I’m of the opinion that a lot (not all) of the violence we see, be it bullying or gun related, is caused by bad parenting or just lack of any parenting. I’m not talking about terrorist related incidents, but shootings or bullying by people born and raised in this country. With the break down of the family structure things just continue to get worse. Too many parents don’t take the time or don’t care about raising their children. Add that to the attitude that nobody is responsible for their actions because what ever the situation that happens, its always someone elses fault. How will America straighten this mess out.
Your assertion is like saying the obesity epidemic isn’t the result of overeating, but bad parenting.
Maybe this is true, but you’re still only identifying a proximate cause. What’s causing bad parenting? Is it bad parenting all the way down? Or do you eventually have to look at society’s role in all of this?
We’ve had bad parenting since the beginning of time. There’s no evidence that parenting is worse now than it was a generation ago, but there is evidence that it has gotten better.
I agree with Monstro.
And while I don’t think you can point to any one thing, if you could, I’d go with poverty as a more likely cause.
I wonder if Adam and Eve were bad parents? 
Total bull shit! Some people are just born assholes. And no amount of good parenting is going to change that.
There’s less violence than there used to be, not more.
Granted. And there are some people born so good they could have a hellish upbringing and still be saintly adults.
Both groups are a tiny minority at the ends of the bell curve. For the vast majority in the middle upbringing matters. For many of them it matters significantly.
If you doubt that you’re saying in effect that culture doesn’t matter. You’re saying that for purposes of causing or preventing societal violence a generic typical middle-American upbringing is effectively identical to a generic typical middle-Afghan upbringing is effectively identical to a generic typical middle-Chinese upbringing is effectively identical to a generic typical middle-Swedish upbringing.
Which is silly on its face. People can do a *lot *to improve, or unimprove, their kids. As to violence, and as to lots of other facets of personality and of pro- or anti-social behavior.
How that’s changing over time in the US is a different question than whether upbringing matters at all. It does.
Seriously? I’m 57 and I’ve seen shitty, damaged parents have successful, grounded kids and giving, loving, caring parents have the worse shits imaginable. Having a stable, non-impoverished home certainly gives you a leg up on positive outcomes, but the way an individual’s personality is bent genetically is a huge factor as well.
The " time" to raise children is largely a function of the free time parents have. In a society like the US where a two worker household is generally necessary for a baseline middle class existence where is that pool of child oversight time supposed to come from?
The big debate over parenting that I’m seeing a lot of lately, is the debate over how “helicopter parenting” has messed up the generation of children that are now in their 20’s-30’s or so. The argument is that helicopter parenting has produced a generation of young adults who can’t function independently of Mommy and Daddy. But I don’t see much mention of bullying and violence as a result of that. Just indefinite infantilization of all those kids.
ETA: Link to an example of an interview on the subject:
How ‘helicopter parenting’ is ruining America’s children
My b.i.l. is a sweetie, one of the nicest, sanest, cleverest, kindest, most saintly people in the world. His brother was a drugged-out, larcenous, swilling, thieving, lazy git who had two children out of wedlock.
Same parents!