Grow Up And Get Over Your Bad Childhood

Even though I only started getting interested in the Casey Anthony trial after it ended, I’m now going to get all Nancy Grace-ish and start talking about it nonstop. Just kidding, but did you see that Anthony’s defense spared no one in their attempt to get their client off? Including Casey’s immediate family.

Casey Anthony’s first-degree murder trial descended into chaos on Wednesday morning when prosecutors entered a flurry of objections as the defense attempted to question the accused child killer’s parents about sexual abuse they allege she suffered at the hands of family members.

“I would never do anything like that to my daughter,” the defendant’s father, George Anthony, said when asked if he had molested Casey.

Who knows what went on in the household in which Casey was raised? I mean, she turned out spectacularly awful but how much of that is attributable to the parents? Either way, though, I’m sick of this mentality that you get to excuse your bad behavior by pointing to how awful your parents were.

I’ve long thought that one way you can tell the difference between a child and an adult is to listen to how they talk about their childhood. Are they in constant complaint mode about how they were wronged by insufficiently attentive or doting parents? This means they haven’t grown up yet.

Most people, upon becoming parents themselves, have a change in the way they view their parents. For some, they become much more forgiving of their parents, realizing that parents are just normal humans with awesome responsibilities. For others, it might go the other direction. I have a friend who, upon becoming a father, actually wondered why his parents were so bad at parenting. “It’s not that hard,” he said.

Either way, you have to own your own actions and take responsibility for your own parenting.

I certainly hope Casey Anthony is not a child sex victim. But even if she was, she didn’t have the right to hurt her child, kill her child, thwart rescue efforts or otherwise be a reprehensible human being. And neither should we avoid taking responsibility for whatever we’re doing wrong by pointing to how someone else harmed us.

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