Yes, I understand that Hildy. However, I have had experience with my own teenager and also we had my teenage niece come live with us for a year. What they believe as kids is often thrown out as teens and that's part of my difficulty. It is not that it happens just exactly why. Kids today are much savvier than I was when I was age 11. I could see my age group being brainwashed at that age far easier than today's children. Obviously by this case it has happened. I also understand the Patty Hearst syndrome where the kidnapped person eventually identifies with their abductor. It's just one of those areas of human psychology that I struggle with understanding.
Some grownups are just wishing to be manipulated into believing the unbelievable.
WACO, Jonestown, Klintonoids.......
Don't be so sure you could withstand pressure to conform.
I believe I heard somewhere that this boy's father had died just 2 years before this all took place. Plus his step father was somewhat a new male role model, so those factors plus whatever evil, horrifying things this man did or said to this kid left him pretty mixed up.
Could be that Shawn was beginning to show some signs of rebellion. May have been why Devlin kidnapped Ben.
So your kids never succumbed to peer pressure? Wow, they must be the only two on the planet to never have done so. Now imagine if their friends had guns at your kids' heads telling them they would have their heads blown off. Still so confident they wouldn't fall to the peer pressure? Yet Shawn had much worse done to him. There is no difference between today's children or me when I was a child except kids now can figure out how to program a cell phone and vcr without reading the directions. They are still children capable of being abused by a parent, uncle or stranger. Or are you saying that that doesn't happen anymore either because kids are savvy? That thought would be naive at best but most likely it is recklessly dangerous.
Are you so hard on a POW who cracks under torture and doesn't try to escape? If not, then why are you so hard on an 11 year old kid who was kidnapped at gun point, beaten and raped repeatedly for years? It is stunning that people question the child, yet don't question the barbaric treatment he received at the hands of a 300 pound, 6 foot 4 inch gorilla that broke his will so thoroughly. He is the one who deserves the questions and scorn, not his hostage.