Father Of Shooter Asking For Privacy

[Ms. Toad]

51. You cannot judge whether someone was a bad parent

by a single spectacularly violent act perpetrated by their child.

For argument's sake, let's assume a fourth possibility - he knew of his son's obsession and worked to turn his son's life around. His efforts were insufficient as his son still killed nearly 20 people. He should have gone to the police if he was not getting through to his son. Regardless, he still failed his son and society.

Do you know the parents did not try all of these, and more?

Parenting is the most difficult, demanding and important work most people will ever perform in their lives. It's not easy and if people are not prepared for the immense challenges that come with parenting, then they should not become parents.

That's incredibly arrogant of you.

In perfect hindsight, I'm sure my parents would not have adopted two of my siblings. They caused too much pain. They would have caused that pain wherever they were - but at least they would not have brought the pain into our family and our community.

At the time, the best wisdom was that enough love can fix all that went wrong in early childhood. The best wisdom was wrong.

One sibling was diagnosed at age 12 as an alcoholic (in a home in which there was not a drop of alcohol available) and as a sociopath. He was in and out of treatment/juvenile detention/rehabilitation facilities starting at age 12. At least two residential facilities and one out-patient until he left home in his mid-teens. He lived in a bottle until he was in his 40s, and none of us would have been surprised to learn he had killed or been killed in a bar fight. He briefly crawled out of the bottle for a decade, but has fallen back in. NOTHING my parents did, including virtually everything you suggest, had any impact at all on the trajectory of his life.

Would not becoming their parents, by leaving them in foster care, have served my siblings better? Almost certainly not. I like to think they benefited from being in a stable, loving home - my sister certainly did benefit. All leaving them there would have done was shifted the targets of their harm.

My parents did not fail either of my siblings, nor did they fail society. My siglings' lives were simply so damaged and their behavior so beyond repair, that their fate was sealed by the time my parents entered the picture. In their cases, because of circumstances they encountered in the womb (one, probably both FAS) - and in the first 3-4 years of their lives (one had evidence, at age 4, of fractures that only dome from being beaten). But miswiring occurs for all sorts of reasons beyond the control of the parents, and some of it results in children who act violently.

I don't know the circumstances in this family, but I do know you are making a hell of a lot of judgments you have no basis to make and - having walked in that family's shoes - I can tell you that that judgment makes an impossible situation worsel. The judgment, pain, and shame, nearly caused my mother to take her own life.