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recent posts
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Appalled for the Holidays
Today Is Not a Holiday
What Ho, Nostalgia?
Not On Top of It
R.I.P. Dr. Saperstein
But Did They Breastfeed?
Where Is It?
Public Face
Thrills n' Chills
The Shame of Store Bought
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Extremists
I'm on edge these days so my eye tends to be drawn to particularly grim, outlandish news stories that don't inspire faith in humanity. These, needless to say, aren't hard to come by, but at least Judith Warner is writing intelligently about terrible things in her opinion pieces for the New York Times.
Her most recent article is inspired by some events in Missouri in which a teenager killed herself after being dropped horribly by a boy she had fallen for on MySpace. Her parents subsequently learned that there was no boy at all, that the person who had used their daughter so poorly was a grown woman who was abusing the girl to get some revenge on behalf of her own daughter. I am not describing these miserable events well and part of the reason why it is hard to put them briefly is that from a behavioral standpoint, it is impossible not to confuse the actions of the adults and the children.
Warner argues rather persuasively that this is an awful and extreme example of parents refusing to allow their children grow up. This is an issue that is discussed at length in various chapters of The Blessing of the Skinned Knee (which I did read on various peoples' recommendations, but whose title I keep misremembering as The Blessing of Wounded Knee-- which if it existed, would be about something else).
At any rate, I have little to add except that I think it is odd that it has come to this. It is strange to me that parents are so reluctant to teach their children how to get on for themselves in the world and instead work very hard to keep their children eternally young.
I promise to perk up soon, but really the Warner piece is worth a gander.
posted by Elise at 7:23 PM
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