Someone posted last night about the extremely horrible childhoods of Bundy and Manson, Gein and a few other known prolific predatory murderers reminding me of something I learned about abnormal occurrences in childhood, adolescence to the age of self- reliance. I'm going to discuss this in general terms, and also as it possibly and anecdotally has been said to apply to to J. Patterson, IMO.
When a growing and developing psyche hurts, a youth developing coping skills in an environment which hurts them deeply will retreat from the source of pain as best as possible. Metaphorically, killing their developing personality, but actually modifying their responses to hurts, either real or imagined. . An abused and neglected adult can go to a shelter for abused persons, but a kid is not autonomous or mobile enough, plus they'd have more problems when they did get home.. With that in mind, I also learned the following, which I firmly believed was very much a thing of the past decades. I guess I might have been wrong in believing the practice had ended. .
It hit me like a ton of bricks when I was preparing a post which I never posted about how parents treat children ( generally, I know there are extremely bad outliers) in my lifetime compared to how the oppositional or " difficult" child was treated for the first half of the 20th century and probably before then
It was NOT RARE in part of the 20th century for parents and their sweet, well- behaved loving children to literally leave a troubled child, usually a boy, behind for the neighbors or a church, or a school teacher to maybe help, usually knowing no one is going to be much help for very long.
MANY FAMILIES who believed they had a child or teen who was physically hurtful to them or to their siblings, or were non-reactive to positive reinforcement for good behavior and proper instruction for misbehaving WITH NO PERIODS OF CALM, JUST TERROR, would actually pack up their important personal belongings and MOVE AWAY when the problem child or teen was out of the house. The kid would come home and home would be empty. Their family- GONE. It was absolutely shocking for me to learn about this form of abandonment when a troubled child became a liability to the rest of the family. Some predatory murderers were abandoned by their parent or grandparent when they were children, some barely knew how to read and write because no one got them to school, and neglect and physical abuse is a common thread running through the biographical information. Neglect of a child is a type of abuse, both physically and emotionally.
Back to J.Patterson:
As I was thinking about all the children whose caregiver just moved away and left them in the context of the historical known childhoods of some killers, I was stunned when I questioned:
What if what we believe happened in the Patterson household is *likely* the modern example of "leaving the troubled or oppositional child behind for school or others to raise? "
It seems his brother, who is believed to have been also left in the house without parents at a young age, has also had legal problems early in life.. The two boys are said to have been left alone together in the family home when they were still quite young and still in middle school grades. In addition to the normal tasks of interacting with peers and establishing friendships and positive relationships, the child or children who are left alone are given the tasks: to learn to study and complete school assignments before watching TV or playing video games, to live everyday life, get to school, prepare some meals, maybe do their laundry, just take care of themselves and not burn the house down. Where was the nurturing? Did the boy or both of them reject nurturing? It's possible.
We likely can't know with certainty that this info about them living alone while so young is absolutely true, but it's been said by neighbors and there are records posted in some of the closed threads here which support that both parents and the sister left the house but the boys stayed there just prior to being a teenager for one, and barely a teen for the brother.
The larger issue is " How, then, does the pre-teen or young teen who's left to raise himself learn to self-govern his behaviors"? The answer is- they don't learn, because likely, there's little to no feedback between them and a parent or parental figure. Little to no ability to freely talk to a parent when there is a question or problem about what's right and what's wrong, because " I'd be bothering Mom at her new house" or " Dad's somewhere out of town for work" ( just as examples) .
The kids probably have to figure out what is helpful and what is harmful, or just choose to ignore the elephant in the middle of the room. ALL teens have important moral ,social, and societal things they have to learn and they do so by observing how their caregiver in the home handles problems, interacts with neighbors and friends, obeys ( or disobeys) laws like paying taxes, not getting speeding tickets, just the general " How to live ( or not behave like a parent with problems might) in the world when you are grown up" kinds of things.
I'm not saying by any stretch that JP had a childhood possibly like a Manson or a Bundy. No.
However, historical data has shown that the emerging predatory killer will be someone with no regard for human life, sometimes including his own life. Someone with no remorse after killing. A person who doesn't care about the consequences or punishment for such extreme wrongdoing.
Please note- >>>> Anti-social personality disorder* is not being shy, avoiding crowds, not especially liking family events or social events. All of that is normal, we each have levels of sociability on a huge range. I, and others, are always referring to violent, extremely harmful behaviors against other people when using the term Anti-social personality disorder .<<<<<<
