Police, Texas, true crime, YouTube

I just heard about Texas baby stealer, Taylor Parker…

One of the nice things about living in Europe is that I tend to be divorced from some of the more sordid and horrifying crimes that happen in the United States. But then I go and watch YouTube videos, and since I am a true crime buff who tends to be interested in deviant people, I sometimes stumble across videos about truly sickening cases of depravity. Because I’m in a bit of a mood today, I think I’ll write a little bit about Texas killer Taylor Parker, who is currently sitting on death row.

Now… I’m sure Parker’s case was big news in the States. I missed it entirely when it was hot news. But I was randomly watching videos the other day when one popped up that I hadn’t expected to see. It was titled “Killer Realizes She’s Been Caught After Cutting Baby Out of Victim’s Stomach”. Right off the bat I cringed a bit, not just because this is just an incredibly sad and grisly crime, but also because people don’t carry pregnancies in their stomachs. Stomachs are for digesting food. They’re full of enzymes and acids, which would digest a developing fetus.

Babies don’t belong in stomachs… I would expect someone with a fetus developing in a stomach to show up at a hospital.

I think EWU Bodycam, the uploader of the video I watched, means that the baby was cut from the victim’s womb, or more precisely, the victim’s uterus. But in fairness to the uploader, the police officer who interviewed Taylor Parker also referred to the womb as the “stomach”. Maybe he did it to be on Parker’s intelligence level, but I suspect that he’s not that well versed on anatomy. He’s pretty good at getting guilty people to confess, though. I know this may seem like a petty thing to comment on, but I tend to be kind of a stickler about word choice.

Anyway… the story goes that Parker had befriended 21 year old Reagan Simmons-Hancock of New Boston, Texas, who was, in October 2020, about 34 weeks pregnant and already the mother of a three year old child. Parker had taken engagement and wedding photos of Reagan Simmons-Hancock and her husband, and that might have been the pretense that allowed for her to visit the young woman on the day of the murder. The three year old was present on the day of the murder and was left alone with her mother after Parker committed her crimes.

Parker, who was 27 years old at the time of the crime, already had two children before she got a hysterectomy. She decided to fake a pregnancy, and went as far as producing false ultrasounds and having a gender reveal party. It was reported that before she attacked Simmons-Hancock, Parker researched how to convincingly fake a pregnancy. She also watched a video on an examination of a pre-term infant delivered at 35 weeks gestation.

After she viciously attacked Simmons-Hancock, Parker took off from the crime scene and was soon stopped by a Texas State Trooper in DeKalb, Texas because she was speeding. The police officer, noticing Parker’s bloody condition, asked her what happened. Parker claimed that she’d given birth on the side of the road and was heading to a hospital because the baby girl wasn’t breathing. Parker and the baby were then taken by ambulance to McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel, Oklahoma, where the staff was immediately suspicious.

Parker refused to be examined by doctors, who were concerned that she might be hemorrhaging. She also didn’t have any Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone that all pregnant women have until about six weeks after giving birth. Taylor Parker had also stuffed Reagan’s placenta into her pants in a bungled attempt to try to convince staff that she was the one who had given birth… Honestly, WTF? She must have been out of her mind if she really thought that would convince experienced medical professionals.

Sadly, the baby died at the hospital. Even sadder is that Parker apparently thought she could get away with her crime. She had blood all over her hands and clothes, but it was very obvious to medical staff that she hadn’t given birth. And there she was at a hospital, thinking she would be able to refuse a thorough medical examination by the staff without arousing suspicion. Parker was later arrested when her victim’s body was discovered.

I read that Parker had faked the pregnancy to keep her boyfriend interested. In the video I watched about this case, there’s a picture of Taylor Parker all made up, seemingly pregnant, with a serene look on her face and her boyfriend’s arms around her stomach. I don’t have any experience with pregnancy myself, but it seems like it would be hard to create a very realistic looking womb that people could touch and not be suspicious. Moreover, I wonder about the people in her life, some of whom must have been around when she had a hysterectomy. I wonder why none of them called her out for her duplicity.

In 2022, Taylor Parker was tried in Texas for the capital murder of Reagan Simmons-Hancock. She was also tried for the non capital murder of the baby, whom Simmons-Hancock had named Braxlynn Sage. Not surprisingly, she was sentenced to death. While I am generally no fan of the death penalty and would vote against it myself, I am not surprised that Parker was sentenced to death. This was an incredibly gruesome crime. I can’t even fathom the deep levels of desperation and depravity that led Taylor Parker to do this to another human being. Hearing about this case made me feel absolutely heartbroken for the victims and the family left behind.

Is Taylor Parker a sociopath? I don’t know. Her crime is almost indescribably horrific, and it’s hard to explain why someone would show such callous disregard for another human. I think I would have to know a lot more about this case before I could conclude that Taylor Parker is a sociopath. Based on her hospital video, I would definitely conclude that she has some pretty severe mental illness and delusional thinking going on.

I did find the video of the cop’s interview with Taylor interesting, as he appeared to be someone who was very good at putting people at ease. He was rather gentle in his approach to Parker and he maintained an impressive poker face, as he confronted her about what had really happened. I heard him tell her it didn’t mean she was a terrible person, as he expressed empathy to her. Of course, that may have all been an act. It probably was, as being very aggressive and honest with his feelings about the crime would just make Taylor clam up. When you are about to be arrested for capital murder, you may be looking for a friendly face. The detective who interviewed Taylor gave her what she sought and gently cajoled her into giving up some of the truth of what she did.

I read more of the details of this case, which indicated just how completely savage and barbaric Parker’s crime was. It makes me feel terrible for the victims… which includes Reagan’s family, friends, and loved ones. I don’t blame people for thinking she deserves the death penalty. Personally, I just oppose it in most cases, although I know a lot of people disagree with me and may either want to confront me on this, or try to change my mind. There was a time when I was in favor of capital punishment, but for many reasons that I’ve already written about in other posts, I’m just not anymore.

I just think that while it’s understandable that many people think some really horrible crimes are worthy of the death penalty, it should be reserved for the rare situations in which a person has killed many people and will certainly kill again. I think it should be for public safety as whole– meaning the condemned person is a danger to everyone. I’m not sure Taylor Parker fits that description. She’s not like– say– Timothy McVeigh, Ted Bundy, or John Allen Muhammad (the Beltway Sniper). But, of course, I think Taylor Parker should stay locked up for the rest of her life.

And… while the cop interview was very interesting to watch (aside from his mistaking the womb for a stomach), I am kind of sorry I stumbled across the above video. It’s just such a tragic story on so many levels. So many young lives ended and/or ruined.

Anyway… that about does it for today’s post. Bill is coming home tonight. I look forward to seeing him.

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communication, law, mental health, Police, true crime, YouTube

I’m ORDERING you to RELAX right NOW!!!

It’s Friday, and that means it’s PARTY time! Well… not really. Bill and I aren’t big partiers. But there will be a special fest in our little village this weekend. It starts tonight and will consist of live music, a wine stand, AND a beer stand! There will also be a food truck. Hopefully, it will stop raining, so we can enjoy the fun and stay dry.

This week, I’ve been watching more cop videos on YouTube. The ones that end up on YouTube are usually somewhat interesting on some level. Like, the uploaders aren’t going to just put up a video of someone getting a speeding ticket without complaint. Most of the videos that make it to YouTube involve some misbehavior or attitude of some sort.

I have a few favorite body cam channels. I like the ones where there’s a good narrator, even if the narrator is AI. If the AI isn’t super obvious, I don’t mind it that much. I just like a good story, although some of the stories are tragic. Code Blue Cam usually has good body cam videos and a compelling storyline. Their most recent upload is quite the doozy. Just a warning… this video is definitely NSFW, mainly due to the extremely profane language the woman uses as she’s being busted for DUI. I’d share it here, but it’s age restricted.

One of Code Blue Cams less “adult” videos… I offer it just for the sake of an example.

The below video comes from Real World Police, which is another one of my favorite YouTube body cam channels. As I was watching it, I had to pause and ponder…

This dude is very profane, and it’s clear the cops aren’t on his side. They order him to “calm down”.

In the above video, the older man is very upset as he’s speaking to the police officers. He uses a lot of foul language. One of the cops says, “Calm down!” And it occurred to me, when I’m upset and someone orders me to “calm down”, it usually has the opposite effect. I asked my friends on Facebook if they are ever able to calm down when someone orders them to calm down. Almost everyone responded with a resounding “NO!”, including my former shrink– a psychologist with over 50 years of experience. He said, “It doesn’t work for anyone.”

Please note… I’m not talking about speaking to someone calmly and encouraging them to calm down. I’m talking about ORDERING them to calm down. I see this all the time in the cop videos. The police are wrestling someone to the ground, screaming at them to “stop resisting”, “calm down”, “don’t pull away”, and my personal favorite, “RELAX!” Yeah, I’m gonna relax with guys in uniforms with guns, tasers, pepper spray, and handcuffs are screaming at me and my adrenaline is pumping. Not.

I liken the order to “relax” and “calm down” by police as the same as a gynecologist telling someone to relax while they have their fingers in one of their patients’ orifices. I’m sorry if that’s shocking to some readers, but in all seriousness. One of the main reasons I’ve only had two exams done in my 51 years of life is because when I had my first “female” exam, the doctor was awful and ordered me to relax as she was hurting me. When she hurt me, I cried out, and almost fainted. She basically told me to shut up, or she wouldn’t finish the exam. I needed the exam to join the Peace Corps, so I gritted my teeth.

Then, when the OB-GYN from Hell finished the exam, she said “Well, everything looked okay, but I didn’t get the world’s best exam, because you weren’t relaxed.” Duh… I wasn’t sexually active; it was my first time getting an exam; and she was hurting me in a place where the sun doesn’t shine. And then to add insult to injury, she fat shamed me, too. 😉 How relaxing! NOT. As you can see, that experience really had a traumatic effect on me.

Dang… this one was filmed in Fayetteville, Georgia. Bill and I lived there for about sixteen months after our last Germany stint ended in 2009. I liked that town. The house we lived in was on 8 acres and it was super private! The house in this video is owned by Rick Ross, the rapper. There are many mansions in Fayetteville, Georgia.

The woman in the above video– name of Precious– is completely out of touch with reality. She asks the cops to let her walk “sexy” as she’s wearing handcuffs. She claims she’s pregnant with Rick Ross’s twins and is his wife. She also says she’s a model. This video is pretty funny, too, because as I mentioned in the above caption, I used to live in Fayetteville, Georgia, where this video was taken. This brings back some good memories for me. I did enjoy living in Fayetteville, but that was before Trump fucked up small town America.

Anyway, the woman in the video isn’t relaxed, but I give kudos to the Fayetteville Police for handling her professionally. We only had one interaction with them. It was when we brought my now 14 year old Mini Cooper– then brand new– to be inspected by the police before we could register it with Fayette County and get new tags. The cop who dealt with us was very efficient and pleasant. I can see from the many cop videos on YouTube that they aren’t always that good.

Last night, for instance, I saw a video Ring of Fire did about MAGA supporter and former Obama and Trump White House physician, Ronny Jackson, who is an actual emergency room doctor, being cussed at, thrown to the ground, and cuffed. Why? Because he was trying to help a teenaged girl in medical distress at a rodeo. I’ve seen many videos where cops have seemingly endless patience and compassion. And I’ve seen other videos where they aren’t much better than the people they arrest, and in some cases, they’re even worse! I’m not saying I like Ronny Jackson is the greatest doctor, but he’s certainly qualified to help a teenager with hypoglycemia. He shouldn’t be thrown to the ground and cuffed for helping someone.

WHAT?!! Those cops need firing, now!
“You pull away from me, you’re gonna hit the tub!” How relaxing. Then the cops yells at her, while she’s hysterical. Not saying she isn’t deserving of being arrested, but the cop shouldn’t be screaming and cursing at her. It’s understandable, but not helpful.

The above video is also a good example of why our mental health system in the United States needs a complete overhaul. That woman is in need of psychiatric care. It sounds like another cop is being more gentle with her. I can understand that dealing with someone like that is very frustrating, but screaming at people doesn’t calm them down. When they arrive at the police station, you can hear the one cop screaming at her to “calm the fuck down”… but it’s really not effective at all. People who are that “amped up” are not in the frame of mind to calm down. The best you can do is put them in a safe, quiet place and wait for them to simmer down. Barring that, Ativan works pretty well… but again, you kinda need a medical person for that.

It always fascinates me to see people ordering people to relax and calm down. That sort of defies logic, doesn’t it? When people yell at me, it makes me want to respond in kind. I never calm down when someone demands it of me. All that does is piss me off anew. When I was younger, I used to get really upset and hysterical, even to the point of hyperventilating. I haven’t had a good, full-blown anxiety attack in years, though… thank God. It’s not a nice feeling. The woman in the above video, especially, needs some compassion, even though she’s clearly broken the law and needs to answer for that. I suspect she’s mentally ill, and needs care.

One of the cops in this video says she used to be a mental health counselor. I can tell. She handles panicky Ellie very compassionately (at around the 11 minutes mark), although in her case, it didn’t work out too well. She had to get “wrapped” like a burrito.

But I also know that the police, especially in the United States, have a difficult and dangerous, yet very necessary, job. It’s not work that always attracts the best and brightest, nor is the training that great, especially in some areas. It seems like cops are trained to be very authoritative, instead of de-escalating situations. One thing I have noticed over here in Europe is that cops are more interested in non-violent interactions, and they work hard to keep things peaceful, as they also keep the peace. It helps that there aren’t so many guns, here.

I’ll leave you with this old video by Beau (Justin), of Beau of the Fifth Column, who used to train law enforcement. He makes a lot of sense, and the video isn’t distressing or violent. If you watch any of the videos in this post, I highly suggest watching this one, simply because he brings up the state of mind of the person being arrested, which is an important key point that I think a lot of people miss.

Beau (aka Justin King), once again, making a lot of sense.

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controversies, Germany, safety, silliness, social welfare

Men sitting down to pee and other acts of rebellion…

The featured photo was hanging in our first German landlord’s guest toilet when we moved in. I didn’t understand it then. I do now.

Happy hump day, y’all. It’s already gotten off to an interesting start for me. First off, I was having an erotic dream when I woke up. It was a bit kinky, but the people involved were a married couple (not Bill and me) and very friendly with each other. I probably ought to lay off the Lifetime movies for awhile…

Arran is bright and funny this morning. He will see the vet tonight and probably get a blood test and chemo. Bill told me last night that he has to go on another week long business trip soon, which is worrying for both of us. Somehow, I think Arran will go when the time is just right, but while my instincts are usually right, they aren’t always. I look forward to the day when Bill doesn’t have to do these business trips so often anymore. Or, at least he does them when our dogs are healthy.

But, enough about that. You probably clicked on this post because of the title. I’ll agree; it’s a weird one, even by my standards.

Last night, I was reading the Irish Times again, and happened upon an article written Brianna Parkins, titled “Now it’s okay for men to pee sitting down, here are a few other changes they could make“. I wish I could gift the article for non subscribers, but the Irish aren’t down with that. You’ll just have to rely on my comments here in this blog post, unless you are a subscriber like I am.

I was interested in Ms. Parkins’ article, because here in Germany, men routinely sit down to pee. There are even signs in some public restrooms addressing this phenomenon. When we moved into our very first German house, there was a postcard in the bathroom that showed a man lying on the floor by the toilet. It read, “Nicht im stehen.” I asked our landlord what it meant, and he said “Not while standing.”

In 2007, I didn’t know that German men are trained by the women in their lives to sit when they urinate. And I know some might call me sexist for putting it that way, but seriously, when I finally encountered an explanation about this particular cultural phenomenon, that was kind of how it was put to me. This was the comment posted on Toytown Germany in June 2008, which was when we were living in that first German house.

Stehpinkeln has been a big topic on my mind of late. Through watching day time TV I have come to realise that a vast majority of people (mainly German women) are disgusted by men who pee in standing.

I can understand that it can make a mess sometimes (I am not a man, thusly, I have no personal experience) but is it such a terrible thing? Am I the only one who seems to think that it’s OK for men to stand and pee into a toilet?!

This was such a mind blower for me in 2008. Apparently, it was for other people in that forum, because the thread went on for 445 posts and 23 pages. The last post was dated January 2015. I’ve seen a couple of other posts about it on that forum. I also read and reviewed a book about it a few years ago. Seriously, there is a book titled German Men Sit Down To Pee And Other Insights Into German Culture. I gave it a favorable review.

So anyway, last night, I was reading Brianna Parkins’ article about men sitting to pee. She writes that sitting to pee is also common in Japan, another country where a lot of American men work for the US military. Actually, given how fancy Japanese toilets can be, I can see why men don’t mind sitting down to do their business. They even have a fancy video for potty training kids.

I need a toilet that will sing to me when I do my business… especially in the morning.
FANCY!

Parkins writes:

But the German word for a man who sits to pee, Sitzpinkler, is used negatively, to imply unmasculine behaviour, “something like ‘wuss’ in English”, according to the Guardian. So that newpaper’s well-reasoned arguments for having a seat while taking a slash will have made men question their core beliefs: they had to ask themselves if a standing wee is just a byproduct of toxic masculinity.

It caused women to ask ourselves how men – them lot who can’t aim their pee in the toilet without it getting on the ground – ended up in charge for so long. The mind boggles.

Seeing the success of men adopting practices formerly considered “women’s business”, here are some other ways men could benefit by becoming more like women.

It probably won’t surprise some readers that Bill sometimes sits when he pees. He says he mainly does it that way at night, since it’s easier to sit down than turn on the light and blind himself. We do have a new Toilight, which is a stocking stuffer I bought at Christmas time. It senses motion and turns on a night light, which makes going to the bathroom safer and easier in the dark. But it doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to. Bill’s habit of sitting down when he pees at night predates the Toilight, too. He’s always been considerate that way.

I had a look at the comment section, figuring the Irish would be “taking the piss”, so to speak, about this article. I wasn’t disappointed. Quite a lot of Irish men were offended by Ms. Parkins’ article, which they probably didn’t even read, since it’s behind a paywall. I saw a number of comments indicating that men who sit down to pee are “emasculated” somehow. It seems to me that peeing is mostly private business, unless you’re into golden showers or something.

It’s a pity those men didn’t read Ms. Parkins’ article, which I found delightfully snarky and funny. And you know, she’s right. Not only does sitting while peeing make less of a mess, but sometimes listening to people who have been educated about things like, say, medicine, is a good idea. Apparently, a lot of men in Ireland are averse to doing that. So is being less homophobic and enjoying some friendly skin on skin contact with other men, other than when they play contact sports.

At the very end of the article, Ms. Parkins’ real agenda comes out, and it’s a good one. She writes:

But that one’s not going to change the world. The one that would really count, just off the top of my head, would be getting men to inflict less violence, both sexual and physical, on women.

In Ireland, Women’s Aid has registered 256 violent deaths of women since 1996. Of the 200 cases that have been resolved, 87 per cent of the victims were killed by a man they knew. In Australia, where I grew up, five women have died from violence allegedly committed by a man in the first month of the year, according to Counting Dead Women Australia. In 2022, 56 women there suffered the same fate.

I would like to tell Ms. Parkins that men can be victims of domestic violence, too. Unfortunately, I know this because my husband experienced it with his ex wife. Like a lot of abuse survivors, he didn’t realize that was what he was experiencing at the time. It wasn’t until he told me some stories that I brought up the possibility. Many years later, after not having spoken to his daughter for a long time, she actually recognized it and sent him a news article about men in domestic violence situations. So, I wasn’t the only one who easily saw the truth.

It’s too bad some of the Irish men complaining about the article didn’t read it and get the actual main idea, which is that men could learn a lot from women, not just about urination, but also about not being so violent. But I would hasten to add that some women need a few lessons about not being violent, too.

Here are a few comments… obviously, most of the people didn’t read the article. I’ll admit, my own comments were about German men sitting to pee, too. I managed to “piss” off an Irishman, who claimed that he had lived here for over 20 years and that it’s not true that German men sit to pee. I guess he watched them. I mean, yes, there are urinals here. I’ve heard that some Germans even put them in their homes so they can stand when they pee. But I’ve seen a lot of signs requesting that men sit down for the performance.

Bill encountered this sign on his last business trip. I’ve more often seen these in southern Germany than up here in Hesse.

Moving on…

A hometown friend of mine shared the following post on Facebook. I was not surprised at all.

My friend wrote that he knew some people who needed this product.

I decided to click on the original post, to see the comment section. I had a feeling it would be quite an epic shitshow of ignorance and stubbornness, with a dip into hatred toward liberal politics, to boot. I wasn’t disappointed. Lots of people were cheering about this invention, which also is handy for opening beer bottles.

Here are a few comments…

These guys can relax, though, because it seems that this company is a bit scammy. On other posts on that page, as of 2020, many people have complained that they ordered this product and never received it. I guess the people who make it are too busy opening beer bottles to fulfill their orders. Or maybe they’re just hanging out with their labradoodles…

Here’s another area where Germans are probably smarter. It’s illegal in Germany to drive a car with your pet unrestrained, sitting in the front seat of the car. For one thing, an air bag would probably kill Fido if it goes off. For another, Fido might cause you to be distracted and get into a wreck. Pets in Germany have to either ride in a crate in the back, or wear a “seatbelt” harness in the backseat that clips to the seatbelt buckle.

And while I’ve driven with objects sitting on the front seat plenty of times, that’s also not the safest practice. In the event of an accident, that object– just like Fido or a human body– will likely become a flying object that could hit you or any other passengers or bystanders in the head when it becomes airborne. But, as a lot of us know, a lot of Americans aren’t long on common sense or practical thinking. That’s how so many of them thought Donald Trump would be a good president. The same people are ordering this product and getting scammed.

Maybe they’ve improved their business practices since 2020? I don’t know.

Ah well… if I weren’t married to a man who didn’t turn into Pat Boone any time I tried to skip the seatbelt, I probably would agree with some of the conservative knuckleheads on the Tikit page. But Bill is a total safety geek, so I guess that means I am, too. Just like I can’t sleep after about 5:30am anymore, thanks to my morning rooster…

Well, I think I’ll end this post and go see if my laundry is dry yet. Maybe today, I’ll manage to record some music. Since I retooled my workspace, I’m having some technical difficulties.

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memories, mental health, psychology, stupid people

Spanking is for losers, leches, and lazy people…

This morning over breakfast, I saw today’s featured photo on Facebook, shared by the Retro Wifey page. I don’t often think of that page as controversial, as the woman who runs it usually shares nostalgic pictures of old toys, retro clothes, ads for discontinued restaurants and businesses, and the odd meme. In fact, I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to what she posts, and I almost never comment. I wasn’t going to comment on the photo about spanking. Instead, my first reaction was to X out the picture and snooze the page for thirty days. I often do that with Father Nathan Monk’s page.

I decided to leave a comment when I noticed the dozens of people who were championing the physical punishment of children. You see, I have noticed that when it comes to spankings and similar punishments, results tend to vary. My southern, conservative, alcoholic, Air Force officer dad raised me like he was raised by his own alcoholic father. When my dad decided I had misbehaved in some way, he would often employ spanking as his “go to” discipline.

Because I was a bright, high-mettled child who could be sassy, I got a lot of spankings. They didn’t happen daily or weekly, but they happened often enough that I couldn’t count how many times they happened in my childhood. I don’t remember my father ever being calm when he delivered them. He never had a talk with me about why what I did was wrong. My dad never offered me a hug or encouragement to “do better”. Instead, when he felt correction was necessary, he would fly into a rage, grab me, and spank (or slap) me with his hand as hard as he could. I would scream and cry, and he would just keep hitting and yelling at me.

My father’s spankings were terrifying experiences for me every time they happened, from the time I was a toddler, until I was an adult. Yes, that’s right. The last time my dad raised a hand to me, I was almost 21 years old. That was when I told my father that if he ever laid another finger on me in anger, I would call the police. Although my dad was outraged by the threat (which was actually a promise), he must have known I was serious. The next time he tried to hit me (when I was 26 years old), I reminded him about my promise, and he wisely backed off. That was the last time he ever tried to use physical “punishment” on me. I decided that from now on, anyone who hits me had better kill me.

I’ve written a number of times about why I don’t think spanking is an effective disciplinary method. I’ve thought a lot about why I feel the way I do. I’ll tell you one thing. When my grown man father unleashed his frustrations on me, a little girl, I didn’t feel respect for him when he finished. Instead, I felt a mixture of rage, sorrow, pain, fear, and hatred for him. To me, it doesn’t make any sense to demand “respect” from someone by hitting them. Physical punishments may inspire immediate compliance, but the violent imprint is hard to erase.

Decades after my last “spanking”, I still have a lot of unresolved anger toward my dad. I still deeply resent him for the traumatic memories I have of those discipline sessions, and the way they made me feel. If my father had done to my mother what he did to me, people would call him a wife beater. And yet, people on Facebook still champion spankings as good parenting, claiming that their parents were “right” to hit them. They claim that spanking is what taught them “respect for others”. I’m sure it hasn’t occurred to them that hitting another person isn’t a respectful thing to do. Especially when the person is as powerless on every level as most children are.

My dad died in 2014. I didn’t cry much, which surprised me. I think I had a lot of mixed feelings about his death. Yes, it was hard to lose my dad on the most basic of levels. Over six years, I watched him go from an independent man, to someone completely dependent on my mother. He had lost his ability to think clearly and move freely. So, in a sense, I was relieved that he died, just to free him of the terrible reality of living with Lewy Body Dementia. There were also some good times, when he was thoughtful, funny, and kind. I remember he could be fun, especially when I was little. Sometimes, we had some interesting discussions.

But, I was also legitimately glad I didn’t have to see him again. Never again would I have to hear him complain about my laugh, or make comments about my body or hair. I would never have to see his reddened face again when he was angry. He would never again try to compete with me or resent my successes and failures. I wouldn’t get another unsolicited phone call from him, criticizing my life choices or demanding an accounting of how I spend my time.

I’m sure if I had asked my dad if he loved me, he would have said yes. In fact, he did tell me he loved me somewhat frequently. So that’s why it’s confusing to me that a man who supposedly “loved” me was okay with hitting me. Would he have encouraged my husband, Bill, to hit me whenever I made him angry? What would happen if that was Bill’s way of dealing with everyone who annoyed or angered him? He’d probably be unemployed, and possibly incarcerated.

My decision to write about spanking again today came about because, when I saw that photo on Facebook, it triggered me. Before I knew it, I was once again spilling my guts to Bill about old, traumatic memories. It can’t be a good thing to still be angry about things that happened 40 years ago. When I’ve talked to spanking proponents about this, they’ve implied that I should just “let it go.” As easy as that suggestion is to make, it’s not always an easy thing to do. If it were easy to just “let it go”, I would have done that years ago.

Other people have excused spanking, claiming that what my dad did wasn’t actually spanking. They tell me it was abuse. A couple of people have even gone as far as calling my dad’s spankings “beatings”. But who decides what constitutes a spanking, and what constitutes a beating? My dad called what he did “spanking”. I don’t think he ever learned about spanking from someone knowledgeable about the subject. I think he did to me what his father did to him. And, I distinctly remember that my father had very negative opinions of his father. He very rarely spoke of him. When he did, it was usually when he was drinking. I don’t remember him having good things to say about my grandfather (whom I never knew). In fact, at Thanksgiving, when family members would speak of Pappy, my dad would usually leave the room.

At 50 years of age, I still have a lot of issues with my self-esteem. I don’t feel lovable to most people, and expect most people to dislike me, so I don’t make an effort to make friends. In my experience, making friends with people usually ends in disappointment. While I didn’t have the worst childhood, and many have had it worse, I still feel quite angry about the way I was treated. That man was half responsible for my being here. The least he could have done was treat me with basic respect. Especially if respect was what he expected from me.

I know it’s water under the bridge. I will never get an apology for the way I was raised. There is comfort in knowing that at least I won’t pass this crap to a new generation. I’m also grateful that I married a very gentle, disciplined, and kind man, in spite of his career choice. I don’t have to worry about physical abuse anymore. But dammit, it still hurts when I see people praising corporal punishment, claiming it’s the way to save humanity by instilling “respect” in children.

Children don’t learn respect from being hit. They learn fear. There is a HUGE difference between fear and respect. I just wish more people would stop and think about how they’d like to be remembered by their children before they raise hands to them. I doubt my dad would like knowing that I still resent him for treating me the way he did.

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law, safety, true crime

But we don’t really need gun control, do we?

This morning, as I was taking down all the Christmas shit in my living room, Bill read me a very tragic news story coming out of Newport News, Virginia. I am very familiar with Newport News, as I grew up in Gloucester, Virginia, which isn’t that far away from there. I used to think of Newport News as kind of an exciting place, as it was a lot more populated than Gloucester was, and it had shopping malls. Now, I kind of think of it in less glowing terms, as there’s a lot of crime and random violence there, not to mention too much traffic. That’s been the case for a pretty long time.

The shocking story Bill told me about today involves a six year old boy. The first grader somehow got his hands on a firearm and took it to Richneck Elementary School. Yesterday, at about 2:00 PM, the boy shot his teacher, a woman in her 30s. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew says they don’t know how the child got the handgun, but the shooting was not accidental. It happened in a classroom, after the child had an altercation with the teacher. She’s now at Riverside Regional Medical Center, being closely monitored by doctors, as she recovers from the wounds delivered by a six year old child. I am familiar with Riverside, having been there as a patient a couple of times myself.

ETA: Last night, I read that the teacher was identified as 25 year old Abby Zwerner. She is a fairly recent graduate of James Madison University and current resident of Williamsburg, Virginia, a town I know well. We even have a mutual Facebook friend.

ETA 2: It turns out our “mutual Facebook friend” is Abby’s aunt, whom I was friends with in high school. Six degrees of separation, I tell you. My friend shared a GoFundMe for Abby.

A news story about the shooting at Richneck Elementary School.

Richneck Elementary School serves about 550 students. There are metal detectors at the school, but up until now, students were checked randomly. I’m sure that policy will change, thanks to this incident. That will mean more hassles for the students, and another reminder that schools are not as safe as they once were. It’s also one more example as to why many talented adults might not want to go into education. Imagine this teacher, whose charges are among the youngest in school, being shot by a six year old! She probably thought she was working with a relatively safe population of children. Obviously, she can’t think that anymore.

I wish I could say I was rendered speechless by the news Bill delivered about this latest shooting. Sadly, having watched the violence unfolding in US schools over the past twenty plus years, I can’t say that this development is super surprising anymore. I don’t know what the hell has gotten into people in the United States, but it’s definitely a much more violent place than it was when I was coming of age. When I was in school, we didn’t need cops to be permanently stationed there to keep the peace. Sometimes my classmates would bring their guns to school, but only because they were going hunting, not because they wanted to shoot people.

Now, the boy has been arrested, and his future is in serious jeopardy. Fortunately, only the teacher was injured; no students or other staff members were hurt in the attack. The teacher’s condition is said to have improved somewhat over the course of the afternoon. I’m not sure what that means, as the teacher’s actual injuries haven’t been disclosed, other than to report that they were initially believed to be “life threatening”. One news report included the 911 call, which mentioned that the teacher was shot in the abdomen.

An update by Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew…

The superintendent of Newport News Public Schools, Dr. George Parker, said at the news conference that “we need to keep guns out of the hands of our young people.” Yeah, no shit. There are too many guns in our communities, and too many children are being exposed to gun violence. I don’t know a thing about this little boy, except that his life has now been forever altered. Does he even realize the seriousness of what he’s done?

I also wonder about his parents. Were they responsible for the fact that their child got ahold of a weapon and took it to school? Or was it a friend or a relative? Somehow, an adult let this child down, and now he’s going to have to pay for this action for the rest of his life, even if he doesn’t spend the rest of his childhood incarcerated. How did he learn how to use a gun?

According to the New York Times:

“I cannot control access to weapons,” Dr. Parker said. “My teachers cannot control access to weapons.” He added, “Today our students got a lesson in gun violence and what guns can do to disrupt not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community.”

Dr. Parker said school would be closed on Monday “as we work on the mental health of our staff and our students.”

It’s going to take a lot more than a day off school for the children to heal from this scary situation. Schools should be safe places for children. But then, homes should also be safe, and it doesn’t sound like the boy in this story has a safe home. I hope there will be criminal consequences for the person responsible for allowing this child to get his hands on a gun. This is a situation in which I do think prison time is entirely justified. Not only did this person put everyone at that school in danger by allowing a six year old access to a weapon, but he or she also ruined this child’s life before it’s even really begun. And that is tragic and, indeed, criminal!

If there is a bright side to this story, it’s that even though school shootings are very much on the rise, shootings perpetrated by very young children are still very rare. According to the New York Times, at this writing, there have only been 16 incidents since 1970 involving a child under age 10. This is based on research done by David Riedman, who founded the K-12 School Shooting Database after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. According to Riedman, there has only been one school shooting incident that involved someone younger than six years old. That incident happened in Memphis, Tennessee in 2013, when a 5 year old kindergartner discharged a firearm in his school’s cafeteria. No one was injured in that incident.

Anyway… I still don’t like Newport News, because it’s always been kind of crime ridden and congested. Now it has the distinction of being a place where a six year old can bring a gun on school grounds and open fire on his teacher. That is extremely and profoundly heartbreaking on so many levels. I pray the teacher is able to recover, and this child gets the intense help and intervention he obviously so desperately needs. I also wish the staff, students, and faculty at Richneck Elementary School all the best as they process what has happened. No wonder so many parents would rather homeschool these days!

I don’t want to just offer thoughts and prayers, because that seems to be a very trite thing to do… but I don’t know what else to do, other than shake my head and feel completely shocked and dismayed at the state of the world these days. It’s just terrifying, and so very sad.

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