Cruelty!

Over the last week several cases of cruelty to babies have been reported.
It’s impossible to read these accounts without being horrified.
A baby, a defenceless infant can have caused no harm to anyone. But they are not able to tell anyone.
To inflict pain on anyone or anything is totally inexplicable to the rest of us.
A defenceless child or animal seems to be targeted by those who get some satisfaction from causing pain.
I am reminded of a boy in my class when I first started teaching. He was eleven and had been found torturing several poor innocent creatures whilst he was still only about eight.
He was adopted and his new parents were very worried about him. They knew some of his history and hoped that by giving him a new home he would turn the corner and respond to being loved by his new parents .
They came to talk to me in confidence during the child’s first year in secondary school. He was bright and learned easily but he did find it hard to make friends with the other children in the class.
All went fairly well until the day I found him cutting off the legs of the growing tadpoles. I didn’t know whether to tell his parents...but in the end I did.
I kept my eye on him, worried in case he might move on to something else.
As he moved on through the school I followed his progress...
I have no idea what happened to him. He left and I never saw him again. But I worried about him. For years I wondered if he was able to live a normal life.
And indeed whether he was able to live a happy life , get married, have children and leave his destructive start in life behind him.
Now, whenever I read some of the dreadful stories of cruelty to children and animals I wonder....what starts these people on their paths through life?
Is it always in response to what at some stage was done to them?
I leave this thought behind me now. It’s just too painful to consider what man can do to man...
Sorry blog readers...I’ll go back to being jolly tomorrow!


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