Has anyone considered they boy might have a dual personality???   Happened to a family I know. Two girls, both parents in the home, wonderful home, educated parents, educated girls.  One girl started ‘hearing voices’ hiding in her closet, buying stuff she didn’t need and never opening the package, disappearing for days, one day screaming at everyone the next day loving everyone. Scared one minute happy the next. The parents spent untold amounts of money over many years to get help for this girl via every avenue available.  She is not bi-polar, or ADD or ADHD.  Things have calmed down now and she is able to live on her own and she is now on disability as she cannot work with the problems she has.

vapidity be thy name randomfactor

wear it proudly

The Republican Manifesto, on the other hand, is "to each according to his daddy."

.

But do continue.  It will be entertaining to see how many vapid slogans you can parrot.

To each according to his need (and ability to fill out forms)

From each according to his "good luck in life's lottery"

That's the socialists credo

Last best articulated by Dickie Gephart I believe

No, a doctrinaire socialist says that we all benefit from government ownership of certain infrastructure components.    For some reason that seems to terrify some people.

Govt programs. Socialism. Someone else is to blame. Someone else can damn well fix it!

I say look to yourself first. Then family. Then Church. Then other support systems. Finally, Govt.

A doctrinaire socialist says just the opposite.

You're missing the main element of the blog post.  It is the intrinsic nature of people to blame others. I'm not going after the kid for his problems.  There is an immediate response for most people to find someone else to blame, rather than say 'what could I have done, or do in the future, to avoid this situation?"

Also, the folly of others in this society should be discussed and debated so that all of us see where problems may lie.

It is much like a catastrophic illness -- it won't happen to me. And that thinking is operative. Until it does.

Then your whole world changes. The  "it could never happen to me"  thinking goes bye bye and you either cowboy up to the sitrep at hand or fold like a cheap suitcase.

Same with kids. Its easy to castigate parents for their kids misbehavior -- until it happens to us.

Then and only then we become introspective.

I still remain a staunch conservative, however, so never fear. You can still hate me with impunity.

In the situation of this mother and in my experience, the situation of many parents I deal with daily, there is no accountability. I have yet to see this woman on the news acknowledge problems herself or assume that he may not want to call her. Rather she blames now her son's "mental illness" which at this point is undefined and is most likely depression or frustration.  The root cause of that in most people is experience, traumatic or otherwise.  She says he calls every four days or so. This family is not tight knit in the traditional sense of the word, he is clearly separated by the state from his mother and he voluntarily runs away repeatedly from his housing situations. This isn't a case for blaming mental illness or agencies. This is a case for speculation, which was invited when Ms. Robinson went to the news, as to why the kid ran away and where he is.

Most obvious speculation: He's not happy with his family, life and housing. Why? 

When I first saw the Mom on TV I was disgusted. Don't blame the system Mom, blame yourself.

Then I saw her again and adjusted my thinking somewhat. She had calmed down a bit as far as blaming public agencies, etc. and was emoting about the boy's mental illness.

I guess there's no way we can understand her feelings unless it has happened to us. It is easy to criticize the parents but sometimes you can have a kid that is just "out of control" and it may not be from nurture, rather it is a function of nature. Sometimes a kid can just be chemically unbalanced and of course drug use will only enhance this. Sometimes its the legal drugs kids are plied with to begin with more than ever nowdays.

While it is tempting to do (and you know I like shooting from the hip [lip] ), knee jerk condemnation of the parents is sometimes not appropriate. Just like her blanket condemnation of Probation and some of the other public agencies she claims "failed her son"...... Sometimes you have to walk that mile in the other's moccasins......

I'm just glad there are people in these public agencies with the patience to put up with other peoples kids whose "cheese has slid off their cracker......" (I couldn't do it, admittedly)

Missing child? Good little boy?

Fourteen in no "little boy." When I was fifteen and growing up in San Diego, my fourteen-year-old friend changed from being an all-American kid who had played Little League and Pop Warner to a criminal who broke into houses. He told me a year or two later - I had started racing motorcycles and didn't see him too often - that he might be going to "Y.A." Turns out that was California Youth Authority. He did two stretches in prison, first when he was eighteen (for two years), and the second when he was thirty-five (three and a half years). He sold drugs. He was murdered in the summer of 2006 while he was - you guessed it - back in the drug business.

This Gowan character doesn't need to be treated like a child. What he needs is the legal system's equivalent of having his butt kicked up between his shoulder blades. That's something he'll understand.

..."something traumatic"?  Yeah, those words ring weird, don't they?  What happened that was so traumatic?  No dad?  Mother gone bad?  He got molested?  WHAT?