I can see how Griffin seems to suggest
that a bad childhood created an
unemotional, psychotic monster, but I am
not willing to buy it totally. As a parent
myself, I think that children are individual
people, and you can influence them, but
you can't create them into something like
Dr. Frankstein did his little darling.

I know families where all the kids are great,
well-adjusted people, but the older brother
is in jail for some horrible crime.
Presumeably, the parents in these
situations treated all their children with
something approximating the same
manner.

Finally, lots of children have less than
adequate parents, some even abusive
ones, and they don't turn their attention to
eradicating the earth of a particular race of
people.

OK, really, finally, even Griffin stops short
of suggesting that Gebhardt created a
monster when she writes that "childhood is
just one element in the determining field" of
the unfolding of history.