in America, but I have enjoyed thinking about what you said. Thanks for participating!! |
