[SAHmom]

Newspaper article: Suspect had Long Juvenile record

Suspect had long juvenile record | emporiagazette.com

Suspect is former Emporian | emporiagazette.com

Court records show murder suspect threatened sister - CNN.com

Not sure if the above links will go through or not. Am curious what your thoughts were. Under the article is a place for people to write comments. Imagine my disbelief that someone posted the following:

My thoughts are separating families and then creating another family harms children. Instead of tearing a child away from its family maybe we need to look at helping them stay together, with help just like those that adopt get the money to support, the respite care, the medical care all those things that families don't get. Instead they get their kids taken away if they are poor or other reasons be it drugs or whatever. That is wrong.

Ugh! I can relate to the adoptive parents having no choice but to place their son back into custody. We still retain rights to our son, but he is placed out of the home for our other children's safety. I want so bad to respond to the poster, but how do you explain to someone that has *no* idea what it feels like to have a son that you come across choking one of your younger kids or a child that doesn't think twice and kills animals? They just wouldn't understand, would they?

[Lylac]

SAH, you can't make people understand, no matter how much you try. Unless they've lived it or knows someone that has/is, lived/living it.

[lucyjoy]

Can we make them understand? NO. Should we keep yelling anyway? YES.

SAH, you and I both know we have kids capable of doing this and every attempt we've made to try to get them help gets a road block in it's way. And if/when our kids do the unthinkable, are commitment to our kids will again be questioned.

I think you should respond.

[mrsred]

I hate when people who know nothing about the system give this cry about the system abandoning the birthparents, then throwing money and services to adoptive parents. They have no idea what they are talking about. Because before kids are ever permanently removed the birth parents ARE given all sorts of free services. E's birthmother got free day care for over two years, even though she didn't work at all. She also got food stamps, medical coupons and housing subsidy. She had free therapy, free parenting classes.... what more could they have possibly done? Did she take advantage of any services? Only the ones that made it easier for her to pursue her own interests.
On the other hand, yes, I do recieve subsidy for both our adopted kids, but I have had to fight tooth and nail for every bit of therapy we have ever gotten.

[SAHmom]

Well, I finally responded. I kept rewriting it over and over and then gave up and posted it.

Someone also wrote this:

And I have heard that when one adopts children they are being adopted into their 'forever family'. Guess that's what fairy tales are made of...Happily Everafter and Forever...unless one has problems then you are shipped back to Wherever.

We all know that this wasn't simply a matter of 'unless one has problems then you are shipped back'. I really can't stand people that have no idea what they are talking about!!! maybe this is just hitting *so* close to home and that is my problem!

[momraine]

The simple fact is that when something like this happens, people want to explain it. Evil is very difficult to explain. No one wants to beleive that they or someone they love could become a killer. So they must come up for a reason. We as humans are always looking for reasons for things, we don't like not understanding something. Since adoption was mentioned, and those people responding are not adopted, this was a safe thing for them to blame it on. Remember a few years back when a man went all over TV blaming the cell phone for his wifes cancer? Every single doctor they interviewed said no, and that in fact the tumor had to have started growing long before she ever touched a cell phone. That man could not accept that the doctors had no easy answer for him. People jumped on the idea, because if you had an answer you had a way to prevent it. People have blamed deoderant for cancer for the same reason. Breast cancer sometimes starts under the arm. It's easier to quit wearing deoderant than to live knowing it could happen to you and there might be nothing you can do about it. If you convince yourself you have a reasonable explaination for something, then you also have the cure. Don't wear deoderant or use a cell phone and you will never get cancer, don't medicate your kid or adopt a kid and your kids will never kill anyone. You can tell by the anger and the defensiveness and lack of coherency that those people are just ranting and are not even sure if they beleive what they are saying. I feel sorry for them, looking for easy answers when there are none.

[SAHmom]

momraine, how true!!!

[jaenelle]

Originally Posted by momraine

The simple fact is that when something like this happens, people want to explain it. Evil is very difficult to explain. No one wants to beleive that they or someone they love could become a killer. So they must come up for a reason. We as humans are always looking for reasons for things, we don't like not understanding something. Since adoption was mentioned, and those people responding are not adopted, this was a safe thing for them to blame it on. Remember a few years back when a man went all over TV blaming the cell phone for his wifes cancer? Every single doctor they interviewed said no, and that in fact the tumor had to have started growing long before she ever touched a cell phone. That man could not accept that the doctors had no easy answer for him. People jumped on the idea, because if you had an answer you had a way to prevent it. People have blamed deoderant for cancer for the same reason. Breast cancer sometimes starts under the arm. It's easier to quit wearing deoderant than to live knowing it could happen to you and there might be nothing you can do about it. If you convince yourself you have a reasonable explaination for something, then you also have the cure. Don't wear deoderant or use a cell phone and you will never get cancer, don't medicate your kid or adopt a kid and your kids will never kill anyone. You can tell by the anger and the defensiveness and lack of coherency that those people are just ranting and are not even sure if they beleive what they are saying. I feel sorry for them, looking for easy answers when there are none.

Yes, absolutely. I believe some things aren't explainable, but I think it's very much human nature to want to know a reason for things. I'm sure people are trying to find a reason for Kelsey's death, when I think there simply isn't one. Sometimes bad things just... happen.