Too Much Blame and Not Enough Talk

I had to have the conversation again with my kids.

“So if you ever get really mad at me, will you promise not to shoot me?” I began, as I always do. “Could we at least talk about it first?”

And as they always do, they rolled their eyes in that Mom’s-so-crazy way and promised that, no, they won’t shoot me, at least not without consulting me first.

We’ve had this conversation at my house after every mass shooting and/or matricide. Which is to say that lately this conversation has been had with alarming frequency.

It’s no joke.

I talk to my children because like James Holmes – the young man accused of firing in a crowded Aurora, Colo., movie theater, killing 12 and wounding 58 last July – one of my six children battles mental illness.

I talk to my children because like Tony Day – the Tucumcari teen accused of slaying his sister with a pair of scissors and taking out his mother with a rifle last November – five of my six children are adopted from foster care, some of them still haunted by the ghosts of those damaging years.

I talk to my children because like Adam Lanza – the young man accused of blowing away his sleeping mother and gunning down 20 first-graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. – one of my six children is a sullen loner who awkwardly struggles to connect to the outside world but who prefers to isolate himself with video games and a dark room – if I were to let him.

I talk to my children because like Nehemiah Griego – the 15-year-old Albuquerque boy accused of methodically carrying out the shooting deaths of his parents and three younger siblings last weekend – my children have been known to be annoyed with me. Very annoyed.

I talk to my children because they are children. Because the world they live in sometimes scares them – and me. Because I don’t know what it is that prompts one child and not another to commit horrible acts of violence. Because I own a gun – and yes, loyal readers, I was able to purchase one last October – kept in a biometric locked safe, and sometimes I wonder about the wisdom of owning one at all. Because we need to talk about this.

Because we all need to talk about this.

But talking among us adults is far more difficult these days. Living with so much senseless death has made us brittle, wary, angry. We spend too little time on contemplation and bereavement before blame sets its teeth.

We blame the victim for owning guns or raising monsters. We blame one another for not owning enough guns, for not posting armed guards at every school, store, street and home. We blame violent video games or we blame those who blame video games. We blame the lack of mental health care. We blame the media for reporting the news, as if covering up the details will make the horror go away.

We do all this before we even know the names of the latest victims, before we know anything about the accused other than they wielded a gun or two with deadly consequences.

For proof, you need only read the comments section on various online news sites, including the Journal’s, which have become dreadful exhibits of our loss of civil discourse and sensibility.

Hours after the sun rose on that bloody Sunday morning when the news of the latest carnage – the shooting deaths of Greg Griego, his wife and three young children at the hand of a fourth child – was just beginning to seep out, comments were already burning up the news sites.

“It’s complete societal breakdown caused when the feminists drove the fathers out of the home,” one reader said.

“Yet another tragedy that can be linked to the NRA,” said another.

People hurled insults at one another. Stupid. Fascists. Communists. Gun nuts. Wing nuts.

Some posters were already convinced the Griego homicides were part of some left-wing conspiracy to justify taking away everybody’s guns. Or that it was juicy fodder for the local media, which, they opined, were already sensationalizing the heck out of it – even though news accounts at the time carried very little information.

One writer remarked at how curious it was that “young sociopathic killers” all have shaved heads and big ears.

Among the inflamed commentary were very few words of sorrow over the lives lost; even fewer on what we must do to stop the continuing tragedies that bloody our country.

Perhaps we have cried ourselves out.

But perhaps we need to be a little more adult in our conversations, a little less churlish and childish and mean.

The children, after all, are listening.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal