Posted on 05/14/2004 9:49:55 PM PDT by neverdem
After I wrote a column a few weeks ago about the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, I got e-mail from Tom Klebold, the father of Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters. Tom objected to the column, but the striking thing about his note was that while acknowledging the horrible crime his son had committed, Tom was still fiercely loyal toward him. Which prompts this question: If your child commits a crime like that, what do you do with the rest of your life?
Tom and Susan Klebold have not really spoken to the press about all this. But the lawsuits against them are being settled, and they trust The New York Times, which is the paper they read every day, so they were willing to have a long conversation with me this week.
They are a well-educated, reflective, highly intelligent couple (Dylan was named after Dylan Thomas). During our conversation they discussed matters between themselves, as well as answering my questions. Their son, by the way, is widely seen as the follower, who was led by Eric Harris into this nightmare.
The Klebolds describe the day of the shootings as a natural disaster, as a "hurricane" or a "rain of fire." They say they had no intimations of Dylan's mental state. Tom, who works from home and saw his son every day, had spent part of the previous week with Dylan scoping out dorm rooms for college the next year.
When they first heard about the shootings, it did not occur to them that Dylan could be to blame. When informed, Susan said, "we ran for our lives." They went into hiding, desperate for information. "We didn't know what had happened," she said. "We couldn't grieve for our child."
That first night, their lawyer said to them, "Dylan isn't here anymore for people to hate, so people are going to hate you." Even as we spoke this week, Tom had in front of him the poll results, news stories and documents showing that 83 percent of Americans had believed the parents were partly to blame. Their lives are now pinioned to this bottomless question: Who is responsible?
They feel certain of one thing. "Dylan did not do this because of the way he was raised," Susan said. "He did it in contradiction to the way he was raised."
After the shooting, they faced a simple choice: to move away and change their names, or to go back and resume their lives. Susan thinks about leaving every day. "I won't let them win," Tom said. "You can't run from something like this."
So they live in the same house and work at the same jobs. Susan works in the community college system. "It's amazing how long it took me to get up and say my name at a meeting, to say, `I'm Dylan Klebold's mother,' " Susan says. "Dylan could have killed any number of the kids of people that I work with."
In general, Tom said, "most people have been good-hearted." Their friends rallied around. Their neighbors call to warn them if an unfamiliar car lurks in the neighborhood. There is a moment of discomfort when they hand over a credit card at a store, but there have been few bad scenes. One clerk looked at the name and remarked to Susan, "Boy, you're a survivor, aren't you."
The most infuriating incident, Susan said, came when somebody said, "I forgive you for what you've done." Susan insists, "I haven't done anything for which I need forgiveness."
When they talk about the event, they discuss it as a suicide. They acknowledge but do not emphasize the murders their son committed. They also think about the signs they missed. "He was hopeless. We didn't realize it until after the end," Tom said. Susan added: "I think he suffered horribly before he died. For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself."
They believe that what they call the "toxic culture" of the school — the worship of jocks and the tolerance of bullying — is the primary force that set Dylan off. But they confess that in the main, they have no explanation.
"I'm a quantitative person," said Tom, a former geophysicist. "We're not qualified to sort this out." They long for some authoritative study that will provide an answer. "People need to understand," Tom said, "this could have happened to them."
My instinct is that Dylan Klebold was a self-initiating moral agent who made his choices and should be condemned for them. Neither his school nor his parents determined his behavior. Now his parents have been left with the terrible consequences. I'd say they are facing them bravely and honorably.
Have you considered there are a lot of 'good' parents who are working two jobs and are just trying to hold on to their own lives? And their kids are 'out there' with other kids watching videos, watching MTV, playing doom and Grand Theft Auto (now in its third version)
Media! Geeez why hasn't anyone here looked at what MTV Movies and Music do to all of our kids? Think of the awful tv ads for satonic and mass murdering movies!! Kids are watching these videos over and over. The top song/ music video right now is Slipknot "Duality". Go watch that video! It's theme is hopelessness and doom. IT'S BEEN THE TOP SONG FOR WEEKS!
I am quite frankly surprized more kids aren't blowing things up!
We (as kids growing up and parents now) didn't have the TREMENDOUS exposure to all this! Let's face it many people in our society do not have the financial or mental resourses to have hours of loving bonding time with their children ... so they rely on media.
We are screwed and it's getting worse!
Is the missing element....in spite of both young men's rather affluent or comfortable homelife....a void of faith?
Were either brought up with a spiritual foundation of their place in God's world.
Did the parents try to instill a sense of purpose for their lives.....did they train them with spiritual principles and basic moral standards?
The person might have been trying to communicate a collective I forgive you..in light of her son's actions...
..If my son had done this.... I would have responded with a tearful thank-you...because I would have such a load of sorrow & grieving, not only for my own son, but for the sons and daughters of ALL the other families!!!!!!
No wonder they like the NYT.
I would live a normal life and the piece of my heart that was my childs would die with him/her.
I would never defend his/her's actions, I would have NO RESPECT for him/her and would say so and without respect love is hollow and I would be ashamed enough to never go out of my way to acknowledge him/her in anyway. I am a father of 6 with 5 living and all over 38 years of age. I also have NO PROBLEM stating this because it is the truth.
It should also be remembered that Columbine was but one of a series of such incidents, happening not too long, for example, after a similar incident at Paducah, Kentucky.
At the time, I suggested that the most likely cause was rooted in the politically correct mindset at the time. Why? Because in stripping away children's sense of the importance of sex roles and lines of descent, they were stripping away the primal motivations for positive, purposeful conduct. While in individual cases, there may also be other factors--I am sure that there are--the basic thesis, borrowed from Robert Ruark's book on Kenya, needs to be considered: Something Of Value.
William Flax
The other day ...on some cable type channel...I watched an old documentary drama of Tex & the others.
He seemed to have come from an ordinary home....(in stark contrast to Charlie Manson)....
..and I wondered how in the world did he get on that path in life.
You probably have more insight than most!
I also wondered if he still gets conjugal visits...(I know he has 3 children, at least)...
..and if you believe he is now the strong Christian he claims to be)
Do you think he, or any of the others, will ever get out of prison?
David Brooks, the author of this OpEd piece, along with Bill Safire are the two NY Times' resident, conservative columnists.
This is an age-old problem with no simple answer, IMO.
I recently had occasion to revisit a small, regional evancelical church I used to attend. It has since grown into a massive southern California mega church in the ten years I've been gone.
The pastor is one of the finest teachers of God's Word I've ever encountered. Still. He's lost nothing of his ability to teach as I discovered last Sunday after many years of being away.
But, during the years of church growth, he steadfastly held to the principle that if you pour the Word of God into your kids, you will raise Godly children. And, of course, the flip side of this corollary is that if you fail to do this, your kids will stumble.
Well, fast forward ten years. His oldest daughter -- just turned 30 had a baby out of wedlock. The youngest girl just got tossed out of a local Southern California university for poor grades due to an arrest for possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell. His two sons are in their mid-20s. And in an article in a local paper in 2001, he swore they would be the first to enlist to defend America after 9/11. Three years later, they are laying around the house all day and drag racing up and down the local boulevard all night.
Now, it could be that you can do the devotions and pour the Word of God into your kids and they will still go out there and screw up. It could very well be just that simple. Certainly these young people are responsible for their own actions.
Or, it could be that, as children, they just didn't respond to the cubbyhole they were slammed into by a father who worked 18-hour days, 6-day weeks, to build this massive church. Kids know when they're being chucked aside. And maybe a half-hour every day for a quick devotional just wasn't enough. ("Here's the Word of God, kid. Now get out of my face, while I build my church.") How's the old saying go? You can fool a fool, but you can't kid a kid.
So, I don't know the answer. At what point do parents become negligent? At what further point do they become responsible for a Klebold/Harris bloodbath?
I only know adult children who have been screwing up and sluffing off better take a good hard look in the mirror. And parents who indulge them better do the same. Beyond that, I have no answers.
That reminds me of something a vet once told me.
He said he could look around his waiting room and tell which cats had been taken from their mother prior to 6 weeks. They were the unruly ones.
Yup and then you throw a kicker in there like a child is is developmentally not the same as your average children.
I agree with many of Quix outlook, quite inciteful to some degree for someone with no children, but God humbled me with my second child when I thought I had all the answers to parenting. My children ARE those difficult children. My 1st is easy to connect with, but she has boundless energy and I have a hard time keeping up with her so we often miss moments when we can connect because mommy is just worn out. My second has the same energy, but he is autistic which brings about profound communication problems between parent and child.
And yes, I'm crazy enough to be having a 3rd in a week.
Even though I think there is a lot to what is being said, I still think every dynamic can not be counted for. I too had parents who did not connect AT ALL with me. I still somehow managed to meet those 4 points of success and I came to a point in my life too where I figured it was ridiculous to try and please people who had no interest in me. I moved on. Do I have some greater willpower than 99% of the population? I doubt it. Then again, that makes Quix's point I suppose that you have to work harder, whether your children are hard to connect with or you are one of those children who didn't feel loved, or like me a combo of the two...you will have to work harder and maybe that builds a kind of defiance and strength in the face of adversity if applied.
Just babbling along this fine Saturday afternoon;-)
I agree that this is extremely important. My own son is not as connected to his father as I would like, and I see that this is a problem. Their personalities are as different as night and day. My husband reaches out to him and I try to "guide" the relationship a bit, but it never seems to help much.
My son cannot read love in the gestures, and words don't seem to reach him.
Thanks for the link. I hope you got the chance to look at comment# 15.
That's like having a memorial for Mohammad Atta.
I feel a smidge of compassion for Dylan Klebold but ZERO for Eric Harris.
The boy was a psychopath who would have likely gone on to kill many innocent people anyways.
And unlike some on this thread, I am not so sanguine about the effects of "loving parenting" on potential or born-psychopaths.
The idea probably frightens many people that psychopaths are born, or at least develop at a time when blame cannot be put on the parents. Their particular fantasies and conduct may, though not always, reflect their upbringing, but they will always be psychopaths.
Uh oh.
Not all psychopaths grow up to be killers. They become con men, financial criminals and abusers and destroyers.
It troubles me to hear that words don't reach him. Does he "act" out emotion or does he demonstrate it? Does he seem to lack empathy? Does he lie so often and so easily that you begin to find his lies are inconsistent and he almost can't control it? Does he know the meaning of words intellectually but seems to lack the ability to know the feeling?
Does he take a lot of risks in order to feel the stimulus another kid might feel by just riding a bike?
And that line about she doesn't need forgiveness because she hasn't done anything wrong!!! What kind of Christian THINKS that way, let alone say it!!
U R ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
I think it's a 100% safe bet, their parents did NOT. Certainly they did NOT successfully. But I'd wager they did not even TRY to do so.
I bet the best the parents values ever got beyond materialism and some sort of vague environmentalism and pablum distant socialist do goodism--was to try and establish a--whatever feels good, do it and whatever lights your fire have at it and whatever you choose is fine with us. Oh, a death club all in black. How quaint. Nice you belong to something, dear. Please pass the remote.
Sheesh.
You can blame Hollywood, but must also blame the parents for allowing him to watch such drivel.
It's a stretch to blame FBI/ATF. Blame clintbilly and Reno for making it happen.
Nightly news will cover the carnage, regardless of administration.
Of course, IF it had happened under a pubbie administration, the GUNS would have been responsible; since it happened under RAT administration, it was a necessary incursion.
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