Yesterday I was given a picture of a baby to work on. I'm glad I got it done before I read this (http://nwitimes.com/articles/2004/11/19/news/lake_county/ca07373bd99ff4c186256f51001b762f.txt) .

Ed

I don't think it's a lack of interest here. I just don't think there is any reasonable answer to your question.

Dave

Hi DUV,

It wasn't really a question. It's just that when I find out about something like that, it really gets to me. If I had known the whole story before I began to work on it, it would have been much harder for me. The latest news is that the father has been arrested. I just have a real hard time understanding how someone could do that to a baby.

Ed

I'm with Dave, I wanted to reply but I could think of nothing appropriate to say. It twisted my heart when I read the article... some people are just broken, I don't think they were born that way, something, most likely lots of things happened to them.

I can say more now because last night I attended a unique theatrical production, 'From the Inside Out, by The NC Women's Prison Ensemble. They are a group of inmates who study and write weekly while serving time, several for murder. It's a program called the NC Women's Prison Writing and Performance Project. They get out for a few hours to rehearse and then for a few more hours to do the actual show; then it's right back inside
You never learn who commited what crime but they all committed serious acts of violence. They performed several acts, mostly monologues about what prison is like, who and what they miss, what they regret, and what they remember about life before conviction. All were beaten, most raped, some by their own fathers; they saw their mothers beaten, their fathers imprisoned; they had attempted suicide... some had college degrees, had loving parents, were cheerleaders...

The point of the performance, besides giving these people a chance to explore what went wrong with their lives through writing, was to illustrate that people who ultimately wind up doing really aweful, hideous things start out as innocent little children who, at some point are broken by the environment and circumstances in which they grow up.
I'm not taking up for those parents or minimizing what they did.

Seeing this performance just reinforced what I've long believed... that all people are basically good and want to do good but for some, life makes that impossible, it makes them not care anymore. A person who doesn't care is capable of atrocity.

chip

Very nice response Chip, and I know it wasn't a question Ed. Here's a little something that I found that may or may not be appropriate to this forum but I find it powerful nontheless.

Dave

What's perhaps scarier, is that "broken" people cannot understand what's it's like to be "unbroken."

Chip,
I understand that you're not trying to defend the actions of people like that, and it's a shame that some people seem to do these things because of something that happened in their childhood. But then there are others who become more potective of their kids because of things that happened to them. I guess I don't understand how abuse to them could transform them into a monster anymore than they can understand what it's like to be "unbroken", or "normal", whatever that is.

Duv,
I think that is the most powerful thing I have ever read. I felt like crying. Thanks for the link.

Ed