Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how someone becomes an abuser, criminal, or serial killer. The boy next door or the mom who was always so pleasant – how in the world could they have done anything horrendous? And the people who are pedophiles and other deviants – what made them that way?

We can’t ignore Chuckie because we know where he comes from and why he’s here. And we can’t give a pass to the monsters who reside in us or others simply because they remind us of how they came to be (and that it’s our fault). Because the majority are who they are because of the environments they were raised in.

Most parents have good intentions for their children and do their best to raise good children. But occasionally there comes along parents who – maybe because they were subjected to something awful – treat their children awfully and continue a generational cycle of abuse or hatred or deviant behavior.

And even the good intention parents who may believe they are doing right by their children use positive reinforcement for negative behavior and often overindulge them. Or they are so overworked that they ignore them and leave their care in the hands of others or substitute love with material things.

There are exceptions, of course, where a child is born with deviant traits because of something hormonal or chemically imbalanced. Or maybe some traumatic event caused a physical alteration in character. And, of course, there are psychoses such as schizophrenia to attribute to someone’s behavior. Whatever the cause or reason, it is vital that the source of illness be treated – physically, mentally, or legally.