Houston has had a rash of gang-related killings. It’s getting harder to keep track of, but according to the Chronicle, we’re at six, now, in the last three weeks.
Understandably, the community is concerned. “What’s happening to our children?”, they’re wondering.
Polimom has some very bad news:
Children do not jump one another with baseball bats, tire irons, and knives, kids do not go from “chatting with friends” to unloading five shots with a semiautomatic handgun, innocent boys don’t argue with guns stuffed into their baggy pants, and sweet girls do not stab someone in a park.
I can’t figure out the reporting on these stories, in which descriptions change from “teens” to “youths” to “kids” to “children”, sometimes in the same sentence. These words are not synonymous!
When Polimom uses “kid“, she pictures a boy with freckles and a baseball mitt – not a bat with bloodstains.
When I say “children“, I think of kindergarten, innocence, and wonder at the world. I don’t think of friends standing around a grave at the cemetery with baggy pants and flinty-eyed anger.
There’s a reason the English language developed several nouns to describe the phases and aspects of life, and Polimom thinks it would be far more helpful if we stopped confusing these disconnected and dangerous young people with labels that don’t fit.
Labeling teenagers is dangerous; I understand that. The labeling theory is at the heart of sealed criminal records for juveniles, and it makes sense.
But there’s a yin for every yang, and attempting to “normalize” those who shoot, stab, and murder one another with terms like “children” also taints those kids who do not fall prey to the deadly traps of peer pressure and dismal self-esteem.
Killers aren’t kids. They’re killers.
Leave a Reply Cancel Reply
Read Next
There’s a full-court press underway in Iraq to pull things together, and while it’s all quite fluid, this week has brought daily surprises. This morning is no exception (from WaPo): Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty …
Last week, I wrote about the near-abduction of an 11-year-old boy in north Houston, and how the largest news organization in this area omitted any reference to the at-large suspect’s race or ethnicity (and incidentally? clothes). The Chronicle’s stance was, …
A fascinating animation (link removed) graphic of how the surge from Hurricane Gustav may go, from the NOAA (via Twitter).
During a “go to bed” conversation some years ago, Adorable Child (AC) asked Polimom, “Mommy, would our lives be different if we were black?” Overwhelmed by imponderables of societal changes and cultural differences, geography and education, my mind immediately shut …
And sometimes killers are also children. It’s ugly, it contradicts all of our assumptions about childhood, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Children are different than adults, biologically and psychologically. I’ve had long conversations with a friend who’s a middle school teacher about how observing kids in their early teens is such an eye opener – they don’t seem to understand cause and effect the way adults do (until, suddenly, they do one day), they are just different. Their brains are still developing physically and this affects the way they act.
They are children. Damaged children, perhaps, doing awful things, but still children.
Nice post! John (above) is yanging back away from your yin, but your yin is nevertheless needed. Even my 11-month-old son understands right and wrong.
Long years ago, I served an internship in a juvenile prison. I did indeed find damage, but I really did not find children.
There’s a developmental line that is crossed when passing from childhood into the teen years. It’s a bit of a blur during the pre-teens, but it’s real nonetheless. It’s not Polimom being hard-hearted or close-minded.
John said,
That’s true. Children are also different from teens, biologically and psychologically, and teens are different from adults.
I’m not saying that children never kill. I can remember a case quite a number of years ago (was it Chicago?) where a 9-year old deliberately threw another child out of a window. There was vast damage there, too – obviously – but that child’s ability to process his action is radically different from those who walk around with guns, in groups, with intent.
Yesterday, a judge in Colorado ruled that a 15-year-old can legally enter into common-law marriage. Sixteen year olds not only drive, they can often marry — usually with parental consent required, but not always. At 17, a “child” can enlist in the military with consent.
The entire concept of chldhood is skewed.
Polimom, John
Alas, it is all too common for one (or both) sides in a highly charged political debate to try and strengthen their arguments by distorting the facts. One popular technique for doing so is to play with the definition of the beneficiaries and/or the victims–e.g. children.
One of the most frequent examples in this area occurs when gun control legislation is being advocated. Specifically, it is the never ending efforts of the “gun control” lobby to whip up hysteria by claiming that “over 4,000 children a year die from firearms in the US”–a rate of ~11/day. The Second Amendment Foundation Online FAQ page addresses this claim (in point #32):
The Encyclopedia Britannica discusses the same issue and offers a different cutoff–and different fatality rate statistics– for the definition of a “child”–i.e. 14 years of age:
It is tragic when a child dies, but dishonest attempts to inflate the pool of victims (in a good cause of course) is never the right thing to do.
Polmom said:
The examples you gave (marrying, enlisting) have to do with signing contracts – and under the law minors may not enter into contracts without parental consent. This is strictly a ‘legal’ thing, and not related directly to the maturity level of the person.
As far as children killing others is concerned, the fact that they are killers does not negate the fact that they are children. And, while teenagers are different from younger children, in reality they are probably the true “tweeners”, switching between being children and adults. They are, in many cases, physically very much like adults. They are also, in many other ways, very much like children – and this includes the fact that they aren’t always aware of concepts like “death is forever” and “what you see on TV isn’t always real.”
I also agree with the statement about the concept of childhood being skewed. Unfortunately, we seem to think that it is “cute” to portray our children as miniature versions of adult humans, which leads to such wierdness as 8-year olds in ‘beauty pageants’ and kiddie pr0n films (and I am not sure that there is that much difference between the two, seeing as they are both manifestations of the “Lolita effect”.)
Having dealt personally with a “juvenile offender” (and a violent one at that, if you call kicking a police officer in the crotch “violent”), I also saw damage – but underneath I saw a child who desperately needed help and didn’t have a clue as to how to go about asking for it. Fortunately, that child got help (after a fashion) and is now a reasonably responsible adult.
~EdT.
@ “The Master”:
Regardless of the agenda (hidden or otherwise) of those who are creating this data, the simple fact is that in the past 20 years or so we have seen a real rash of killings where the perpetrator is under the age of 18. I remember the first time I heard of a violent death taking place at a high school (where the brother of a student there came to school with a baseball bat and brained another student there), and it seemed so unreal. These days, it is common to read about this type of activity, and in fact one of my son’s schoolmates in high school was stabbed by another student – over a girl, I think.
~EdT.
Ed,
We can’t have this both ways. If, as you say, the contract of marriage requires a signature for minors because it’s “strictly a ‘legal’ thing, and not related directly to the maturity level of the person“, then you seem to be saying that at 16, they’re adult enough to marry and begin families?
Or is it, as you also said, “They are, in many cases, physically very much like adults. They are also, in many other ways, very much like children – and this includes the fact that they aren’t always aware of concepts like “death is forever” and “what you see on TV isn’t always real.””
I’m having trouble reconciling these two statements.
Nor do I agree at all that teenagers do not understand the permanence of death. According to experts (link and link), that developmental milestone occurs around ages 6 – 11 (typically by 9 or 10). It’s also totally unrelated to the phenomenon of personal immortality. Teens “get it” that a bullet in the heart of another person kills them forever. They just don’t think it’ll ever happen to them.
Some people, btw, don’t get this “I’m not immortal” thing until their thirties. However, it doesn’t make them children; it makes them reckless.
IMHO, we’re suffering from a national schizophrenia — one that is often used against us, as The Master’s comment illustrates.
well put ….