General News Adam Lanza's father breaks his silence

My heart goes out to this man. The pain and burden he carries is obviously immense and he's a middle-aged professional man who has to go out there daily and interact with the public. He is honest about his thoughts. When it comes to children with problems, a lot of families want to sweep things under the rug for the sake of appearances. He talks about this troubling situation.

Adam Lanza's father: I wish he had never been born - TODAY.com

The entire event could have almost put one in a state of disbelief. However, reading this article can wake someone up, especially with his candor.

 

Clarification: Of course, my initial thoughts of sympathy and compassion went out to the families and friends of those who were killed in the shooting in Connecticut and I was saddened to see these kids' lives senselessly cut short and that those who were educators and administrators in that setting were also victims.

However, all of these perpetrator's have parents, siblings, and cousins who will go on to hear "Aren't you (so and so's) father / mother / sister / cousin?" for their entire lives. Some will be judgmental of them, as if they were an oddity of sorts or provided the DNA, while others may be empathetic. This is the pain and burden they carry. Like Peter Lanza says 'I wish he'd never been born,' as if to say, 'That would have prevented this tragedy from happening.'

 

I think he meant it as being able to take back that event, almost as in a "take back that night" slogan sort of way which is used among women rallying against sexual violence. I don't think he felt that before this occurred. He knew his kid was troubled and I think he knew his kid was prone to odd behavior, and he probably just wished that his ex-wife was able to handle the situation and that Adam would get better, or at least manage. I don't think he thought it could have gone as far as it did. In some of these articles, there was mention that the mother, Nancy Lanza, sort of put a bandage on the situation instead of taking a long-term approach. She had to take it one day at a time, trying to manage that difficult situation, and no one knows whether that approach was working or if she should have proceeded differently. She was seeing behavior which had become stranger, according to accounts. Kids don't come with instruction sheets. She probably did the best she could do.

Maybe Peter Lanza will become an advocate for mental health. Maybe he won't. Perhaps he needs more time, given that he has just broken his silence. Becoming an advocate for a cause takes a certain kind of person and a calling. His expressing what he said, while it's not something most parents would say, was his trying to convey to the survivors that he is on their side and that, had Adam never been born, those people at Sandy Hook would still be going about the business of living.

For the parents of kids like the Columbine HS shooters, the Aurora CO theater shooter, and others like that, they have unwillingly been pulled out of private citizen status and thrust into the public eye for being linked to someone and something heinous. We can't even fathom the level of stress they deal with every day compared to, say, losing a job, losing a loved one, a financial setback, and other more "routine" mishaps.

I couldn't believe it as the story and all the background information was being released in increments on the news as they learned more.

 

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I think that Nancy got full custody of Adam and gave up her job as a stockbroker to be a full-time homemaker. They lived in Connecticut. The father, Peter, probably works somewhere in NY and there is an older brother, living in NJ, who either went with the father or is now an emancipated adult. I think Peter was definitely absent from Adam's life in the last few years, but we don't know what his level of involvement was like before that. However, Nancy did quit working, Peter made it financially possible for her to be a full-time mom in a nice area, and raising Adam was part of her new full-time endeavor. I'd bet the brother is fairly traumatized as well. His rendition of what it was like to grow up with Adam might be interesting. Again, they all deserve their privacy, and if they choose to come forward, it's their choice.