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A Unique Perspective on a 'Game-Related' Tragedy
Megnatron writes "Penny Arcade has a letter from the stepmother of one of the kids who was recently charged with killing a homeless man. Her article is an extremely sobering tale of the problems dealing with troubled teen. She explains how, in this situation, the parents did everything they possibly could. And, in a refreshing twist, she absolves the games industry of any blame for the tragedy these kids perpetrated. From her missive: 'Video games DID NOT make this kid who he was, and it's unfortunate that the correlation is there. The thing that really gets me with this whole thing is that the kid knows full well that by equating what he's done to a video game, that he will generate controversy and media coverage. It makes me sick that the media is jumping all over this, because that is exactly the result that he wants. The only good thing (if there is such a thing) that has come out of this whole ordeal is that the kid is behind bars. That is exactly where he needs to be.'" Her letter is a passionate, troubling story, but well worth reading.
My word.
It's quite impressive really, how a web-comic that deliberately sets out to be juvenile and offensive so often ends up involved in a reasonably respectable way in some pretty big news stories.
I know this probably isn't the most appropriate comment, but I this whole thing really does remind me strongly of this book. In fact, the echos are bordering on being uncanny. I guess it all boils down to the question of whether somebody can just be "born bad".
The evidence both from this case (if the account here is to be believed) and my own experiences is "yes, they can". I'm not sure anybody in the political or academic estabishments really want to face up to the implications of this, though.
A situation like this happened with a co-workers step-child which ended up in his divorce from his wife. She couldnt see the kid for what he was and it ended up tearing them apart.
That kids now preparing to go to trial for killing his friend when in a drug haze he ran his car off the road and into a tree.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I realize that most of the dot, myself included, rarely reads articles before commenting on them. This one is very much worth the read, regardless of whether you intend to comment or not.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
After reading the "stepmother's" reply I have to say yea it probably was the parent's fault. This kid seems to have been tossed back and forth between the "father" and the mother. The stepmother's language in her reply was what I would expect for a high school kid and not a parent of a child. In all the discussion of what they did and didn't do, I at no time heard the word love. I heard hate a lot but not love. Yea this kid might have had issues from the start but I have to say that didn't sound like he had much of a chance with the parents he had.
Yes he was unmanageable at 15 but what about at two? How about at five? How much love and time did he get at seven?
It is possible that even with the best parents in the world he might have still become a killer but it seems far from the perfect family life to me.
Sounds like a few more wasted lives. The poor guy that was killed and the kids that did the killing.
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Hey, the authorities do that for a very good reason: an adult can be far more articulate and persuasive than a child accuser. Believe me, the police and social workers erring on the side of caution is a GOOD thing.
Don't think I'm making this up, either. I'm speaking as someone who was abused as a child and was NOT believed when he cried for help. It would have been great if people "took the child's view" thirty years ago -- it would have saved me decades of emotional pain.
I almost went down a similiar path to this kid. I skipped out on school, ignored the rules. Punishments didn't phase me. I spent time in jail and in juvenile "shelter" homes, from my truancy. When I was a young child, at times my mother was actually afraid of me - I was fearless of punishment even then. Spank me, (it was legal then), and I'd just go do whatever I did again.
It took my father's sudden death (heart failure) when I was 15 to snap me out of it. I fell into a deep depression (I already suffered from chronic depression) and ended up spending half a year at a residential treatment facility for emotionally unstable teenagers.
I look back, and both my mother and I can agree that, my father's death inadvertantly saved my life. I was probably only a year or so off from making a big mistake. My father was already terminally ill at the time from leukemia... probably only had a year and a half left, based on the estimate from the autopsy. His death cost him and us another year or two together, but may have given me many more years to live life.
That was about 12 years ago. My father would be proud of the person I am today. I don't think that would be the case if he had survived.
I met a lot of kids who were like me, in the places I went. There are more exceptions to the rule than people think.
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Well I read the letter and it seems a bit interesting for a late teen.
Most of the time, he didn't even remember why he was being grounded
We're talking stealing cars, setting fires, drinking, getting picked up for drugs, beating up handicapped kids at school (yes, really)
I see two important things, #1 he has trouble comprehending his actions in some way. #2 This person claims he has a long record of criminal offenses, but hasn't had any real punishment.
He likely just thought he could get away with it, like he had with everything else for YEARS. At some point the government should help out a bit, maybe put him in jail. Teaching him he can get away with this type of behaviour is a fatal mistake.
He would have been exactly the same if this happened in 1960.
In 1960 life was very different. His dad wouldn't be "grounding him" he'd have taken him to the wood shed and corrected his attitude. You only have to be course corrected a few times at an early age. The mother's mention of negative reinforcement probably did not include throwing the kid out the door into the street and telling him to only come home once he appecated what he had going for him in the form of a warm bed and three square meals a day.
School teachers in 1960 could beat you with a shaved baseball bat until you're buttocks were bruised so you couldn't sit down. His teacher's or their husbands would likely have been a WWII or Korean War veteran. Why mention that? Because if the little goblin had raised a hand to a teacher, he'd have drawn back a stump. His school Principal would have certainly been a) male and b) unsympathetic to his claim of 'abuse'. His Principal would very likely have a shaved baseball bat and two foot prints painted on the floor in front of his desk.
If none of that registered on him, in 1960, he'd of been shipped off to someplace like "West Texas Boy's Ranch" or "The San Antonio Boy's Town" or "Father Flanagan's Boys Town" or any of the other "homes for boys". He'd have had to work 30-35 hours a week growing the food he ate, tending the stock and still ride the bus 1-2 hours each way to attend school. He'd live in a "bay barracks" style dorm with 30 other kids. He would do laundry, muck out barns, peel potatoes and stack hay. Sunday he'd go to church and get a whole 5-6 hours to reflect the error of his way.
If he ran away and tried to 'go home' the Sheriff would run him down with dogs and drag him back to the county farm for recalcitrant youth or what ever the place was called. Then the keepers would move his bunk to the barn take his mattress and blankets way until he'd earned his spot in the dorm back.
Believe it or not the boy would be different. If this was 1960 he'd be different or he'd be dead.
This is not an example of what I am talking about. That particular issue can happen from either nature or nurture. Letting the kids get away with their shit is rewarding that behavior because it places them above other children for whom there is zero tolerance. Like me, for example. I was a mama's boy up until I was about 21, no joke. Total pussy pushover. I used to get attacked at school literally every day. If they weren't hitting me they were destroying my bicycle, that kind of shit. So one day a kid attacks me without any backup and keeps it up until I get pissed off - all 5'11" of me or so at that time. I've been pretty huge since about the end of sixth grade, that was the year I started getting the nonstop growing pains. So I beat the living crap out of him and got expelled.
Yeah, I have to agree completely with that.
The real problem there is that the system isn't interested in helping people anyway, or rehabilitating anyone. If they were, the prison system wouldn't be allowed to remain a mass of murder and rape that only begets additional violence and not only provides opportunities for people to learn to commit more serious crimes, but also provides them with incentive to do so because we continue to punish people after they have ostensibly served their debt to society. They cannot get many types of jobs, they cannot vote, et cetera. The only reason to disenfranchise ANYONE is so that you don't have to fix the problems that affect them. Disenfranchising felons means you don't have to fix the problems that create felons, because those people can't vote you out anyway.
No, if you stop that kid from being a bully now, you can't make money on him by placing him in prison.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sounds like she was involved here for several years, I guess you can consider that 'quick' but most reasonable people wouldn't.
Speaking from experience, my sister is like this kid. This girl put my parents through 18 years of pure hell, was a contributing factor in their divorce and my mothers alcoholism. She currently is unable to hold any job, but has two illegitimate children. The kids do not even have proper beds to sleep on, but child services will not remove them from her custody. My mother offered to adopt them, and she refused to give up custody. This girl leeches off my father at age 22. She spends her money on cigarettes instead of food/clothing for the kids, then calls us for handouts. If you asked me what I thought of her, my response would be very similar to the step-mother who sent this letter. There is no love there, there is no respect or compassion. My life will only be better if I never interacted with that waste of a human being ever again.
But I guess by your standards, I just sold her out, and am a terrible person.
Not much to add other than we had this also all the way up to the mid-80s when I finished highschool. When I was a senior, we had our first 'incident' I had ever heard of in our town. At another highschool (in a rougher part of town) one student stabbed another one to death (multiple stab wounds). This shocked everyone. These days, it's at least a school shooting a year.
I agree with you and it's my parents' generation's fault. Coming up through the 60s, they let their kids run around somewhat unsupervised but at least grandparents were around to help guide us some. This, in turn, cause them (my generation) to let their children run even more unsupervised and let the Nintendo, VCR, and TV be the parent. Our parents aren't interested in guiding them either. This only gets worse over time.
Wait...are you saying that there are federal statistics that show that over 1/4 of the people in prison in this country are illegal aliens who came to the US for the sole purpose of committing violent crimes?
I find that incredibly hard to believe, and would love to see some sort of citation for where you got that info.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Well, I agree to a certain extent. But I think a cure IS possible, we simply don't know enough about the brain. But here is the real question: at some point I believe we will form that level of understanding of the brain. But what will we do with it? Is curing people of genetically-based antisocial behavior just?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I know of at least two families of decent, considerate people who raised their kids normally. In both these families, the kids are bright, honest people, except for one sibling (in both cases) who stands out like a sore thumb for his antisocial attitude. Both did time in youth correction then in jail, repeatedly. The parents can hardly be blamed, they tried everything. I think that at least one of the kids has the same psychopathic attitude as the murderer mentioned in TFA.
I really suspect a genetic disorder in these cases. I don't know which one, but I fail to see how the same household could produce such wildly dissimilar siblings. Same parents, same environment, same education... It's got to be genomes.
This is not to absolve the little perps. Except in the most extreme cases, most people with psychopathic tendencies can exercise will power to keep themselves out of trouble. That's why I didn't take a gun in my car, for example. Yet, most of these bastards hogging the freeway during my commute would amply deserve a few high-caliber bursts, let me tell ya. But did I do it? Nope. Sheer will power at work. So I *know* it can be done. You always have a choice unless you are desperately screwed up.
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"I am saying, that with a child like that, the things this woman describes (trying to fix him) is exactly what would drive him farther and farther over the edge of wrecklessness in a desire to say, "I do what I want.""
Very true, it would drive him further into that mentality,kinda went that way with my parents when growing up, but luckyly i "grew out of it" before anything really bad happened
BUT what alternative for the parents is there that would work? Answer is simple, none.
Let him do what he wants? Easyley end up with same result, hell it does many times, aka those cases where the parents are fully to blame
Put him into care? Known quite a few kids who have gone though care systems in different countries and can tell you kids like this NEVER come of of the system well
Beat the shit out him till he stopped? That generally just turns screwed up kids into very screwed up adults
By the sounds of things parents did their very best, really what more could be asked of them?
Decent parenting, home life, counseling can all be pointless at times because sometimes no matter what a parents does the kid can and will turn out "bad"
I realize that the original suggestion was made by a comic, but stop and think about the consequences. If people like this are a result of nature, wouldn't the abnormality present itself in offspring? Only worse? Yes, you could implement gender segregation, but how long would that stop 4 states worth of amoral, determined, horny, psychopaths?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Deuteronomy 21:18-20 --> In case a man happens to have a son who is stubborn and rebellious, he not listening to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and they have corrected him but he will not listen to them, 19 his father and his mother must also take hold of him and bring him out to the older men of his city and to the gate of his place, 20 and they must say to the older men of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he is not listening to our voice, being a glutton and a drunkard.' 21 Then all the men of his city must pelt him with stones, and he must die. So you must clear away what is bad from your midst, and all Israel will hear and indeed become afraid.
The fact that people are born with certain personal traits does not imply that there isn't also a learning factor involved.
Think about it this way: when you see someone perform some act, you normally associate that act with that person, right? When you get mugged, you blame the mugger, right? When the neighbour kid throws a rock through your window, you don't associate it with your own actions right? It's only under special circumstances that you'll associate the actions of another Human being with your own actions.
If you stuff a sociopath in a Skinner-box and try to condition them to behave some way, it will probably work. If you supply the shocks yourself, it wont. This is true of rats too -- if you shock the rat yourself to train it, it will just bite you and run away.
Strictly speaking, sociopaths even have trouble with that kind of conditioning. They do incredibly unsafe things all the time because they have a great deal of difficulty responding even to environmental conditioning. You should read up a bit on the subject; sociopaths really are fascinating, like most people who lack some crucial aspect of Human psychology. In fact, sociopaths may be the most interesting of all the people that have psychological deviatons, because their aberration makes unable to perform the most fundamental of all Human acts: participating in a society.