Posted on 03/10/2014 2:43:26 PM PDT by Third Person
NEW YORK (AP) — In his most extensive comments about the 2012 Connecticut school massacre, the father of gunman Adam Lanza describes his struggle to comprehend what his son did — an act that "couldn't get any more evil" — and how he now wishes that his son had never been born.
Peter Lanza also told The New Yorker magazine in a series of interviews last fall that he believes Adam would have killed him, too, if he had the chance. And he often contemplates what he could have done differently in his relationship with Adam, although he believes the killings couldn't have been predicted.
"Any variation on what I did and how my relationship was had to be good, because no outcome could be worse," Peter Lanza told the magazine in an article dated March 17. "You can't get any more evil. ... How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he's my son? A lot."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Perhaps not divorcing Adam’s mom would have helped.
Why do you assume he divorced her and not the other way around?
I’m not sure about the “you could have been a better parent argument”. Some people are just born evil.
Perhaps, but it takes two to tango.
Evil or anti-depressant medication?
The State of Connecticut still won’t release what kind of anti-depressants he was on.
Attorney General: “Identifying antidepressants Lanza was taking could “cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications”
I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to be the parent of a mass murderer.
As for the divorce, mother had apparently decided they were just picking on her baby and even though she was afraid of him, she absolutely refused outside help and that was one of the things that led to the divorce (according to press reports at the time). I think he’s being very gentlemanly in not mentioning this.
Mothers can do this. They feel guilty for having a child with problems and then go into denial and also become extremely defensive, shutting out not only teachers and professionals, but even their husbands.
True, but at the present time it only takes one to divorce.
Or, as my dad used to put it: Two people have to work at it to make a marriage work. It only takes one person towreck it.
IIRC, she was in the process of trying to have him committed when he exploded. She had jumped through several hoops and had more hoops to go to get him placed in a hospital without his consent. He murdered her first.
CT, the evil gun grabber state.
One of the best life observations St. Augustine made in his Confessions was that a newborn baby, if he had the strength of a man, would maim or kill anyone who took away his food or denied him anything he wanted.
In the beginning, we all have that destructive rage in us.
Nurture may not make you much smarter, or taller, or better looking, but it does make the difference between being a moral person or not.
The issue here heavily involves Lanza's illness. Nurture cannot heal schizophrenia.
Yep. “interview last fall”?? Media release is timed to coincide with the recent upheaval over CT’s letter to ‘new felon’ gun owners. Just a coincidence.
None of us has any idea of the stresses having a child like this puts on a marriage. If one hasn’t walked a mile in Mr/Mrs Lanza’s shoes maybe one had best not opine.
Poor man. I can’t even imagine being able to go on after what he has experienced. The guilt must be crushing.
You are correct. As my mother used to say: “Where oh where would you find a mother who would trade her boobie for another.” She was referring to the mother of my now dead brother-in-law. He could have easily been a variation of Adam Lanza, yet his mother was in absolute denial about how defective he was. The world is much better off without him.
Given the circumstances, that motherhood bond is something that is very hard for me to understand.
I think that his mother had finally acknowledged the problem - although way too late.
But she had been so defensive earlier that she had pulled him out of school when one of the teachers suggested that he be evaluated for schizophrenia and that he needed more than just Aspergers therapy, which I believe is mainly language and socialization oriented.
I worked with parents like this in another lifetime, so to speak, and it’s very hard for them.
I have a brother who is divorced and his son has a very mild form of Asperger syndrome. Fortunately he spends lots of quality time with him and his ex-wife isn’t a vindictive beech or restricts visits. The boy is doing very well and normal happy to report. My brother is a good dad so kudos to him.
I like to think I’d be more objective if I had had a child with a serious psychological problem, especially one that was so obvious. But I’ve met parents who simply won’t admit it.
On the other hand, I’ve met parents who have spent their best years unsuccessfully trying to get their psychotic adolescents into residential care appropriate for their problem, so it’s hard to say that she could have managed to do so even if she had wanted to. And this is true even though she and his father had the money to help him; you simply can’t get kids like this the kind of serious (and usually residential) care they need.
Our mental health system is a disaster.
Quoted for truth!!
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