If one’s son or daughter commits a terrible crime, it does not necessarily mean that the parents were not good parents. Mary Mitchell, the aunt of Jared Loughner, who attempted to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, says that Giffords, the families of the six victims who were killed, and the other injured victims are not the only ones suffering from the terrible act of murder. Loughner’s parents must live with the memories for the rest of their lives, she proclaims. I believe that what Mitchell is reasoning is correct--it would be unfair to label the parents of Loughner as insufficient as it is very possible that Loughner became the way he became by himself, from influence from friends, or simply from mental disorder. It must be very difficult for Randy and Amy Loughner to accept the fact that their son just committed a murder that made nationwide (and possibly worldwide) news, killing six people and attempting to murder a Representative of Arizona. People are casting blame on Lougner’s parents for the incident, and Mitchell has reason to call their blames disrespectful. They are using the parents as scapegoats, while their son was the real suspect. They likely did their best to try to raise him to be a good person, but he decided to make his own terrible choices that would have a vast impact on the rest of his life, his parent’s lives, the Giffords’ life, and the lives of the families of the victims. Mitchell also added in interviews that she hadn’t seen Loughner for fifteen years, and is certain that her nephew was mentally ill. This does not mean that in all cases of crime, it is not the fault of the parents. Parents who don’t teach their children the difference between right and wrong, as well as parents that commit crimes themselves, are probably a large influence to any crime-committing children they may have.
Edit: The link has been fixed.
Unfortunately I am unable to read the USAToday article, however I need to start my comments so I will make do with what you have written. First of all I completely agree with you Joey, a parent should not be blamed for a childes wrongdoing in most situations. Like you said if a parent teaches their child properly, like, in this case, not to harm other people the it should not be blamed on the parents for a childes violent outburst. However, if the parents have allowed their children to become violent and never correct them then it should indeed be partially the parent’s fault. One good point you had was that children can pick up violent behaviors from friends, and not only that but also violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and thousands of others. I only had one problem with your post and maybe the article did not say, but I was disappointed that there was no explanation on why Jared wanted to kill Gabrielle Giffords
ReplyDeleteI am almost neutral on this situation. I have some experience with parents infulencing the way you turn out when you grow up.
ReplyDeleteMy parents have always been a little more overprotective than usual parents, but through elementary school and most of middle school I was an A+ student and rarely talked (completely serious here).
But two of my friends, for example, have very lenient parents who let them do almost anything, eat candy whenever they want, play rated M games at age 9, and so on. Currently each of them has at least 2 cavities, and one of them in only 6th grade is getting C's in school. Both of them are very irresponsible.
However, some people seem completely different from how they "should have" turned out because of their family. Other studies show that children with more overprotective parents are more rebellious than children with lenient parents.
So, depending on the case, the answer is yes, parents could be blamed for crimes that their children commit.
I do not believe that parents should be blamed for what crimes their children commit. No one can make you do anything you want to do and I’m sure this man’s parents didn’t tell him to murder someone. Blaming the parents is just irresponsible when he was the one who committed the crime. People say that it is your environment that shapes who you are going to grow up to be. Why then do people, from good families that provide everything for a child, grow up to be druggies and murderers? You can’t blame this on the parents, they tried their best and once their child is an adult they have no control. I always wondered why people who have good lives suddenly shoot up schools, mostly because of bullying, and so this article interested me particularly. This man’s parents could not control if their son had a mental illness and what that mental illness might do to him. My mother grew up with two alcoholics who were mildly violent, she is not a drinker or a hitter though her environment indicated that she would be. Her brother on the other hand, can’t hold a job and barely supports his family because of a drug habit. His environment dictated that he would become like this. I have another point to bring up. What if this man was trying to change something he thought was wrong? Perhaps he thought he was going to kill a man for the greater good. He executed his opinion wrong but if his intention was to change something then at least he tried. That’s more then any of us can say.
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