Killing with Kindness

There is a reason there is a phrase “killing with kindness.”  It means exactly what it implies.  Per the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, its definition is “overwhelm or harm someone with mistaken or excessive benevolence.”

Notice that word, “harm.”  The correct response to everything is not kindness.  Perhaps the politically correct response is, but not always the helpful response.

Negative feelings serve a purpose.  You are SUPPOSED to feel bad sometimes.  And honestly, you really can’t appreciate the good feelings without the bad.

There was an online newspaper article today about some adults (30’s and 40’s) who decided to steal some beer from a convenience store and then speed off into traffic on a busy street.  DECIDED.  Note that word, it’s important.  In their flight, they crashed into a wall, and 3 died and one is in the hospital.

Some of the online comments on the article really disturbed me.  Comments that there should be nothing negative said about this because no one deserves to die.  That one was a mother.  That “each and every one of us” does stupid stuff like this.  That we just need to be NICE about everything.

We don’t have to be KIND about every situation.  Does anyone deserve to die, I don’t know, but each and every one of us will.  And some of us make decisions that make that happen sooner.   Being a mother does not excuse bad decisions, it makes them worse.  We don’t all do stupid stuff like this.  And last but not least, this is not stupid, it is CRIMINAL. 

Do I feel sympathy for the children of the mother who died?  Of course, no one wants to lose loved ones.  Do I think that saying that what their mom did is normal, acceptable behavior is going to help them to be responsible adults?  HELL NO! If someone’s parent died of lung cancer, do you hand them a cigarette and encourage them to start smoking?

If one of the people involved in this crime was my son, I would be sad.  I would be sad because I love him and would miss him.  I would be sad because I would feel I didn’t do a good enough job as a mother.  But honestly, the word “dumbass” would cross through my mind among everything else.  And if other people called him that, they would be correct.  And I would hope that dumbass behavior would be a lesson to many other people.

Sometimes kindness can kill. And then we have to deal with the aftermath. And that’s why they have wine.