Shafia Trial & Experiementing with Your Kids

There is an article in the Toronto Star online edition from yesterday about a woman who purposely chose not to write about what sex her baby was online as a test to see if she could do it. She claims that she has been raising her child in a "gender-rich" environment, where there were toys for both boys and girls to play with at any time. While I don't see the point of experimenting with children in this way, at least this parent isn't as bad as the idiots that were portrayed in the Star back in May who are raising their child, named Storm, genderless.

The world is already a place filled with so many prejudices based on sex and sexual identity and these nimrods decide to screw up a child from birth with regards to their sexual identity? If this isn't a case of moronic idealists basically ruining their own kid's childhood, then I don't know what is. It's alright to have your own ideas about sex and sexuality. Not everyone is going to agree with your opinions and even fewer will try to change your opinions to match theirs. In my view, by not giving a child a definitive view of what it is to be male and female is one of the biggest issues we are fighting right now as a society.

Over the last 25-30 years, we have seen gender roles change significantly in Western Society. So much so in fact, that many new immigrants to the West still suffer from "culture shock" because they simply are not accustomed to seeing women in roles that are traditionally those of men in whatever part of the world they may come from. These changes can also be seen in the pre-teens who are currently in grade school and about to move on to high school. They are being subjected to a multi-media barrage of what it means to be a man in today's world and the ever changing role of women in North America to the point where many are more confused than any other kids of past generations.

I'm concerned for kids that are being subjected to this kind of an environment in their formative years because we are already seeing the damage our mixed messages to the current generation of kids (with regards to gender roles at least) has been doing to their development both physically and intellectually.

I really think that experimenting with your kids and how you raise them is just plain wrong. I'm shocked that Children's Aid hasn't intervened on the basis that these kids are being raised in an unfit environment but considering some of the things they are busy dealing with, I can understand their failure to act.

And now on to the case of yet another great parent. This time we are talking about the father and mother (as well as the brother) killing their children (and his other wife while they were at it). The Shafia trial held closing arguments yesterday after a bomb threat (I would love to speculate as to who sent in a bomb threat but let's just move on).

Suffice it to say that after hearing closing arguments, the flimsy defense of the 3 accused was made to look paper thin. The images of the damaged cars (in the same sections that it would take to have one car push the other), the computer histories showing that either the father or brother (or both) had looked up things such as "how to get away with murder" and "best places to dump bodies", as well as "large bodies of water in Canada" points a pretty good circumstantial case. Then there were the wiretaps which caught the patriarch of the family saying that he was glad the deed was done and that if they were to come back from the dead he would kill them again and again.

Then there was the fact that the brother's cell phone was triangulated to be in the area of where the 3 girls and the first wife were found dead. On top of all of that, the father and brother admit they were there and have a different story of events, saying that it was an accident. The mother also said she was there but later recanted. A confusing defense that left many who watched this trial scratching their heads and wondering what their exact strategy actually was.

If I were on this jury, given the sheer volume and depth of evidence, as well as the clear and apparent motive that the father had to get rid of 2 trouble making "westernized" daughters who had already gone to the authorities once about their mistreatment, a 3rd daughter who was following along in their footsteps, and a first wife who was bound to leak out the truth about their polygamous marriage, I think it would take all of 5 minutes to return a verdict of Guilty of 1st degree murder. And I don't see how it's possible that the 7 women, 5 man jury returns anything other then the same.