The parents of the Michigan high school shooter have names, but I refuse to feed their infamy. Instead, I will solely refer to them as PFH1 and PFH2 – the acronym for Parent from Hell.
If ever you wanted a quintessential distillation of America on the decline, you need only read snippets of the love letter that PFH1 (mom) wrote to Trump three days after his election in 2016. If you can stomach some porn profanity, her self-description is quite instructive – “A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting fucked in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy” – but to truly take this lady’s measure, I recommend the passage where she analyzes the ’16 presidential debates:
“Hillary started speaking, I listened, I looked at her eyes, her permanent, unchanging smile, her ability to show no emotion and it was then, my heart sank, my mind became clear and I knew, absolutely knew that her intentions were not true. Her promises are false. Her voice has an evil cold…I knew in the deepest of my gut that I could not let this woman have control over my son’s future.”
Right, because it’s far better that the boy’s future be entrusted to a mom who colludes with PFH2 to gift him, at age 15, a Sig Sauer semiautomatic; a mom, who, upon learning that the boy had been caught in school searching for ammo info on his cellphone, duly texted her prodigy this heart-warming wisdom: “Lol. I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”
Let’s see, what other evidence have the prosecutors amassed: PFH1 spent a day with the boy testing their new toy (she’d written to Trump: “Thank you for allowing my right to bear arms”). She and PFH2 agreed that the gun didn’t need to be locked up at home. (The state of Michigan doesn’t require lockups.) And even though they were warned by the school – hours before the shootings – that the boy was writing crazy notes like “blood everywhere” and “the thoughts won’t stop, help me,” they didn’t pull the kid out of school, or even bother to determine whether he was carrying. Then, after the bloodbath was over, they left the kid to the tender mercies of the cops and skipped town to go on the lam.
In our society it’s a no-no to critique how other people raise their kids, but in this particular case, is it OK if I proffer the opinion that PH1 and PH2 pretty much suck at it? If dirtbags can keep their bad parenting behind closed doors, and not adversely impact the lives of fellow citizens, then fine. But here we have four other families grieving, for the rest of their lives, the violent deaths of their teenage children, so locking up the Parents from Hell is the least that should happen. What we should also do is contemplate how far we’ve fallen as a culture that such a horror could happen in the first place.
PH1, judging by her actions and her letter to Trump, is a poster lady for the virus that has sickened so many American minds. Her pathetic love of Trump is not the root of the problem (she tells him that he’s “one of the most successful Business Men in my history…I have NEVER had this much belief in one person, and you are it”), because, let’s be honest, tens of millions of Trump voters do not buy Sig Sauers for their kids. But her racism, ignorance, and paranoia are key symptoms of the rampant virus.
In her letter, she rants about how “illegal immigrant parents” are making things harder for “good fucking Americans” like her. She baselessly complains that “most of the parents are locked up. They don’t care about learning.” Let’s parse that one. Undocumented workers supposedly don’t care about their kids, supposedly “they” are wrecking this country, so therefore it’s cool for white parents to buy guns for their unbalanced kids and nurture bloodlust?
Some people in that suburban community apparently think it’s cool. The local sheriff said yesterday: “We’re inundated with threats right now. We (had) threats against the candlelight vigil last night. We’ve had threats against memorials, we had threats against individuals, deputies or law enforcement. It’s absolutely absurd that after a tragedy we see a huge spike in threats, but that’s what we’re seeing.” No surprise there. The way things are going in this country, if the Parents from Hell manage to beat the involuntary manslaughter charges, one of them will probably wind up in Congress.
Only four names belong in today’s column: Tate Myre, Madisyn Baldwin, Justin Shilling, and Hana St. Juliana. Those are the high school teens who were shot dead, casualties of a toxic culture that’s out of control.
I am beyond grateful for your tell-it-like-it-is op ed, Mr Polman. Parents From Hell, indeed, and their variety of deeply disordered, sociopathic, narcissistic, self-congratulatory, incapable-of-rational-and-humane “thinking” (a disservice to what true thought entails) is metastisizing. Neuroscientist Paul Maclean’s “triune brain” model suggests that every human’s thinking processes alternate between the “lower level”, fear-driven reptilian brain (the oldest, most primitive part of our brain’s structure); the mammalian brain (primarily emotion-driven); and the cerebral cortex (where our most sophisticated, higher level thinking happens). PFH1 & PFH2 might be able to organize words in a “coherent” fashion, but as for the thoughts driving their words, they seem to be operating from their “reptile brain” sector. Their idol, the object of their pitiful adulation–D J Trump (aka PFH– in this case, the acronym does double-duty for “President From Hell”)–operates almost exclusively from his own reptile brain. I’m not a religious person, but I have no problem saying “God help this country.” Thank you again for your always thoughtful, eloquent opinion pieces.
Trying to figure when the Idiocracy of America started but The Don definitely exposed it. Fear is a potent tool for those who think they are in power.