My second son is a convicted felon, currently serving time in a North Carolina correctional facility. He was convicted on attempted murder charges as well as several other peripheral charges. And he is guilty, guilty, guilty. On all counts, without a single question in my mind. He got every bit of the sentencing he deserved and they are consectutive sentences, not concurrent. His release date is 2039.
When I found out what he did, I was in shock. I was stunned, reeling with disbelief that the child I had lovingly and carefully raised could have done something like this, but I did not think for a moment that he was being unjustly convicted. He wrote a full confession to me in a private letter that I shared with the District Attorney who was prosecuting his case. And I cried, I cried enough to make my own private ocean. I sought counselling for me, trying to deal with what my son did. I wrote him letters, angry letters, sad letters, letters stained with tear drops, loving letters, compassionate letters.
My son was not abused. He was not mistreated. He was educated as well as I could possibly have him educated. But my son had an ongoing love affair with a mistress that I couldn’t break him away from and that mistress was drugs. Any drugs, all drugs, as many drugs as he could get his hands on. He was cooked out of his mind when he committed the crimes that he is convicted of. This doesn’t lessen his guilt one tiny bit. It’s not an excuse for what he did, it’s just a fact. He was extremely high on crack cocaine when he tried to kill two people for more drug money.
What does this mother do now? She visits her son about once a month. She writes letters to him. She hugs him when she visits and tells him how much she loves him. She holds his hand, buys him a soda and some snacks to enjoy while we talk. But this mother does not think, not for a minute, that her son is in any way innocent. This mother also no longer thinks that it was anything she did or didn’t do in the raising of her son that caused him to be what he is or where he is. He made the choices that put him in prison and even if he is no longer making those decisions, he is still in prison and that’s where he should be. I love him. I will always love him. But I know who and what he is.
Damn CZPhoenix…that sucks. My heart goes out to you. I have two young boys (8 and 4) and I often wonder what they will become, and I worry about them making bad choices that could lead them down a path like what happened to your son.
It literally can happen to anyone, despite familial circumstances.
Yes, it sucks, but it is what happened. I used to blame myself, beat myself up emotionally over it. “What did I do wrong?” was my mantra. With a lot of help, I have learned that it is NOT my fault and it is NOT something or somethings that I did wrong. Even my felonious son has told me “Mom, I made these decisions. They were very bad decisions, but I made them all by myself. You raised me better than this and I am the one who let you down, the the other way around.”
This brings to mind the idiot mothers of the two thugs that tried to bash in Reginald Denny’s head with a brick, or a rock. They were on TV railing to the high heavens that either their sweet little boy didn’t do it or that he was a sweet little boy who would never do that.
I certainly can understand a parent standing by their kid when things go wrong. And that is admirable. But not to excuse the action. One person who did the right thing was David Kaczynski, who turned in his brother Ted.
Hopefully the two of you maintain a good relationship throughout all this and can one day embrace each other outside the walls of prison. I cannot imagine what you’re going through, and again, my heart goes out to you, and anyone else that’s been through something similar.
The thing is, that for the vast majority of people, they never come into contact with more than one such person, perhaps two.
No matter how much evidence is presented to you, if its someone close, it is not at all easy to attach the crime you’ve read about to the person smiling and talking to you.
How much harder is it for a parent?
We are all raised with so much decency that its quite a jolt and step outside your own world to realise that such criminals exist in a completely differant reality to you. These are often people who take every single norm of respect and decency and trade it for whatever they can gain, wether its power or money or just for a good time.
When you hear of police stating that the covering of human civilisation is only veneer thin, then you know you are talking with folk who deal with this sort of behaviour frequently, its hard to retain your own humanity when faced with such brutality.
My ex’s Mother will never believe what he has done. She just thinks he is a sweet and caring young man who has a bad temper. Nothing I or anyone can do will convince her of the truth about him. This is particularly bad because she helps him to rationalize, and encourages him to find the “right” people in his life who will not “cause” him to do the wrong things.
Of course, he hasn’t gone to prison yet, but I pray that some day he will.
Unless and until you find yourself in the position of being a parent, either mother or father, of someone who has completely stepped outside the bounds of what is normal and acceptable to the society we are living, you really don’t know how you are going to react. And I hope that it forever stays foreign territory to you. It is not a beautiful path, but a real struggle. Little things, like “Hey, how are the kids?” become a minefield to negotiate. It’s not a path I would have ever chosen, had I had a say about it. I was given no say. My son did the crime. The heinous crime. And since he made that choice, I have been navigating that minefield.
The thing to remember is that people are not just one thing. John Smith, the guy that murdered all those hitchhikers is also John Smith, the guy who worked in the supermarket, and John Smith, the guy who mowed his lawn every Sunday, and John Smith, the guy who liked to rent Three Stooges videos, and John Smith, the guy who used to fall asleep in study hall. John Smith was the sum of all of these parts.
But most people only heard about John Smith because he was arrested for murder and that overwhelms anything else they may have heard about him. To them, he’s just John Smith the murderer.
But his mother knew him all his life. To her, he’s John Smith, my son. And even though he’s been convicted of murder, that’s still the primary way she’s going to see him. She may acknowledge that he’s a murderer but she’ll still love him as a son.
This is something that I heartily agree with. My son is not JUST the committer of a heinous crime, he is also the kid that loved acting at Renaissance Faires and in Shakespearian plays, the young lad who scaled the bookcase because it was there, the boy who deeply mourned the passing of his older brother, the young man who wanted to be a chef and who could cook some of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. He was also the child who loved baseball and knew all the stats of every player on his favorite team, and the boy who sat motionless, watching dragonflies to see if they really did breathe fire. But, where I live, he is remember as that guy who nearly killed two people. They don’t know him. Not at all. And they never will. They can’t go back in time to see who he was any more than I can go back in time and stop him from doing what he did.
Many years ago through an organization I became friends with a guy who was rumored to have <ahem>family connections. I spent time with he & his family and friends within the organization. He was much older than I but took me under his wing and helped me learn to navigate my way around the organization. He was rumored to have a bad temper (although I personally never saw much of it) but was unfailingly loyal to “his” people. I knew he had a bad childhood, and thought he was a bit odd, but would have never considered what ended up happening.
A few years later, I learned he was going to prison for murder. What happened was heart-wrenching (the murder); he was the getaway driver and didn’t even learn about the murder until after the fact. However, rightly so, he was convicted as accessory. He has since died in prison. I never got to talk to him after I heard of the court case.
While I was surprised that it happened, when I heard the details of the case I wasn’t horribly surprised that he had been involved; of course, I wasn’t nearly as naive as I had been when I met him. However, I still respect the guy he was who took the time to befriend and mentor the young adult I had been.
CZPhoenix, I’m sorry you have to go through this, but you seem to be handling it very well. I can’t even imagine being in your shoes.
This post makes me so sad for you. And the fact that you had another son that died (presumably young) is just…man. How awful.
You do however seem to be dealing well with it, and if its any consolation, there’s an army of ears to listen/shoulders to cry on here on the Dope. I hope you stick around. Sometimes discussing life’s deepest issues with complete strangers can be quite cathartic, if for no other reason than to just let it all out.
Thank you. My eldest son was 16 when he passed away from complications to surgery related to an 18 month battle with bone cancer in his pelvis. That was in 1991, and yes, it still hurts, but not like it used to, or not as immediately as it used to, I should say. I remember the priestess at his memorial and her words “Alan’s battle is over. Alan won.” To this day, that is so true.
I try to live each day to it’s fullest capacity and have many things to keep me busy (including several grandchildren). I try not to dwell on any of the negatives for very long. But every once in a while, I come across a post that I feel led to respond to.
I really want everyone to know that most mothers of children who commit heinous crimes are not also monsters, didn’t all abuse their kids, etc. I want people to see me for who I am, not a misleading reflection of my son.
I called the cops on my brother knowing he would go to prison.
We visited him, we supported him, we loved him. When he got out, we helped him. We knew all of his problems, we knew what he was doing and we knew he needed help and we made sure that he got it. Unfortunately, jail is where he got it.
Now? He is 44. Married, father of 3 or 4 (He was given custody of my half sister.) He is renovating an old house, his children are homeschooled, he is one of the hardest working people you will ever meet and if I was to call him and tell him I needed him, he would be here before I finished this post.
The crimes aren’t usually the end, neither is jail. It is helping them get through all of it so when they come out, they can be happy and healthy. If I could write off my brother, I can’t imagine that I have much of a soul at all.
My child? Nope. But I do believe that some people should not be allowed to be in society and that the best course for them is prison or death. I sincerely hope that CZPhoenixs’ son comes out the other side ok. With his Mom standing beside him, it will make being ok easier, even though when he gets out, it will suck.
I am working to offset the common mindset that the parents of children who commit heinous crimes are, themselves, some kind of monster. I am sure that some are, but for the most part, we are just as confused by how it happened as everyone else.
I am a little confused about the ‘mother’ part of the question. I know that can be a special relationship but lots of other people behave the same way. I am a father of two young girls and I will be there for them no matter what the circumstances no holds barred.
I am divorced but I am still close with my ex-wife’s side of the family and we all do things together as a family. We had a birthday party for my daughter this weekend and my wife’s nephew showed up recently released from maximum security prison after two years because of good behavior. Everyone, even my parents were very supportive about it and nobody avoided the issue at all. He told us all about prison and being put in solitary confinement for a month at a time. Everyone listened, told him how great he looked and how proud they were that he was going to do much better and that was that. He is only 22 and has lived through a lot. That is what family’s do in my experience.