<<This sort of this is all too common. And was so very rare, until this
>past 5-10 years. >>

<<What alarms me is the rise in children commiting murder and suicide.
I don't know of any historical precedent for it. Does anyone?>>

Nikki, are you sure that there really is a statistically significant rise in
child violence?    The fact that I didn't read about it in USA Today until
recently doesn't persuade me that this is a new phase of human history.

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father forty whacks, as I learned in
elementary school, quite some time ago; and my recollection of what I know
about Victorian England (or should I say, Dickensian England) is that kids
where perceived, at least, as being among hte most violent segments of
society.   The enormous numbers of brutal murders of the chinese Cultural
Revolution were, if my understanding is correct, carried out in large part by
kids (and bf kids at that).

And if on the other hand, in the United States, a nation of more than 200
million residents, we have heard about a half a dozen or so horrible cases of
violence in children, it doesn't seem obvious to me that these numbers
represent a major trend.

Any social historians out there who actually know anything about cross-period
and cross cultural rates of violence in children?    Because if not, I'm not
ready to draw any conclusions about the last 10 years of parenting behavior.

Ilene Fabisch, you have my sympathy for living in a milieu where folks are
more than ready to decide that one's child, who may possibly have rolled
lousy genetic dice, would have been fine if only you'd held him in a sling a
little more often!   I wish you courage in hoeing your hard row.

Elisheva Urbas, NYC

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