Background & General Summary
I’m sure most of us are familiar with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold: the perpetrators of the 1999 massacre that took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. This book is written by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan. In it she discusses Dylan’s upbringing and reflects on how the events of April 20th, 1999, could have happened.
What surprised me the most was how normal an upbringing Dylan had and how normal a teenager he seemed to be: no more or less an angsty and emotionally volatile person one would expect a teenager to be. She discusses how she missed the signs of his depression, and how in retrospect, when going through his journals after his death, she didn’t realize just how suicidal he was, having wanted to die for at least two years prior to that fateful day.
Sue has managed to humanize Dylan, and I think she’s successfully answered the question “how could you as a parent not have known?”. This was a sentiment I’ve echoed ever since the incident took place. I remember the reports of pipe bombs and guns being present in the house, and how the parents were unaware of them being there. I think this is still a valid criticism, something she acknowledged not being as vigilant about checking his room as she wished. However, they did indeed check his room consistently at a time close to the eventual 4/20 date. This was due to a recent run-in with the law after Eric and Dylan had broken into a car. So, I kind of agree that that was not the issue.
Discussion
I think the issue points more to just how secretive teens can be. We’ve all been teenagers at one point. And I remember being able to successfully hide quite a few major things from my parents. I’m sure you’ve done the same. Indeed, it was often a bragging point among friends how much they were able to get away with, all the while maintaining a sort of “innocence” of a good kid among their elders.
The scariest part of the book is just how easy it is to miss the signs of the declining mental and emotional state of your kid, or of anyone really. And that given the right conditions, anyone is capable of evil. It reminds me of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiments, or Milgram’s experiments, both of which demonstrated how evil can possess any of us given the right conditions.
In the aftermath of this tragedy, Sue employs a more analytical strategy to understand it; seeking out literature on mental health, speaking with experts about suicidality and homicide, and joining suicide support groups to both make a difference and understand where things could have gone wrong. Although sympathetic to these approaches, I stop short of many of her solutions, which amount to hypervigilant monitoring of youth in schools, where even their writings for assignments are under heavy scrutiny for signs of malevolence and psychological instability.
I think there’s a mistake in modern mental health, in that there’s a tendency to over pathologize normal human behavior. This has grown to such a point that it’s rare to find a Gen Zer who hasn’t been given a formal diagnosis of some DSM category.
I agree with Sue in that Eric was likely the catalyst Dylan needed to finally carry out his suicide. It just so happens it involved mass murder. Eric was a legit psychopath from the looks of his writings and racist website he’d put up. Dylan was more of a hopeless romantic with suicide ideation. Whereas Eric’s writings were centered around rape, revenge and disdain for certain groups and their inferiority. Dylan’s writings were more about longing for a crush he failed to pursue, feeling alone and helpless, and much less organized in his thought patterns.
Conclusion
One thing that stuck with me is how the journal Sue would read from in the book, which contained entries she’d written in the aftermath of the shooting, Dylan had given to her as a gift for Christmas in 1998. Little did she know she’d be using it to pour her heart into with entries reflecting on the terror her son had inflicted on others just four months later.
The book shows an often overlooked aspect of these types of tragedies; whereas we often (and rightfully) weep and empathize with the victims, the family of the perpetrator is often demonized, as if they themselves were responsible. Indeed, sometimes there is culpability due to irresponsible securing of firearms or even sometimes abuse, but that wasn’t the case here.
I’m reminded of the tragic film Rudderless featuring Billy Crudup, where his son is the perpetrator of a school shooting. It’s a great film and I highly recommend it. At the end, there’s a beautiful yet tragic insight into his son’s world when he plays one of his son’s more introspective songs for the crowd, and he just unapologetically accepts that yes, my son did a great, unspeakable evil, but I also lost him that day, and it’s taboo for me to publicly morn him in the way we morn his victims.
This is indeed an unenviable position to be in, because it comes off as insensitive to the victims. But as long as we demonize, we will fail to understand what has broken down in the hearts and minds of the perpetrators of such cases. Although I am sure, like Eric, there are true psychopaths among them, I’d argue it is likely more often the case that most perpetrators in this demographic suffer from a mixture of social contagion in regards to the chosen solution to a mental state that’s gone awry during a development stage we all experience where mental anguish is at its height.
I think Sue has been vulnerable and open about her experience. And it’s given me a different perspective on both the perpetrators of these sort of tragedies and the families they leave behind to endure all of the chaos and hurt they’ve caused.