printAlex, in the Comments Section appended to my column, “Evil, Not Ill,” makes quite a few assumptions. He also appears to approve of spanking and destroying a child’s toys as disciplinary measures, but not of calling a monster “an idiot,” as Cho’s aunt dared to. Sticks are fine, but not words!? How does our valued contributor know, moreover, so much about Cho’s father? Maybe the family was scared of social services?
When my family and I arrived in North America, my daughter was accustomed to a strong parental presence in her life. However, she was young, and kept on hearing, in her Canadian school, about the things parents can and can’t do. Subject matter was less a topic in the schools than the child’s rights vis-a-vis his or her mouth-breathing parents.
As I am certainly a fire-breathing dragon when it comes to the state’s interference with my child, I fought them all the way, and made sure she understood the logic of the battle. One day, when I laid down the law about some or another thing, the little minx looked at me with those huge doe eyes, and said, “I can call social services; they’ll make you change your mind.” I sat her down and told her what could befall her if the “Sapphic Sisters from Social Services” arrived to take her away from me. That sorted her out; kids are very liberal, they want all the license in the world, but they do not want to be removed from the people who love them. She realized she preferred being raised by mom than a foster family of the state’s choosing.
There were countless other incidents. Many immigrant families from traditional societies are simply intimidated by the customs in their new abode. Or lack the intellectual and financial wherewithal to negate them —believe me, it’s a constant, uphill battle. Vigilance is eternal when it comes to state schools and their staff. As an immigrant from a traditional to a statist society, I can empathize with the Cho family’s putative plight (I have no idea if this is what transpired, but I suspect my hunch is correct). You have to have intellectual and financial resources to be there constantly so as to deprogram the kid. I know; I did it.
The response the Cho family has issued sounded so very sincere and sad. Unlike the American families that have unleashed their brats on the community —never heard the “Sorry” word from the Columbine creeps’ parents —this Korean family humbly begged for forgiveness. It is my hunch, as I said above, that this is a family fragmented by a move to a progressive society, where parenting must be outsourced to state-sanctioned experts-cum-asses —the teletwits you see on TV —or else.
I’ve been told by Korean women that Korean families spoil their boys and do not discipline them enough. Korean girls, however, are overdisciplined and must endure a strict double standard within the family. It’s a macho culture–I’m not knocking it–but they are not inclined to seek help from strangers or mental health professionals. They are more insular than other Asian commmunities, which is saying alot.
I too have met many kind Korean people, I am not criticizing them. I am just saying that we non-Korean people should not pretend to understand and explain away their upbringing and culture, they have their own ways.
I read that the parents worked at the dry cleaners from 8 AM to 10 PM. How could they parent with those hours?
It would be different if the business were theirs and the children worked with them. I just wonder what these children did while their parents worked such long hours.
Too many people are afraid of their children. I fully realize how a child raised with constant criticism and no affection can turn out to be maladjusted and unable to function in society. Just as bad is the child raised by parents who fear to take a stand and demand proper behaviour from a child. The child knows instinctively that he is better off with a parent who will go to the trouble to demand good behaviour and, no matter how they act or what they say, they will despise the weak parent. Way down deep the child realizes that he/she is being deprived of something badly needed, which is a solid base for their development as an adult facing the world. They can’t articulate this feeling but it is there just the same and they grow up with insecurity because of it. The over-permissive parents are taking the easy way out. For this they face a future of heartache for themselves and their children. The combination of the ravings of Dr. Spock and his clones and the interference of the State have served to destroy a generation.
I should have known this was coming. I’ll post my reply later.
The State would do well to produce little 20 minute films in black and white in the relevant languages (and contrasting the relevant cultures) outlining the adjustment difficulties that immigrant families are likely to face when starting a new life here.
The tone and style should be stern and terse with the idea of discouraging prospective immigrants and the films should be long on hyperbole.
[Hilarious. Who are you, FH. Strumpet?]
“As an immigrant from a traditional to a statist society, I can empathize”, I love how you tell it like it is.
Frank
Well said.
Regards
Buck
From Tom Fleming at Chronicles :”These incidents are inevitably called tragedies, but that is precisely what they are not. In a tragedy like Oedipus or Macbeth, a basically great man, trusting in his own abilities, deludes himself into making self-destructive decisions. Flaws in his character lead him first to arrogance and then down the path of folly and ruin. Tragedies make sense of the human world, while these pointless murders seem to reveal a world that makes no sense. In calling them tragedies, we are essentially saying that human existence is pointless.”
“This is not just a ‘semantic point.’ It is all too true that most Americans are like most people everywhere in all periods of history: They speak without thinking. But unreflective peasants relied on proverbs and clichés that were deeply rooted in historical experience. Our clichés and mental tics are almost always bits of propaganda invented by liberals ignorant of human nature and human history. In our mythology, children are smarter than adults… women stronger and braver than men. We believe that we really do care about people killing each other in Nigeria, even though we do nothing about the murders taking place on the other side of town, and we insist on calling every pointless misfortune a tragedy. We can only talk this way because we have tossed away our moral compasses.”
But how to find it again is quite another question. Robert Reavis
[Brilliant comment. I’m a flaming Fleming fan. Send a link to his comment, please]
I had to share the following quote with you…it is so amazing, but gives you an idea of what psychiatry has aimed to accomplish in our society. It comes from an article on worldnetdaily.com titled “Are Meds to Blame for Cho’s Rampage” by Bob Unruh
Psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, in a speech advocating for the treatment of children and youth at a childhood seminar in 1973:
“Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, towards our elected officials, towards his parents, towards a belief in a supernatural being, and towards the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future.”
In other words, all of us are insane (except of course the psychiatrist who is perfectly normal).
[As I said in the column “Evil, Not Ill“: “The Drew Pinskys of the world conjure so-called mental diseases either to control contrarians or to exculpate criminals.” Some superb comments today on BAB; thanks.]
You make some points, Ilana, but I do feel that it’s better to discipline a child in a different way. Name calling is immature, even though it could be appropriate (every three year old boy is a cry baby, every young child is an idiot).
The reason why I took issue with Cho’s father is that there doesn’t seem to be any disciplinary measures taken towards him. I understand that his family was under a lot of hardship, and probably was afraid of social services.
But the the tales coming through of Cho’s savage violence towards his sister – who seemed to be so scared about the ordeal that she did not even mention that she had a brother – demanded attention – and not in the loving, ‘lets sit down and talk’ way. [I didn’t know all this; send a link to the story, Alex.] I feel the assumptions I make are correct ones; I don’t understand how destructive a child has to be before the father takes matters into his hands, or at least attemtps to do something serious. The fact that the police were not called, that Cho was apparently not spanked, that his violence and misadjustments was ignored, all seems to point to a lacking father figure. A parent always has (or should) have time to correct something so odd, savage, and brutal in his own family, busy or not.
These are assumptions, and they might be incorrect, but I do know that it’s not much to ask when a father is told that he should do *something* about a brutally misbehaved and dangerous child that has been growing into his brutality right in front of him.
I also know that if I did something like that, my old man would have kicked my ass… and he is a busy man.
I’ll wait for your reply, as usual, Ilana. [You make good points, as usual. Thanks.]
On a side note, I would like to know what you think of Alec Baldwin’s tirade against his daughter. It seems to be partially connected, a little bit, to what we are talking about in here.
Here is the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18239509/
“Cho was unusually quiet as a child, relatives said. He did not respond to greetings. He did not want to be hugged. But when Cho fought with his older sister, he would punch her with shocking violence.”
Some classmates at Princeton said they couldn’t remember Sun Kyung Cho, the killer’s sister, ever talking about her family…
I’m not placing the blame on the killer’s family. It was ultimately up to cho to sort out his own demons, and people did attempt to reach out to him. What makes me curious is how his family could have seen such ridiculously out of touch with reality behavior as either normal, or not worthy of much attention.
Your idea on isolationism and fitting in seems to be spot on, as was your recommendation for simple, rote work that would calm his incoherent mind.
I can understand spotting warning signs, and seeing if we can ‘learn’ something from this that could possibly stop this from happening again. What I don’t understand is profilers, psychologists, etc trying to ‘get inside the killers mind’. First they say he is clearly mentally deranged, out of touch with reality, and incoherent. Then they attempt to put reason behind unreasonable behavior? I don’t understand..
see http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org for Tom Flemings comment. Sorry. rr
[A link to Fleming columns (“HARD Right!“) is on Barely a Blog]
ILANA: I haven’t been in love in over a decade, but the more I read your writings, the more I love you. Your above article is so true about the corrupt American system.I suggest you go further and find out that they will do ANYTHING, frame you, fabricate evidence, plant evidence,brainwash you children, pay a so called “expert” psychologist, therapist just so they can take your precious children away and put them in Foster Care. You see, Foster care is a 12-BILLION dollars a year business where the legal and mental health community benefits from it. Every time they “snatched” a child from his/her loving family, they get thousands of dollars from the Federal Government. This money is divided between Guardian Ad Litem program (a farce), attorneys, therapists, psychologists and foster parents. You should look into it and “expose” the huge corruption permeating these institutions, where our children are their most profitable commodity.The system has NOTHING to do with justice or the “best interests of the children”. It has to do with money and greed. [And mind control] Our money, their greed. Log onto http://www.childrensjustice.org and see for yourself how depraved the system is.
The mental health community, is a direct assault to our freedom and liberties. They come to this outrageous conclusions, after smoking a joint, a couple martinis or a hefty check from an attorney who pays for their “expertise” to win a case. The entire system is sick and in desperate need of a complete overhaul.