Where Were the Parents?

By Amy Dickinson

As much as we've read and heard about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, we know very little about their family life. We know even less about their parents. But we do know that these two high school boys sent up flares advertising their anger and alienation, but these signs were either ignored or dismissed.

Since last Tuesday, an army of experts has marched through our living rooms to educate us on the signals our children send before they fly off the rails. Does your child show an unusual interest in guns? Is he a bully? Does he have violent fantasies? Does your child seem sad or depressed? If so, he may be in trouble, and a parent should intervene immediately. When I hear this I think: Well, duh. And I wonder: Where were these kids' parents?

Maybe Eric and Dylan suffered from some organic psychosis that even the most loving and attentive parents couldn't cure. Maybe the signs that seem so obvious to us now, in retrospect, were well obscured in the Harris and Klebold homes. Teenagers are good at hiding their true selves--or the selves they're trying out this month--behind the "grandma face" they wear when they're trotted out to see the relatives. Behind that pleasant mask there can be volumes of bad poetry, body piercings and tattoos.

But is it possible for parents to miss homicidal rage? I can't help asking: Where were the Harrises and Klebolds when their sons were watching Natural Born Killers over and over? Have the parents seen that movie? Have they ever played Doom and the other blood-soaked computer games that occupied their children? Did these "educated professionals" take a look at the hate-filled website their kids created?

Were the Harrises aware of the pipe-bomb factory that was in their two-car garage? The kid down the street was aware of it, and he's 10 years old.

So I wonder: Where the hell were the parents? And then, like most parents I know, I wonder: Where are the rest of us? Are we vigilant enough?

Most teenagers exist in a state of near constant mortification at the prospect of supervision by their parents. But surely a parent can risk his child's embarrassment, and his own discomfort, to get in his or her face a little bit. Surely we can manage to love them a little louder. To find the time to read their school papers, listen to their music, watch what they watch and get to know their friends. I have a memory of my mother, bless her, sitting at our dining-room table and reading the liner notes to Thick as a Brick the year my brother was 16 and deeply into Jethro Tull.

Every parent knows that raising children requires bicycle helmets, Beanie Babies, notebook paper, prayers, skill, the grace of God and plain dumb luck. But what many of us don't ever come to grips with is this: we must take responsibility for the world our children inhabit. We make the world for them. We give it to them. And if we fail them, they will break our hearts 10 different ways.

So far, the only people assuming any kind of recognizable parental responsibility for the shootings in Colorado are some of the parents of the victims. In his anguish, Michael Shoels, father of 18-year-old Isaiah, wonders aloud if there is anything he might have done to get between his son and the killers. But, no, Mr. Shoels, it's not your fault. You did your job. You knew him well. Your son knew that life isn't a video game. He was in the library working on a research paper when he was killed.

Dickinson is a new TIME contributor. She also writes a column for America Online