May 27, 2006
When your child accidentally kills another child.
An 8-year-old boy in NYC caused the death of an 8 year-old girl. He got into an unattended school bus and released the parking brake. As a parent, you think about how you would feel if your child died, but not so much how you would feel and what you would do if your child killed someone else. You don't picture your child becoming a murderer, but you may not think of how easy it would be for a little child to kill another child by accident. How would you go about being a good parent to your child after that happened?
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13 comments:
I would start with the parable of the pet goat.
Hmm, let me think.
The question is, how would I be a good parent to my child after my child killed another child in an accident?
I guess I would beat my child.
Such stories seem the stuff of Greek tragedies. I was surprised to see the recommendations in the article itself, which read like something from the 1940s ("never ever leave the young unsupervised".
How does one turn a personal failure or mistake into something positive and life-changing? Not immediate forgiveness, not an eternity of blame, but perhaps responsibility. Responsibility to ask forgiveness and vow to live better hereon.
Redemption is the word I was seeking. How can a parent reliably guide one's own to that, especially one so young? My niece died in a car accident at 16, and the driver, the 'wrong sort of boy', reckless and foolish, never apologized or accepted his role in it. I always hoped he'd at least internally recognized what was required, but his subsequent actions suggested otherwise.
The self-imposed "Mark of Cain" is certainly excessive, but a simple mea culpa seems the barest minimum.
Pogo, I'm sorry about your niece, and that this young man never responded.
Before I was born, my grandmother was killed exiting and crossing in front of a bus, by a car that sped around it to pass. The 16-year-old boy driving it came to my mother and was distraught; he also came to the funeral. My mother told me she forgave him because he took responsibility, and because she knew this would define him for life.
Sip:
Jaquxxxxxote is a classic provacateur. And his posts like the one above are a form of terrorism aimed at this blog.
Neomenon is right. Pleaes don't let his bs deprive us of your constructive and insightful comments.
SippicanCottage: Please soldier on.
Here's hoping.
Elizabeth,
Your experience tells of the peace that redemption and forgiveness can bring. Mine was an introduction to the kind of person who, if he has a concscience at all, it is but rudimentary. I have since met worse.
Little q here, the turd in the punchbowl, is a typical case.
And say it ain't so, Sippican!
Michelle's comment about this tragedy reminds me of a professor I knew in graduate school. He was a professor of poetry and a published poet. As a child, he had accidentally shot and killed his brother in a hunting accident. I once heard him read some of his poems that dealt with the accident. I don't know that he ever really got over it. I wonder what advice he would give the boy's parents. I imagine this boy probably has little difficulty comprehending the gravity of the situation, and part of the challenge for his parents is to see to it that he isn't overwhelmed by his own sense of guilt.
From what I've read, this kid has been in quite a bit of trouble already. And for that I blame the parents.
If this kid had been raised properly, this accident would not have happened.
Pogo, thinking about this now makes me grateful for my mom's grace in that moment. I know she grieved her mother, and always missed her, but she never expressed anger or resentment. You're right that her ability to forgive brought her peace. I hope the young driver realized what a gift he'd been given.
Grace is exactly the word. I hope your mother was an adult when this happened; it seems an almost unbearable burden for the young. My grandfather lost his mom when he was a teenager, and he grieved her loss until he died, at 95.
Happy memorial day to you, Elizabeth, for your grandmother, who helped teach your mother about grace.
But if there's a question of how you handle your child post murder, this particular example seems like a terrible one. I mean, given the likely relative sizes of kids and school bus, it's unlikely the "killer" even was aware that the girl was hit, or could've seen it. It's kind of the "push a button in a room and someone far away dies" scenario, without even that level of premeditation. So it's hard to apply much to this event, and I get uncomfortable trying to think of an event where you might have the problem Professor Althouse describes.
By the way, that's how one handles quxxo -- just keep talking. And include him in the conversation if he surprises by actually participating in it himself.
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