But did you hear or read the comments from several of the adult children who forgive them and even want to be in contact? One daughter wanted a restraining order changed so she could communicate with them, there was an older son who spoke at the proceeding about forgiving them. It surprises me.
I listened to them on the news last night and the daughter who spoke was not shown, but sounded to be abiut 9 or 10, although I knew she was a legal adult. This article clarifies that she is 30.
It is natural to want to love and to be loved by one’s parents, no matter how horrible they are. I am so glad that contact has been cut off for 3 years so that these kids can see what normal life looks like before they again come into contact with these twisted, sick human beings.
For the adult children, the abuse and malnutrition has gone on for so long that they doubtless have neurological problems that cannot be fixed.
After Diane Downs’ daughter Christie testified in court that her mother shot her and her two siblings, she was asked if she loved her mother. She answered “yes.”
Their parents were all they knew for nearly all their existence—-how can they think independently of that existence in a little over a year? I’m sure there are Co-dependency issues.
Chaining kids for weeks at a time, starving them, throwing them down stairs—those are utterly horrific! All the kids were so malnourished they were a fraction of the weight normal healthy kids are is sure to have caused lasting damage.
The kids were chained because they stole candy and were eating too much sugar and caffeine, from what I read. The kids were only allowed to shower/bathe about once/year.
Were the parents given psychological testing? It really makes you wonder.
I don’t think there’s anything my mother could do to make me stop loving her. If she attacked me, shot me, etc., I would want her to be in jail, and might even decide to cut her out of my life, but I believe I would still love her.
I can tell you from personal experience that the bond is breakable. Once the children see how other parents treat their children, they’ll reconsider their love.
They have depended on their parents their whole lives. Their lives literally depended on them ”loving” their parents. If their parents caught wind of anything remotely like rebellion or that the kids didn’t “love” them, the kids would be beaten or starved or worse. They haven’t had enough time or space to process their experiences yet.
I agree that the poor children haven’t breathed free long enough to have any idea of what they do and don’t think and feel. They were kept totally dependent their whole lives and risked being beaten and starved and chained for any perceived infraction. That has to take a huge toll and make one very fearful.