Parenting And The California Mass Murder

Lost in all the media frenzy about the California mass stabbing/ shooting is an important message about parenting. Kids today grow up believing that they are God’s gift to planet Earth and that they can do nothing wrong. All over America, parents are spoiling their children and telling them that the world is their oyster.

I don’t want to single out Elliott Rodger’s parents in particular — millions of parents are raising their children in the exact same way that the Rodgers raised Elliott — but there is no question that parenting style contributed to this massacre.

Elliott Rodger is a worst-case scenario of what modern parenting can lead to. His parents coddled him, giving him money and a BMW and sending him off to a beautiful college on the beach. Instead of helping him, these gifts just made him weaker and less equipped for the real world. He complained about how the world wasn’t “fair” and how he was “forced to suffer”. Eventually he decided to take out his anger through violence.

Yes, Elliott also suffered from serious mental illness. But the “treatment” that he received for his psychological problems just re-enforced his self-regard. He spent years talking to therapists about his problems, even seeing multiple therapists at a time. In the end, all of the “experts” were powerless to stop him.

The ultimate responsibility for the deaths of six innocent people lies with Elliott himself. But his parents also deserve a lot of the blame. Maybe what Elliot needed was more discipline and less pampering.