I've posted this before in explaining why I think this case captures continued attention--I think it's not necessarily because of the public's connection to this individual but rather it is how this case relates to our own lives. Parents are concerned about sending their kids on wild vacations. Young people are concerned about cruising in bars. If anything positive can come out of this it will be parents thinking long and hard about sending their kids on basically unchaperoned trips to wild party spots abroad, and young people will think long and hard about hanging out until the wee hours of the morning in seedy bars and the dangerous effects on one's judgment of too much booze.
Yep but I see it as more general than wild sjpots and unchaperoned trips.
The truth is we all let go of our kids at some point. To chaperone at age 18 is no longer the norm. And bad things happen in the US, on college campuses, on the street. At some point we have to quit locking the doors for them, quit looking up and down the street when taking them out, quit vetting their friends and quit asking them to "call when you get home".
When you let go of a kid it is incredibly difficult and scary. And the process starts in grade school when you put them on the bus what with bullies and pedophile bus drivers and wacky teachers. And it goes on and on, sometimes I think it never ends.
This is a parents deepest fear. And that is the hook.
But you have to let them go, you have to, and sometimes really awful things happen. We had a friend whose kid went off to college, a lovely girl, was murdered in the first week by the super at her apartment building. She did nothing wrong, was a wonderful girl but how was she to know that to open her door to the super was going to result in her death. Sometimes you cannot prevent things.
And you cannot in this day expect your kids to stay home and knit. They party, they travel, they drink, they make new friends. And they get into taxis.