A review of A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold, and a discussion of parenting, mental health, and violence
It’s a cliche for a reason: Proud parents flanking their graduate, beaming with pride. They seem to be saying, “We did this. Our hard parenting work paid off in the form of a person who does good things.” We all love to believe that kids are a product of their families, that if we just pay attention and parent them well enough, they’ll be all right. Parents beam with pride when a child scores a goal, wins an award, or finds particular success within their chosen career or their own family and progeny. The pride isn’t just in knowing someone they love has done or accomplished something that makes that person happy, it’s also in the feeling that somehow their parenting is tied to those accomplishments, that they must have done something right to raise a human who is doing well and doing good. It’s an affirmation of the parents’ own goodness and validity as human beings.
Equally, when a child has a hard time, suffers from mental illness, or acts out in anti-social ways, parents cower in humiliation. How could this happen? What did we do wrong? They feel isolated, invalidated, wrong.
In Sue Klebold’s book, A Mother’s Reckoning, she makes as compelling an argument as I’ve ever seen for showing compassion and giving parents the benefit of the doubt when their children are the perpetrators of violence or harm. Yes, good parenting is important and so helpful, and poor or abusive parenting can do such damage. Kids are also very good at appearing okay when they are not at all okay. Much to our chagrin, parents don’t actually know the inner worlds of our children, and we don’t have control over what traits, temperaments, and internal resources our kids have at the outset. Although it would be impossible to completely disentangle parenting from adult outcomes, Klebold’s experience pushes against the common notion that good parenting leads to good outcomes for children.
Though Sue’s son, Dylan, seemed to be doing okay in every measurable way to his friends and those who knew him well, she breaks down the signs she wishes she had known to look for that indicated he was feeling depressed and suicidal below the surface. With humility, Klebold discusses the complex nature of being in her situation — it’s not her fault that she didn’t know what she didn’t know, but she does take responsibility for what could have been done. She didn’t know some of the signs of depression and suicidality in teens — irritability, getting into trouble in ways that are uncharacteristic for them, asking about or seeking access to weapons, among others. Even if a child sits down and laughs and watches a movie with their family or enjoys a night out with their friends, both of which are things that Dylan did in the weeks leading up to his devastating actions, they still may be depressed and suicidal.
It is clear that Dylan was loved, that he had opportunities to play sports and excel at different activities including baseball, bowling, and film classes, that he was raised in a home where he learned to be kind and courteous, where values like hard work, thrift, and helpfulness were instilled from a young age.
Somehow, he still decided to partner in committing one of the most horrifying school shootings this country has ever seen. Naturally, the parents of both Dylan and Eric Harris were blamed for the events of that awful day. How could you not see it coming? Why didn’t you do something to stop them before it happened? How could you be so clueless about what was happening under your own roof?
We love to eviscerate parents, both in online comments sections and personal conversation, when their children make harmful and destructive choices. It couldn’t happen to us, we tell ourselves. If they were bad parents and we are good parents, then we must be immune to that kind of violence in our own homes and families. Sue’s story exposes the ignorance of this line of reasoning, and “[She] know[s] first hand, ignorance can be lethal.”
Of course, Dylan and Eric’s parents didn’t need anyone to lash them with blame and questions; they were already doing it to themselves. As Klebold walks through the devastating days, weeks, months, and years following the atrocities her son committed, among them his own suicide, I found kinship with her in her grief, fear, anger, and even self-loathing.
One of the unfortunate byproducts of our society’s pedestalization of motherhood is that it creates an environment where a woman’s identity is closely wrapped around her children. Even childless women will attest to the close coupling of womanhood and motherhood in our society, as they are frequently admonished by friends, family members, and strangers to make babies post haste, as well as lectured about the joys of having children. Fortunately, Sue had a career she loved and identified with, as well as hobbies like art and journaling that allowed other parts of herself to support the part that was, in a real sense, destroyed on April 20th, 1999. Her honesty in describing the depths of this trauma left me breathless. Klebold deftly walks a tightrope in describing the way her son’s actions affected her while always keeping the pain of Dylan and Eric’s victims and their families front and center.
One of the hardest lessons that I was fortunate/unfortunate to learn early in parenthood is that I do not have control of my child. Some parents think they do have control of their kids, but no one can ever really control another person. We can’t control their inner worlds, though we can do a great deal of damage to their psyches by trying to. In large part, I’ve parented in a similar way to the way my own parents parented. I also drew on my knowledge from my teaching career to use pro-social methods to get kids to comply, and I’ve always tried hard not to be too rigid about the “small stuff” as my kids grow. Perhaps because my children don’t share my DNA, or perhaps because of a mixture of various factors, my results so far have been poles apart from my parents.
I’m sure if I told you my specific parenting difficulties, you’d have all kinds of parenting advice for me. I bet if I outlined a specific incident, you’d have all kinds of suggestions for me to try. Reader, please believe me when I say I’ve read the books. I’ve sat in innumerable therapy sessions both with and without my kids discussing these topics. I have probably put enough hours into learning the best methods for parenting my kids that I could have earned a graduate degree in the subject. The fact is, no matter how badly we want to be able to mold our kids into the human beings we’d like them to be, we cannot. They are their own people with their own neurology and their own needs. They have their own temperaments, anxieties and fears, and we can’t control any of that. Furthermore, we can’t control their past trauma experiences any more than we can control the epigenetics that caused family trauma to be passed on to them.
I am using all of the resources at my disposal to help my kids succeed, but I understand my best might not be good enough. My kids’ lives are theirs to live, not mine. My job isn’t to mold them into something wonderful, it’s to support them as they figure out how to navigate this world in their own bodies and lives.
Though we are adults who might be able to develop enough self awareness through a great deal of therapy and self reflection to alter some of our responses, parents will not always get it right. We will sometimes revert to harmful patterns we’re trying to break out of. We will sometimes get angry or yell when what our kids need is softness. We will sometimes ignore a behavior that would be better addressed, or address a behavior that would be better ignored.
Sue Klebold sounds like a more patient, intentional mother than I inherently am. I have a tendency to yell, and her personality is softer. Her kids also were generally polite, successful people, besides the obvious notable exception. I’m betting that nine out of ten parents would have done either a similar or worse job of raising Dylan, which means any one of us could be in Sue’s unenviable position.
Why are we so reluctant to admit this? In spite of all this knowledge, we tut at mothers of children who are tantruming in the aisles of the store. We instantly blame parents in the comment sections of any news stories involving the misdeeds of a minor. We are thrilled at the opportunity to distance ourselves from the possibility that those whose kids have turned out great had a whole lot of luck on their side, that those who still have kids at home might not know as much as they think they do about the people who live under their own roofs.
None of us want to admit that we are all one mental health (or as Sue says, brain health) crisis, one traumatic event, one injury, one job loss away from behavior that, at this moment, seems unthinkable. But by distancing ourselves from the potential for violence, we increase the possibility that it will happen in our family or in our inner circle. That distance allows us to ignore important signals, to believe our loved ones, as Sue did, when they tell us, “It’s okay, I don’t need help. I’ll be fine.”
If the potential for violence against self or others is present for us, then we have the urgency of pressing further. We have the awareness of being able to monitor when we ourselves need extra help, be it through mental health professionals, medication, or other therapies or interventions. We have the strength of position of saying, “I can tell something is off and I really hope you’ll talk to me or a professional about it” when a loved one is clearly having a hard time. We have the tools to find expert help for ourselves as parents when our kids and teens refuse to get the help we can see they need. When we are willing to look at the possibility that all of us and all of our children could be violent, suicidal, or both, we have the power to take preventative steps in our families and homes.
There isn’t a magic bullet for preventing mass shootings or any other kind of violence. While Klebold’s book centers on mental health, or as she calls it, brain health, she also discusses the problems with stigma around violent crimes and mental health. She says, “We must arrive at a way to discuss the intersection between brain health and violence in an open and non judgmental manner, and we cannot do that without first talking about stigma.” While people with mental health diagnoses are more likely to be victims than perpetrators, and finding out someone has a mental health disorder is certainly not a good reason to assume they will be violent or destructive, I think we can all acknowledge that when someone chooses either violence or suicide, that person was probably lacking some kind of needed support.
I’m sure there is legislation that can help with access to mental health services, support for families and people who are struggling, and gun regulation, but I don’t have the power to pass any of that legislation myself. I do have the power to pay close attention to my kids and their mental health needs and reach out to professionals when I need to. I have the power to stay compassionately connected to my close friends and family, and normalize and encourage mental health interventions when needed. I can go to therapy myself so I have awareness of the ways my own traumas and anxieties affect my functioning. I have the power to show compassion and non-judgement to other parents, especially in public settings. Klebold notes that “The person most likely to suffer from a destructive impulse is usually the one who has it.” De-stigmatizing mental health disorders and mental health care are measures we should be taking to protect all of our kids, families, and selves from harm.
Sue Klebold argues that although there are big things that could be done to help stem the tide of violent acts, there are small things that can be done today, by regular people, that can make a difference also. Human beings are wired for connection with others, but sometimes feelings of worthlessness or a sense of being a burden to others creeps in and robs us of our sense of connectedness to those we love, leaving us vulnerable to our own despairing impulses. The message of Sue’s story, the message of her life, is that none of us are immune from those feelings. None of us are immune to violence that can sometimes be paired with them either, but it is through connection, not criticism, that we put the pieces back together and work to build a kinder world.
