pha147's Mental Madness

Very well stated.

OOPS!!!!!!!!! Typo-I have NOT lost a child in an accident-WOW!!!!! BAD MISTAKE!!

I can bring a perspective to this? We are making judgments based upon very little information. Sometimes despite even the best parenting, even an incredibly well-behaved child will do something incredibly stupid, illegal and sometimes it only takes that one stupid act they may have done or ever would do in their life to kill them. We don't have any information if these kids were regularly in trouble. We all probably have stories of stupid things we did despite the upbringing we had. I counsel parents who are grieving the death of a child and I will tell you that they will go through a period of blaming themselves and it will be a far worse scrutiny of every thing they said and everything they did--far worse than what is being said about them right now. Right now they are going through the phase of blaming others. It's the normal part of the grieving process. I am not saying the parents don't share in the responsibility of what happened, they do; I'm just saying hold off crucifying them by public blog trial until all the facts come to light. And we may never know all the facts.

The yelling is a grief reaction. If you've never had a child die, I don't expect you to understand. Sure, he might sue. I'm not giving the parents a free pass on this. Okay, I share this story often,The book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The author is on a train with out of control kids. He says the father just sitting there doing nothing. He automatically assumes -- bad parent, can't control his kids. He gets fed up, angry and confronts the father to control his kids. The father looks up and apologizes because they just came from the hospital where his wife just died. The author suddenly feels awful, just that little bit of new information totally changes his perspective and realizes that we make judgments of others based on limited information. It is a valuable tool to learn. People make judgments of my family all the time with my child with autism. He has a meltdown because some unexpected noise and people stare at me and make judgments that I must be a bad parent because I have this 11-year-old slapping his face, biting his hand so hard that it bleeds. I look at them and say, "Sorry, autism" and their faces aren't so judgmental any more.

PB Mom, I commend you for the work you do. The "fine line" has appeared on this subject. I don't believe we should "accept" any behaviors resulting from a tragedy, whether death is involved or not. Certain behaviors are socially acceptable, like SDAA (shock, denial, anger, acceptance...I think bargaining is somewhere in there). For instance, alcohol killed my half-brother. I am not blaming alcohol industries for killing him. HE made that choice. My father died while in the VA hospital. I'd be foolish to blame the staff.

kenswife..if the shoe fits...The more I see of this family, the more I blame them. The dad is saying it was out of character for Loral to sneak out. Then I see on Channel 11 Loral's MySpace page. It says.. IT'S 3AM AND IM SNEAKING OUT YOUR BACK DOOR!! In HUGE letters no less. Then the granddad, bless him, says it's going to be his personal crusade to get railroad arms & a gate installed. Well, good deal, but according to the Chronicle, it was already in the works. And instead of lashing out at UP, they should be going after Tex DOT..it's TEX DOT who is in charge of the gates, not UP.
Head case? I don't see a DR in front of your name, so sticks and stones, baby..the truth hurts, huh?
PB Mom, I'm with pha147 on what you go through. A very dear friend of mine has a son with Auspergers Syndrome, ( I think that's the official name), ADHD, and he is also bipolar. This developed when he was in the fifth grade, and that family has gone through hell. His mother, though, just works through it, never complains. You and she have strength I can only imagine, but Lis' says "You do what you gotta do..it's your kid, will always be your kid, and is YOUR responsibility."

I can gaurentee that this is not the first time that these kids have been in trouble. It has just been excused before. After all, we live in a society where it is someone elses fault.

If these kids had not violated cerfew (broken the law), had not stolen the vehicle (broken the law, had not been traveling at excessive speed (breaking the law), had not failed to yield at the RR crossing (breaking the law), they would have been alive today.

This problem did not just start the other night. It started 3, 5, 7 years ago when the parents failed to take action, failed to discipline their kids. Parents want to be friends with their kids, not a parent. this is the result.

The one father "told his daughter not to go out". Was this a pattern? Why did he not check on her? Where were the other parents?

lanny, We are besides ourselves with shock and disbelief at not ONLY the accident, but the attitude of the parents of these kids, and the news stations who are so determined to VICTIMIZE these kids and their families when it was THESE KIDS and THEIR PARENTS who messed up.
If these kids killed someone while in this Jeep,returned home, burnt the Jeep and tried to hide it..would they be portrayed so sympathetically? NO!! They would be portrayed as the "alleged" criminals they actually were.
News stations contribute to alleviating personal responsibility where teens are concerned by portraying young criminals as "victims of society" more than young criminals. Take Ashley Benton, the young wannabe gansta who stabbed another gangsta to death in a gang fight is another one. I've seen so many news stories, interviews with her and the Chron had a whole section on her called "The Knife and the Butterfly" in which she was portrayed as a poor little girl, struggling to make her life better..TV interviews showed her holding a teddy bear, blah blah blah.
All the news stations are doing the same with this tragedy...victimizing the criminals.

He/she (I think it was a she, one station mentioned the vehicle owner showed up to ID "her" vehicle) is probably trying to keep a low profile. The way TV is portraying the families & victims, they are probably afraid they'll be persecuted like the RR is for leaving their vehicle vulnerable to theft.

Pha147: It depends on how your loved one died. Different situations elicit different grief responses. My father died of alcoholism, too, and there was no external blame of others, but there was great anger at him. When I had private time with his body I was yelling at him. Bargaining only occurs during the process of dying (I promise to go to church if you just heal me/my loved one). Every grief reaction is an individual experience because every relationship is an unique experience. The grief I experienced when my mother died is different from the grief when my father died and different from my grandmother's death and grief when my child died. Let me give you an example: Let's say your teenager gets killed driving alone. You are going to go through the--well maybe there was something wrong with the brakes, maybe an animal ran out and they swerved to avoid it and wound up smacking the light pole, maybe the light wasn't red. That is the external blame part. However, if that same teen was in the car with another person, your first response is blaming that person driving even though it may not have been their fault. (I am not comparing this story to what happened; they are totally different events; I'm trying to explain the grief response). These parents aren't even processing the "my kid stole a car and went joyriding" yet. The brain can only process so much grief at one time. The anger and external blame is the stage they are in right now. They will sometime process that their kid stole a jeep and went joyriding and killed others as a result. They will re-live e