Like Sex, Hatred Can Be An Addiction

By FatherMag Admin on January 6, 2012 12:48 PM

At 16, I went into my girlfriend's home and I put a strong bolt on her bedroom door so she could lock herself in at night, and her dad out. You get the picture.

But times were different back then, and in some ways better.

I didn't call the cops. I wasn't about to let my passions overcome my good judgment just because he had.

In those days families didn't break up at the drop of a hat. Most families have problems, but back then folks stayed together and just dealt with it. I helped them deal with it by putting the lock on her door without asking anyone's permission.

Her dad and I didn't talk about the problem, but when he saw the new lock on her door and assured me that it really wasn't necessary, I just said she feels better this way. And that was that. Even though I was just an obnoxiously bold teenage boyfriend, her dad did not remove the lock I put in his house.

And even after I was gone, several years later I was impressed to see that lock was still there when I went back to visit.

My old high school girlfriend went on to graduate from an Ivy League university, her expensive education made possible by her father's continual hard work and support. Dads are an asset not to be discarded lightly.

But today I see families destroyed, with everyone indulging themselves, high on hatred. I see police and prosecutors and prisons and social workers and therapists and the news media all making the most for themselves out of every situation while claiming they are only doing it just to be helpful.

Right.

Surely what worked for my girlfriend won't work in every case. But people should have options. Many situations have options that are immensely better than the mandatory family destruction advocated by moral zealots on a hatred high. A last resort is by definition the last choice.

Yet a whole generation now, maybe two, have no other model of behavior. They don't seem to realize that hatred is a passion we indulge with great risk of damage.

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