This article is actually a sociological commentary on crimes and victims. But TD chooses to focus on those proponents of child raising who fell far short of their teachings.
"This tragedy begs to contemplate parenting philosophies versus actual practices, but also to acknowledge that some children are just born psychopaths."
" . . . However, without knowing anything beyond what was reported in the New York Post, I was reminded of how often people state one child-rearing philosophy, only to take a very different approach with their own children.
"The most famous child-rearing schism, of course, was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Émile, or On Education (1762), he challenged Europeans’ rather brutal approach to child-rearing, arguing that children are born innocent and must be subject to a gentle, philosophical upbringing that preserves their goodness while creating moral principles. He especially advocated parental involvement, criticizing parents who used wet nurses and tutors.
"However, Rousseau followed a different approach with his own children. As he reported, he had five children with his long-time mistress. Upon each child’s birth, he had the child delivered to the Paris foundling hospital, a place that, like all 18th-century orphanages, had a terrible mortality rate and treated children with disdainful cruelty.
"In America, Benjamin Spock changed American culture by advocating a more loving parenting style, one that too often slipped into damaging permissiveness. Meanwhile, Spock himself barely touched his own children. (Think Star Trek’s Mr. Spock with children!)
"Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Universal Compassion, treated his sons with physical and emotional cruelty. He forced them to adhere to his mentally bizarre, austere lifestyle and, when they resisted, dealt with them harshly.
"Charles Dickens, whose novels were replete with narratives about the importance of a loving family, the horror of neglected children, and the need to treat children with care and respect, behaved atrociously to his family when, in middle age, he fell in love with a famous actress. He cruelly and publicly dumped his wife of 20 years and abandoned their 10 children.
"My own great aunt, an early disciple of psychotherapy (I think she studied or worked with Jung), eventually carved out a niche as one of the West’s best-known child therapists, focusing especially on impoverished children. Her daughters loathed her.
"Sometimes, people have very good ideas, but their own issues prevent them from bringing those ideas into their personal lives. " . . . More...
