As Boshemia mentioned in her “The Barbie Image” piece, one can’t help but notice that a fairly large amount of parents in our nation subscribe to the “see no evil” school of parenting – but I feel that’s just a symptom of being a “see no evil” society altogether.

The reason I’ve even got this subject on my mind is yesterday’s tragic news of another school shooting taking place, this time in Germany. The first thing that I found truly depressing was that it didn’t even make front-page news on three different big-name sites I checked. In fact, the things that Yahoo considered more important were celebrity plastic surgery stories, UFC fight news, American Idol videos, and talk about mall retail chains filing bankruptcy. Only by navigating three pages away to “Global News” could one ever hope to even find the article. So… when it happens here we care, but when it’s in Europe it doesn’t really matter? I’m sure someone we know who has a teenage daughter attending school in Germany was especially appalled by this.

Like she’s said – the solution to this is actually very simple. These nobody’s want to become somebody’s. They’ve seen those that have come before them make headlines across the world, and go down in the history books for their notoriety. We stop plastering their name and photo across the media, we stop making a media sensation of their past and every action, and we take away their motivation to become these anti-hero martyrs they see themselves as.

But that’s never the case, is it? Instead, we immediately jump all over the blame-game. Columbine was caused by a completely lame PC game called Doom, and the antics of Marilyn Manson. Virginia Tech was caused by an even lamer game called Counter Strike. They always immediately dig into the kid’s past, find out what all his hobbies and interests were, and pick out a few things to blame his actions on.

Instead of focusing on the victims themselves, and their families, and the lives they led before everything was stolen from them by some unstable teenager, we make a celebrity out of the one who did it, and because of this the cycle is never really going to end.

It was never the parents who didn’t notice that their kid had major sociopathic issues. It was never the fellow students who didn’t bother to come forward as the kid would talk about his plans to get more attention for himself. It was never the readily-available firearm in the house. Instead of taking action to find the real reasons for these tragedies and attempt to prevent it from happening again, we pick out something to blame, and then promptly forget about the whole thing a week later.

And the saddest part is, this is how we as a society handle everything. The people involved are never to blame, and nobody ever really has to take responsibility for their actions, do they?

I may not be able to speak on this subject as a parent, but I can as someone who was raised by a completely awesome parent. And I can speak as someone who is living proof that all these “horrible” things in the media have absolutely no bearing on whom you grow up to be.

I grew up with black metal, muscle cars, video games that were “realistic” for their time, obscene 90’s hip-hop, parents who smoked and occasionally drank, offensive television programming, friends who knew way too much for their age, and all the things that parents are constantly scrambling to shield their children from.

How did I turn out? I graduated with honors, have never been in a fight, have no dangerous vices (sans for my occasional cigar on a bad day), and have lived out my 20’s with a nice office job and all sorts of fun geeky hobbies that make life awesome.

I was never shielded or protected from the real things out there in the world. I was never forced to be all moral and pure, and was never chastised for the occasional obscenity. I was allowed to pursue my own interests, and encouraged to be my own person. And it’s because I had someone there all along explaining the real world to me, and treating me like an adult.

As Boshie has put it, parents aren’t raising children – they’re raising future adults, and they only have 18 years to do so.

How about instead of putting all our efforts into deciding what’s “wrong” and “bad” and needs to be eliminated before the children can find out about it, we instead focus on understanding why these things interest them? They’re probably smart enough to see that they’ve grown fond of something completely brainless, or perhaps there’s more to it than that.

For instance, why have I always had such a fondness for dark, angry, metal music? In my opinion, there’s actually a beauty to it that you can’t really see until you give it a chance. Unlike all the cookie-cutter pop-stars who clog the airwaves with catchy songs that were written for them, this is music has actual emotion and feeling behind it. Beyond all the screaming and percussion, you can find very pretty, well-written lyrics. Likewise, television programs like Family Guy and South Park certainly push the envelope as far as mature content goes, but there’s an underlying charm there – a sense of sarcasm and social satire that can’t be beat.

These things don’t corrupt teenagers, or magically brainwash them into gunning down their class. Of course though, it’s a quick, convenient answer for “Why?” And as a society we some to want nothing more than to get that answer as soon as possible and move on.

Perhaps you’re not even parents, much like me. Even when kids and teens aren’t involved, it often just boils down to personal beliefs. It could be your religion, it could be the morals and belief-system that you subscribe to, or whatever. I absolutely do not judge someone on their personal beliefs… until they’re being used to harm others or to take away from everyone else.

There will always be things out there that you don’t agree with. Back in “my day”, it was first the 90’s hip-hop craze, followed by the original violent video games, and so on. Today, it’s the obnoxious pop-star idols, and it’s somehow Barbie dolls again, and Twilight, and gamers always seem to be under fire too.

It will never be possible to just make these things go away. They sell, they appeal to many, many people, and they just create new trends. Stop and think about it though… instead of trying to pull a “see no evil” and get these things banned, and blame everything that goes wrong in the world on them, why not stop and see that they’re really not the problem?

We as people can believe in what we want, and people will always be apprehensive of those things that clash with their beliefs, and they’ll always be quick to judge those who are different. It’s just part of being people. Let’s accept that fact, and instead of blaming every last tragedy on differing opinions – be it the “other” political party, or different religions, or different beliefs, or things that just offend us – we instead stop and look at the people behind them?

Instead of quickly making a scapegoat out of something, instead of wanting to put the blame somewhere so we can just move on and forget, let’s instead focus on those who were the victims, and take actual steps towards preventing it from ever happening again. People can be the cause of, and solution to, just about anything. How about if we focus on them now?

InvoiceNin