It can be both. It could be "The scary man wants to hurt you now go hug the scary man because I said you have to."
He was probably confused and scared of both of them.
I get a different sense. I mean I really don't know. But I feel like he was a child who learned how to be super emotional and "connected" to adults from the festivals they went to and the "training" of the parents.
So much is seen and heard from and about these people along with the repeated abuse accusations and the ultimate way they died including timing has convinced me one or both are narcissists. I get a personality disorder vibe.
And children of narcissist parents learn how to perform and mirror what the parents are expressing. Or expecting them to express.
These kids know they are supposed to feel extreme, emotional love and engage in super intimate and intense "moments" with fully grown adults.
I mean have you seen the events they go to? The display of emotion we saw between Devonte and that performer occur often among the adults.
I feel he was performing. Because it's what he's learned to do in order to gain his parents approval and favor. And it worked for a long time.
That's my feeling.
Wow! They printed his name. Do newspapers have to get permission from parents before they print the name of a kid?
Oh it's clear they very much wanted their kid to be in the paper. And themselves. They gave an interview about his entire background.
I think you misinterpret what I meant.
I was not talking about white mothers´ love for their black - or whatever color - children in general. Not at all
I was talking about CPS and police not properly looking into matters when there were grounds for serious concerns for the children.
Exactly. There are a lot of children of color who are in the system and need homes. There is nothing wrong with parents who adopt children of another ethnic background. For the most part it shows they just care about love, not color.
But there is an issue with white parents given vastly vastly more leeway when it comes to child abuse allegations than people of other ethnicities. And if the kids are people of color, there's likely a tendency to believe the parents over the kids who MAY be more likely to be seen as inherently immoral or whatever.
This couple was given a lot of leeway others may not have under the same circumstances.
I've been trying to work out what happened in that house on the Friday. Why didn't Devonte manage to get out of the window when CPS were there? Why couldn't he have the other kids distract Jen so that he could at least get attention through a window? Did he tell Jen that CPS were coming? Why would he go on this trip?
I did figure out that Jen would go off the cliff without all the kids in the car. What I can't figure out is how the three missing would not be in the car.
Imagine the Friday and then the weekend for Devonte. He's forged a relationship with the Dekalbs. He's reached a turning point and he's ready to tell the truth about the abuse. He's ready to ask for help to the point of having CPS come out. He might be talking to Hannah and saying that if they both tell the truth then they have more chance of being believed. These two are definitely tied together by them both going to neighbors in the past year. Obviously poor Hannah had to be marched around the next day with all the other kids and say she'd lied, which might make it hard for her to tell the truth now even if Devonte is reassuring her that this time he's got her back and they're going to stand together and fight for them, the kids.
Hypothetically..if Jen feels that the family is cracked irreversibly (like an egg) and she can't put it back together, then I believe she'll go over the edge with the ones who are in the car. It's, I believe at least in part, an act of preservation of the family unit and the only way she can now see to ensure that this family stays together, forever. If Devonte has called CPS and she knows, if he and one or both of the missing girls have run away, they are no longer part of the Tribe, and she will (I believe) go over the cliff without them.
I agree with your overall sentiment but I don't at all believe Jen went into this alone. I see nothing to suggest that Sarah wasn't just as disturbed. She just wasn't driving.
Speculating on how the "free hugs" sign came about:
I have a feeling that the "free hugs" sign originated in Devonte's habit of being inappropriately affectionate. I wonder if they maybe started doing it as a way of alerting people that their kid was prone to "giving hugs" to people they encountered out in public.
It might have been a way they were trying to channel his tendency into something a bit more controlled. They might have thought that it was cute or endearing for people to see a little kid with this sign around his neck when he came running over to strangers, rather than having to explain why he was doing it (due to history of abuse). They also might have tried to use it to help him learn to manage the behavior - turning it into a positive thing - telling him you can give "free hugs" - rather than just having him run up to anyone he encountered and grabbing on to them.
As he got older, the use of the "free hugs" sign morphed into something where he may have felt pressured to act in ways that maybe he was beginning to grow out of. The parents then also managed to find a way to channel this "free hugs" thing into their political activism and their need to maintain a certain persona on social media. So it took on a life of its own, and maybe Devonte was struggling with that, which would be normal for a teenager to start doing.
Since we don't know if they ever got any therapy for these kids, its hard to know if they were ever given any guidance about how to manage inappropriate affection due to attachment problems. I can almost imagine caregivers, who have no guidance from therapists, trying to deal with this type of behavior and doing something like a "free hugs" sign on the child's neck in public.
just some speculation....
Hmm. That's an interesting and intelligent theory I think.
