F2F Class Notes February 27th (Ben) [3] [W]

Edited version

Last December I heard about a tragedy that happened in some rural area in the northern part of China. A female body was found buried in a backyard of a house. The victim was a single mother who lived in the house and the murderer was her 17-year-old son. Their neighbors told journalists upfront: the son was overprotected by his mother and kept locked in the house for a couple years. His mother turned down all the visit attempts from local social institutions, without giving an accurate reason for that. She just refused to be together with her neighbors, not even trying to speak in a roundabout way to keep up appearances. Her son was sheltered from and clueless about the outside world and was so desperate that he wanted to escape. He didn’t want his life to be dysfunctional, so this tragic thing happened.

Learning to be a parent is something that takes decades. I think the first thing we need to understand is that a child is an independent person, rather than an extension of a parent’s life, so we should let nature take its course, respect our children and let them choose their own lives.

Upgraded version

Last December, I heard about a tragedy that had taken place in some remote rural area in the northern part of China. A female body was found buried in the backyard of a house.

The victim was a single mother who lived there and the murderer turned out to be her own 17-year-old son.

Their neighbors told journalists upfront the son had been kept locked in the house by his overprotective and overbearing mother for several years.

His mother had turned down all the visit attempts from local social institutions without so much as a valid reason for that. She would just refuse to spend any time with any of her neighbors and wouldn’t even try to keep up appearances or speak in a roundabout way about her offspring.

Her son was kept secluded and [kept] clueless about the outside world and had grown so desperate that he ended up snapping and taking his mother’s life.

This tragedy probably stemmed from him being so utterly and dysfunctionally hopeless.

Parenting is something that takes decades to learn. I think the first thing we need to accept is that a child is an individual person and not just an extension of grown-ups.

So I believe we should let nature take its course, respect our children and let them choose their own lives for themselves.

He totally ignored me. He didn’t so much as say hello to me.

would = can be used to describe repetition in the past

As a child, I would spend lots of time playing with my neighbors. I would go to school and I would work hard.