Read the link lavenderviolet provided in post #7.
Well, I can say at least he didn’t fuck and run–there is that. A more responsible young man wouldn’t have been messing with a 14 year old girl (and the 14 year old girl shouldn’t have been messing with him) or if they just couldn’t stop themselves, then he and she should have used protection. But that is to argue what should have been and it’s too late for that. I find it even harder to call someone by an incorrectly spelled type of wine, so I’ll stick with um, Breeze.
There remains the fact that this “man” went out onto a highway and lay under a blanket. This is not the behavior of a person with their head screwed on straight. There is no mention of him being high or under any influence, but no doubt the autopsy will show that. If he was indeed mentally ill, he must have been off his meds–a sign of a not so stable person. There is the other picture of him doing what I suppose is a gang symbol of sorts (no idea if that is a true symbol of such)–he may have been joking around. We’ll never know. He wasn’t joking around with the blanket and the highway. I’m left with why? What causes a boy to do such a thing? I come back to his being “altered” in some way, either through drugs or illness.
Just because he seems a caring father at present is/was no guarantee that he would remain that way. Sorry to be cynical, but at 5 months, the “honeymoon” phase of new parenthood has not palled as yet. He may well have been an exemplary father all his life–but I can’t get away from his behavior the night he died. Either he is not the wunderkid his family would have us believe or they are unaware of another side of his life (ie drugs/mental illness) and that seems very unlikely. Logically, I don’t see any other way round this. If that seems harsh and judgmental, so be it.
Breeze starts her life with several disadvantages. I can only hope that she does not emulate her mother, stays in school and does not have unprotected sex at such a young age.
I admit it, my first thought upon hearing about a near-adult laying in a busy street is “what an idiot”.
If that’s not your first thought: congratulations, you’re just one of the many, many people who are better than me.
My initial post in this thread was actually meant to express my irritation that the police were apparently acting as if the accident was solely the driver’s fault. If he hadn’t been driving without a license, all that would be different is that some other poor guy (with their paperwork in order) would have the death of a 16-year-old on their conscience.
“…still, when he got himself killed by dancing on a cliff ledge over a river of lava? What a dumbass.”
Technically, he was still 15 at the time of his death, as was she. Likely they were both 14 at the time of conception. How “responsible” do you expect two 14 year olds to be?
How do you know they didn’t? They were 14 – maybe they tried, but they didn’t know how to use it right and it failed. Birth control, including condoms, does have a failure rate, even when used correctly.
We don’t know that. The article says he went out in nothing but a blanket. You don’t know that he laid under it.
Maybe he wasn’t on any. Maybe he hadn’t been diagnosed. Maybe he was, but it wasn’t the optimum dosage to prevent a depressive act. Maybe he wasn’t mentally ill by a strict diagnostic measure, but he became incidentally despondent. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You have no idea.
Why is this even relevant to speculate about? The young man was doing the right thing by his child. He obviously snapped over something, and now his daughter will grow up without a father. It’s tragic. Period. Why the need to pass judgment?
Hah! That was pretty funny.
We differ as to the tragedy to some extent. I think that 2 14 year olds thinking they can handle sex and parenthood tragic. Presumably, since you are intent on coloring this boy in the best light possible, you don’t think that. Or do you? Are all teen parents automatically good parents because their relatives say so upon the sudden and accidental death of one of them? That doesn’t parse.
I think that if you cannot judge 2 14 year olds being sexually active–protected or not-- as not a good thing, there is something wrong with your critical thinking. The odds were way against them being stable, “good” parents. They still are. Even more so because of the rather spectacular death of Dad.
You say I have no idea about this or that, which I have said, repeatedly. But you have no idea, either–this guy could have been a complete fuck up. What family is going to admit that to the press? One picture of him blowing kisses to a baby does not a good father make. Weigh that pic against the getting the girl pregnant (or she may have entrapped him or maybe they both wanted a baby–and isn’t that messed up at 14?) and his behavior that night. He seems at best unstable to me–and that is another tragedy: that he perhaps didn’t get the help he needed or refused the help available or abused substances to such an extent his judgment was impaired. All of those are tragedies of a sort. You say he “snapped” over something–ok. But think about what you are saying. This young dad, whom you laud, snapped so badly over something that he ran out onto a highway, dressed only in a blanket. Does that strike you as a stable, good role model thing to do? It’s fucked up. It sounds to me like he had some poor judgment.
What is with the whitewash? Just because he died doesn’t mean he was this great tragic figure–he died in a bad, messy and unnecessary way. I speculated about mental illness/drugs because there seems no logical reason for him to be out on the highway in a blanket. I thought I read he was under the blanket in the second story–I’m not about to waste time rereading it. If that detail is wrong, it is wrong.
I have not demonized him as others have here. I think both Sincerely and he made some really, really bad choices–he most of all. It’s Breeze who pays for these choices–and I do pity her. How are these people heroic or good or worthy? Death doesn’t change what they did in life, it just ends his life.
To those of you labeling this guy’s actions ‘stupid’-- what do you even mean? Like, he didn’t understand that cars go on roads? There’s really no way you can cut this that doesn’t come out with the person in question having major issues or being under the influence of something, not just some lapse in judgement.
Didn’t you use to be cool?
If cool means joining in the lovefest for this brain donor, then no, I’m not cool anymore. That’s fine by me. I was raised with certain standards and certain basic facts, and the idea that some people are just hopeless shitheads. I’m not going to weep over it. The daughter is much, much better off without that guy as a father.
No, I mean you used to be a pretty level headed guy with interesting stories and things to say. Now you seem to be losing it, raging about everything from the Large Hadron Collider to some poor kid freaking out and killing himself. It’s too bad cause I think you’re basically a smart and decent person.
The Large Hadron Collider scared me to death because I didn’t really understand the science behind it and I let my imagination get carried away. I personally still think the money would be better spent for other things, but a lot of detailed and knowledgeable explanation allayed some of my fears about it being a doomsday device.
OK, you know what, I just read some more about the case, and I guess I can’t keep being so callous about this. As superficial as it sounds, when I read that the guy was a rugby player, it just made it seem more personal for me because I used to play rugby. I guess I saw him more as a human and less as an object. What can I say. I still think the guy was an idiot, both for having a kid at 15 and for doing what he did. But you’re right, it’s sad.
The older you get the less difference there appears to be between a six year old and a sixteen year old.
It is very possible for a person to be depressed and for her or his family to be unaware of it. That’s why some suicides come as such a surprise.
A person can be a wonderful human being and still struggle against mental illness. My father had trouble with depression and anxiety. Sometimes it was so bad that he could hardly walk. But he still worked over seventy hours a week.
It isn’t “harsh” or “judgmental” to suggest that he might have been mentally ill. If that was the reason for his impulse to lie in the road, then it would be harsh to blame him for his own illness. If the impulse was brought about because he was high on drugs, then he actually did something to contribute to his impaired thinking. (Having a mental illness is not a disgrace, but it is taking a while for the ignorant to grasp that.)
But nothing under the sun will make me think that anyone’s fate is set in stone by the time he is sixteen. He hadn’t even fully begun to become himself yet.
That’s what I don’t get. Why are so many people getting their panties in a knot about this kid? How does it affect the life of anyone in this thread–enough, anyway, to justify all the vitriol?
Why can’t we just accept that the whole thing–from the sex up to and including the highway incident, and everything that came between and a lot of stuff that comes after–is tragic and move on without getting all high and mighty about how much better we are than those kids?
You must be new here.
[Checks post count]
Huh.
I’m not getting hot under the collar about either of these two guys (not forgetting the driver with 21 aliases). I don’t think the genetic pool has suffered much loss with the death of the victim- or the possible incarceration of the driver.
Well, the victim has already had a contribution to the genetic pool. Guess that makes her worthless trash, too. Let’s sterilize her so we can finally break the maddening cycle of worthlessness that plagues our beautiful planet.
Who is high and mighty? Where do you all read this stuff? I accept the sex, the bad judgement, the death just fine–I don’t approve of the sex, the judgement and the death was a sure thing, given the circumstances. There is no vitriol (don’t conflate posts–I’m not “with” Argent Towers on this). I just think that here are two of not the brightest kids who made some really poor choices and now there is one left to raise a child under less than good (forget ideal–and we can argue what ideal is forever) circumstances.
I don’t get why I’m supposed to grieve for this boy or his daughter or his GF. Seems to me they’re stuck in a downward spiral of shit. The circs that led to all this strike me as more tragic than the sudden (and avoidable) death of this boy.
I missed the edit window, sorry.
Zoe–perhaps I am misinterpreting your post, but please–I know how “good of people” the mentally ill can be. I know that. They are not their disease anymore than a cancer victim is theirs. I get it.
His being mentally ill would explain his behavior, but doesn’t erase his bad choices (the pregnancy, the extreme reaction). I can see a scenario where he suddenly became mentally ill and flew to his death, I suppose, but what are the odds? I’m not saying it didn’t happen that way; it may well have. Who knows? I’m not glad he’s dead. I am sorry these two had a kid–not the kid’s fault and I hope she has a better life than her dad…
If some of you want to lump me in the uncaring, vitriolic camp (whomever that may be), go ahead. I don’t see any reason to be sentimental about this boy’s death or life. He was young and made bad choices for whatever reason. He deserved to live longer (but I can’t say he didn’t deserve to die because if a pedestrian goes up against cars, cars win). I don’t see his death as a tragedy–I see his life as one. I wish we could find a way to show kids that staying in school is truly that important, that they need to value themselves enough to live for more than today, that they don’t need to cram all of life into ages 13-19. Obviously, YMMV.
My new favorite term!