User Comments

frank sterle jr. January 15, 2024

When it comes to violent crime, the typically unaddressed elephant in the room is: why are some men so ‘evil’?


Unlike with female violent offenders, male offenders are promptly demonized by all three forms of media — entertainment, news and social — without any concern as to the likely trauma the men have suffered at some point, especially in their cerebrally formative years.

With men, they’re socially, albeit implicitly, expected to suck up their trauma as real men would/should. Then they turn to heavy self-medicating, which, if anything, exacerbates their suppressed trauma and untreated anger. And a vicious cycle can readily self-perpetuate.

Contrarily, with female offenders it’s like there’s an assumption that someone, likely a male relation, must have messed her up via serious abuse. They’re very much encouraged by the media to speak up/out about any abuse they suffered; they’re meant to promptly receive sympathy along with criminal justice against their abuser [nowadays without any critical eye as to possible fabrication]. ...

There remains a subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mentality, one in which many young males will choose to abstain from ‘complaining’ about their turmoil, even sexual victimization, as that is what ‘real men’ do.

A similar mindset also persists, albeit perhaps subconsciously: Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men. It could be the same mindset that might help explain why the author of Childhood Disrupted was only able to include one male among its six interviewed subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized males willing to formally tell his own story of traumatic childhood adversity.

Again, those men will be expected to suck up their trauma as real men would/should. They then may turn to self-medicating, which, if anything, exacerbates their suppressed trauma and untreated anger, etcetera. And the vicious cycle readily self-perpetuates.

frank sterle jr. January 15, 2024

I can’t help wondering how many instances there have been wherein long-term suffering by children might have been prevented had their parents received, as high school students, some crucial child development science education by way of mandatory curriculum.


Besides being very devoted and loving, being a competent and knowledgeable parent, especially about factual child-development science, more enables them to rear their children in a more psychologically healthy and functional manner.

In Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal, the author writes that “[even] well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development” (pg.24).

Yet, many people seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they [people] will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.

frank sterle jr. January 15, 2024

Meantime, people continue procreating regardless of their inability to parent their children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. And many seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they [people] will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture their children’s naturally developing minds and needs.


As liberal democracies, we cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, including the incompetent and reckless procreators. We can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-schoolers who plan to remain childless.

If nothing else, such child-development curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. Given what is at stake, should they not at least be equipped with such valuable science-based knowledge?

frank sterle jr. January 15, 2024

Unfortunately, much of the Western world is governed within a virtual corp-ocracy. Yet, none of the highly corporatized mainstream news-media, very much including the neo-liberal New York Times and Washington Post, dare describe it as such, thus so very little of society realizes it.


With our [Canada’s] corp-ocracy, it's enabling the biggest of businesses get unaccountably even bigger, defying the very spirit of government rules established to ensure healthy competition by limiting mass consolidation.

As it is, corporate lobbyists actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, supposedly to save the elected officials their own time. I believe the practice has become so systematic here that those who are aware of it (e.g. mainstream news-media political writers) don’t bother covering it.

Meanwhile, powerful business interests can, and sometimes do, debilitate our high-level elected officials through implicit or explicit threats to transfer or eliminate jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability, if corporate ‘requests’ aren’t accommodated.

It’s a political crippling that’s worsened by a blaring news-media that’s permitted to be naturally critical of incumbent governments, especially in regards to job and capital transfers and economic weakening.

frank sterle jr. November 27, 2022

@somanypups 

Even if the abuse is survived, resultant emotional and/or psychological trauma can nonetheless act as a starting point into a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammation-promoting stress hormones and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines. It is quite like a form of non-physical-impact brain damage.

The lasting emotional and/or psychological pain from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one's head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is treated with some form of medicating, either prescribed or illicit.

It has been described as a continuous, discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and simultaneously being scared of how badly you will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires. I myself endure such an emotionally tumultuous daily existence.

frank sterle jr. November 27, 2022

Over decades of news-media consumption I've noticed that, for example, when victims of sexual abuse are girls their gender is readily reported as such; but when they're boys they are typically referred to gender-neutrally as simply children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more atrocious than if male.

I've also noticed over many years of news-media consumption that, for example, when victims of sexual abuse are girls their gender is readily reported as such; but when they're boys they are typically referred to gender-neutrally as simply children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male.

Additionally, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’. Could it be that this is indicative of an already present gender bias held by the general news consumership, since news-media tend to sell us what we want or are willing to consume thus buy?

It's as though boys are somehow perceived as basically being little men, and men of course can take care of themselves. It could be the same mindset that may help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted only included one male among its six interviewed adult subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized men willing to formally tell his own story of childhood abuse.

frank sterle jr. September 12, 2021

@frank sterle jr. [Continued] ... Furthermore, I've noticed over many years of Canadian news-media consumption that when victims of abuse/assault, sexual or otherwise, are girls their gender is readily reported as such; however, when they're boys, they're usually referred to gender-neutrally as children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male. Also, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’.

I wonder: Does such lopsided gender referencing in hard-news coverage reveal the gender bias of the general news consumership (which includes me), since news-media tend to sell us what we want or are willing to consume?

frank sterle jr. September 12, 2021

Yes, female victims suffer immensely.  But there remains a mentality out there, albeit perhaps subconsciously: Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men. It is the mentality that might help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted was only able to include one man among its six interviewed adult subjects, there being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized men willing to formally tell his own story of childhood abuse. Could it be evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mindset? One in which so many men, even with anonymity, would prefer not to ‘complain’ to some stranger/author about his torturous childhood, as that is what ‘real men’ do? (I tried multiple times contacting the book's author via internet websites in regards to this unaddressed elephant-in-the-room matter but received no reply.) ....



frank sterle jr. September 12, 2021

@cat  Sadly, due to the common-enough mindset Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard, the apparently prevailing collective attitude, however implicit or subconscious, basically follows (while perhaps typically unspoken): ‘Why should I care — I’m soundly raising my kid?’ or ‘What’s in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support child development programs for the sake of others’ bad parenting?’

frank sterle jr. September 12, 2021

@shauna020473  The wellbeing of all children — and not just what other parents’ children might/will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — needs to be of importance to us all, regardless of how well our own developing children are doing. A mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right (up there with air/water/food), especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter.

frank sterle jr. September 12, 2021

It is difficult to not be angered by this! Trauma from unhindered toxic abuse, sexual or otherwise, typically results in the helpless child's brain improperly developing. If allowed to prolongedly continue, it can act as a starting point into a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines.


It has been described as a continuous, discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and simultaneously being scared of how badly you will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless treated with some form of medicating, prescribed or illicit.

frank sterle jr. August 29, 2021

After 34 years of news consumption, I've found that a disturbingly large number of categorized people, however precious their souls, can be considered thus treated as though disposable, even to an otherwise democratic nation. When they take note of this, tragically, they’re vulnerable to begin perceiving themselves as beings without value. I’ve observed this especially with indigenous-nation people living with substance abuse/addiction related to residential school trauma, including the indigenous children's unmarked graves in Canada.


While the inhuman(e) devaluation of such people is basically based on their race, it still reminds me of an external devaluation, albeit a subconscious one, of the daily civilian lives lost in protractedly devastating war zones and heavily armed sieges. They can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page in the First World’s daily news.
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“It has been said that if child abuse and neglect were to disappear today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual would shrink to the size of a pamphlet in two generations, and the prisons would empty. Or, as Bernie Siegel, MD, puts it, quite simply, after half a century of practicing medicine, ‘I have become convinced that our number-one public health problem is our childhood’.” (Childhood Disrupted, pg.228).