  This is a startling article from today's NYT. I don't know how right it was, but I, too, defaulted to holding the parents of the Columbine shooters at least partly responsible for the boys' acts.
I was shocked to read that Dylan's father worked from home and spent lots of one on one time with him. He sounds like an attached parent, but then Dylan's mom says she didn't realize how hopeless Dylan was about life. My cousin, Shannon, once said (during a conversation about our two homes, both under 1000 square feet) that those boys couldn't have hidden guns and bombs from their folks if they hadn't lived in gigantic suburb houses.
I've since wondered just how big their houses really were. In his Academy Award-winning documentary, Michael Moore linked the boys' violent actions to the town's livelihood: a Lockheed Martin bomb and missile factory. He also points out the violent war America was involved in then, the week the boys killed themselves and their classmates also saw the highest number of casualties in Kosovo. The article correctly labels the parents as additional victims of their son's actions. It also gives the parents a safe forum to espouse their message: this could happen to anyone.
urlLink The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Columbine: Parents of a Killer : "After I wrote a column a few weeks ago about the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, I got e-mail from Tom Klebold, the father of Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters. Tom objected to the column, but the striking thing about his note was that while acknowledging the horrible crime his son had committed, Tom was still fiercely loyal toward him.
Which prompts this question: If your child commits a crime like that, what do you do with the rest of your life? " 
