Monday, February 14, 2005

The challenge of parenting

There is a sobering article in today's New York Times about Christopher DiMeo, the young man accused in a string of jewelry store robbery/murders in the New York area. This passage was especially jarring:

Ms. Taylor and Christopher's father married, but their relationship was bitter and strained by drug and alcohol abuse, relatives said. Ms. Taylor taunted her husband by threatening to cheat on him while he committed petty thefts and started fights for sport, acquaintances said.

Scott DiMeo left when Christopher was a toddler, was arrested for armed robbery in Florida and saw little of his son. He drifted across the country and died in Iowa in 2002, said his mother, Ms. Cummings.

Ms. Taylor remarried, this time to a man who woke Christopher up at 4 a.m. to walk the family dogs, forced him to kill raccoons and sometimes beat him, said Barbara Jaklitsch, Ms. Taylor's mother.

Ms. Taylor continued using drugs and often lost track of her son. Ms. Cummings said she once visited to find Ms. Taylor strung out on drugs at home and 9-year-old Christopher fishing on a pier, alone.

I have no illusions about this kid and what he's done. He deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail. But that old saying that killers aren't born, they're made, seems sadly appropriate with regards to DiMeo.

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