you know....

[kuangning]

Appearing on television within twenty-four hours of your kid's admission that he planted 18 pipe bombs, and making the statement "my son is not a dangerous person" doesn't help his case. It only makes you look either feeble or plain fuckwitted.

Comments

[galith.livejournal.com]

Its still genes plus enviroment. Have fate stir the pot and hope something good comes out. At what point does one punish the parents (who contributed the genes and a high % of the enviroment) for the child's actions.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

or at what point do you stop blaming the parents?

[galith.livejournal.com]

We judge at the point when the parent is no longer legally able to control the childs actions they are no longer legally, which makes good sense.

The problem is that, ultamately, you can't. I can, at least in principle, attribute everything I do in life to my mother, as she was the one who chose to gave birth to me (not to mention any enviromental effects, the reason I am here is because of her). However, that is a pretty stupid argument when you get right down too it, and we don't belive in training parents in this culture (as well as undervalueing child care in general), which means it isn't the parent's fault either, they were just doing the best they could...

I think in cases like these something can be learned by examining the home and community this guy grew up in instead of just shrugging our shoulders and walking away.

[kuangning]

It's always going to be genes plus environment. At what point are you going to start punishing parents who reproduced and turned out to have a blind child, or one with a congenital heart defect? Those are far easier to pin on genetics than behaviour problems - it's got to be their fault.

Or parents who have autistic children, to make the case my own? Logan has behavioural problems. Autism is linked to genetics and to environment. While he is a child, yes, I do take responsibility for his actions. And if I know that he doesn't know right from wrong, it's my fault if I expose someone else to his actions. But once he is an adult, if I judge that he knows right from wrong and I release him under his own recognisance, so to speak, then what he does after he takes on the role of an adult is his responsibility.

[galith.livejournal.com]

Generally with those it is a result of a spontainious mutation or a recessive copy of a gene that neither parent is aware of. However, I think people with both Hunington's disease and early onset alsimers should not have children of their own (or if they do they need to do invitro or similar to be able to screen the conceptus and make sure it does not have said genes), and PURPOSEFULLY having a blind, deaf, or mentally handicapped child is also grossly amoral.

I'm not saying that we should prosecute these parents like we procecute dog owners, the situation is much more complex, just that we should take a closer look at the enviroments they were raised in to get a clearer picture.

And while we are doing that we need to take care not to jump and assign the blame all to rock and roll, video games, or pornography.

Re:

[kuangning]

PURPOSEFULLY having a blind, deaf, or mentally handicapped child is also grossly amoral.


That... still needs to be narrowed down, I think. For example, is it your belief that if a child is discovered in uteri to have a mental handicap or a physical abnormality, that child should be aborted? Because it certainly sounds like that's what you're advocating. Handicapped children, imo, have as much right to exist as non-handicapped, and I would only ever consider terminating another pregnancy (I've had one abortion in the past, when I was much younger) if the child in question would be in chronic pain, or be guaranteed to never be a productive adult. That issue is different from the one I think you meant, of setting out to deliberately conceive a handicapped child.

[kuangning]

I truly need to reread my work before hitting post. in utero, not uteri.

[fearghaill.livejournal.com]

I don't think he's talking about people who choose to accept the handicapped child fate as given them, but the people who actively choose and make an effort to ensure that thier child is handicapped.

For an example, if you haven't heard about it, a deaf lesbian couple (I only mention sexual orientation as it explains why they were looking for a sperm donor to begin with), actively chose a deaf sperm donor to increase the chances of the child being deaf. They succeeded.

Re:

[kuangning]

*nod.* I did think that that was what he was referring to.

[galith.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is what I was refering to, things like that. I have mixed feelings on doing so without intention, but doing so with intention is very amoral.