Pa. Teen Reported Seized; Parents Killed

Pa. Teen Reported Seized; Parents Killed


By MARTHA RAFFAELE, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago


LITITZ, Pa. - A 14-year-old girl was missing after her parents were shot to death in their home Sunday morning, and authorities were searching for her 18-year-old boyfriend, who reportedly abducted her at gunpoint.

Michael and Cathryn Borden, both 50, were found shot to death shortly after 8 a.m., Lititz Police Chief William Seace said.

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Sherman said the family knew the 18-year-old suspect, identified by police as David G. Ludwig, through a home-schooling network. He said he had occasionally seen the teen at the Bordens' home.

Stephanie Mannon, 16, said Ludwig and Kara Borden had been seeing each other secretly.

"Their parents didn't approve of them being together" because of the age difference, she said. "It wasn't because he was a shady character, because he wasn't."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051114/ap_on_re_us/parents_slain_abduction

Don't try to tell me these kids aren't missing an important part of socialization when their parents try to protect them form the outside world.

That's not why I posted this. But I do happen to agree with you.

I was alarmed by the comment I bolded. 'He didn't appear to be a shady character.' Now since when did murderers wear name tags? :)

A lot of these kids are very naive and wouldn't recognize a "shady character " if they saw one because their idea of a shady character is a black or other minority who lives in a big city far away from their bucolic world.

Betcha if you bothered to look at the stats, you'd see home-schooled kids aren't any more likely to murder people than private- or public-schooled children. Resist the urge to generalize from a single example, okay?

It'd be like bringing up all the examples of murderous children in the public school system and concluding therefrom that the public schools are designed to instill homicidal tendencies. Anyone want to revisit Kip Kinkel? Klebold & Harris? Others? Let's not go there.

but an awful lot of them lack the street smarts to know how to deal with things like parental rejection or peer rejection for that matter. Public schools have a lot of faults but they do at least teach you that there are a lot of folks in the world who don't think like you do and that you'd better find ways to deal with them.

Shit, wish they'd had that class when I was growing up. Wasn't even offered as an elective.

I'd like to see any data you have other than anecdotal evidence that indicates homeschooling leaves proportionally more children without the ability to "handle rejection" than the public school curricula.

I do have a cousin who is home schooling her kids and they have now reached the age where their hormones are beginning to flex their muscles. The oldest who is 16 or 17 has I think begun to ahve sex with his girlfriend and wants to marry the girl who is 14. He has no other experience with girls and is insanely jealous of this one, Why? He hasn't been around other kids enough to understand the give and take of social situations like dating. His younger sister (14 or 15) is going the rebellious route and sneaking off with some girlfriends to the mall and other dens of iniquity and meeting boys. She has confided to my granddaughter (age 21) that she thinks home schooling is "bullshit" (her words not mine) and that she is ready to leave home as soon as she can legally do so. Do you want my opinion as to which of them will be more prepared to deal with life as an adult? You just cannot shelter kids from the harsh realities of our society.

out to see her boyfriend.

And I raise you another high school student that is insanely jealous of his girlfriend and her other friends.

These skills are NOT taught in public school they are usually taught at home.

Yes, there are psychotic homeschooling parents/kids, just as there are psychotic public schooling parents/kids.

Please do not use a sample size of ONE family to judge all homeschoolers.

(from a former home schooling mom, who listens to lots of stories that her now public highschooling son tells her)

I really don't care who is doing the teaching, but intelligence is only earned through experience. A person teaching math, for example, can teach someone to regurgitate various tricks, but it doesn't mean that the person understands the logic behind it.

Same thing with people. You can preach values until your blue in the face, but a person will make their own decision based on their own experiences.

> The oldest who is 16 or 17 has I think begun to ahve sex with his
> girlfriend and wants to marry the girl who is 14

I knew kids in the public high school I attended who had sex with other underage kids, maybe got pregnant, and married at the earliest opportunity to their first "love". At the time this was considered to be one of the best public schools IN THE COUNTRY, academically anyway, and we still had teenagers jumping into early marriages.

> He has no other experience with girls and is insanely jealous of
> this one, Why?

Because that's how a lot of males are with their firsts. Duh. Public or home school, what's the difference? None. If she's smarter than him, she'll let him down easy and soon and he'll do some serious growing up. If not, well, it's not like their situation is unique.

> His younger sister (14 or 15) is going the rebellious route and
> sneaking off with some girlfriends to the mall and other dens of
> iniquity and meeting boys.

Sneaking off with friends to meet fuckbuddies? Oh the horror! That has never happened to anyone from a public school, right? You know for certain that her mallrat friends and the boys she meets are all 100% home schooled, too, of course.

Basically, what you're describing can happen in any disfunctional social system, be it a school or a home. One family's problems do not somehow besmirch the entire population of home-schoolers.

That's why I asked for something other than the anecdotes you've provided to make your case.

I home-school my children and they are two of the nicest children you would ever want to meet.

What excuse do you offer for the boy who shot three of the administrators of his Public School last week? To make this all about this kid being home-schooled is just ridiculous.

"an awful lot of them lack the street smarts to know how to deal with things like parental rejection or peer rejection for that matter."

I happen to know personally quite a few home schooled 'children' (although some of them are now in college and one I know is now in grad school, so 'children' no longer).

The home-schooled that I know have just as many 'street-smarts' as any other public/private educated kids I know (some perhaps even more - because they are often actually exposed to more).

Each child's education is unique, as is each child. Some kids ARE just more street-wise than others. You only have to look at a group in ANY school to see some are more naive, some are more savvy....they are all educated in the same place. So the difference must lie within the KID (not the educational experience itself).

I believe you are very unfairly painting home-schoolers with a very broad brush and using this ONE isolated incident to do it.

I wonder how many (if any) home-schoolers you KNOW personally.

a shady character and psycho to boot.

in the context that I hear it used to explain what home schooled kids are missing?
What in this great evolving society of ours, this recognized over achieving intellectual
cauldron of questioning and humanist ideals is the embodiment of public school socialization?

Are home school kids missing the exposure to drugs and military recruiters and gang ethos and so they won't fit in when it comes to really getting behind a war or
not being afraid to cave in to peer pressure and dummying down?

Please, PLEASE do not be afraid of those who are trying to improve society by falling for that age old human impulse of casting stones at those who do not behave as you think they should. The world is in a heap of shit right now and speaking for myself, I am doing everything I can to improve it.

If I am wrong I will be the first to admit it but so far I am so damn proud of my home schooled kids I can't stand it. I don't want them to be freaks or pansys any more than I want a DUer to judge prematurely.

It wouldn't be the first time this scenario has played out, Lifetime movie network has at least 3 of their crappy movies based on real life events that are very close to what happened in this story.

But it looks like the kid fooled the neighbors as well. They didn't think he was a shady character.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

good one :)