Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/113

Rh Mr. . A child who killed ber mother, Do you tlink that would have any effecL at all on a child who is in a foster placement, who is with foster parents, who has fears? Do you not think that child in reading the siory would have some of the normal fears which a child has, some of the normal desires tighiened, increased ?

Mr. . I honestly can say I don't think so, No messuge has been spelled out there. We were not trying to prove anything with that story. Noue of the captions said anything like "If you are un- happy with your stepmother, shoot her."

Mr. . No, but here you have a child who is in a foster home who has been treated very well, who hus fears und doubts about the foster parent. The child would normally identify herself in this case with a ehild in a similar sitration and there wu child in a similar situ- aLion (urns out to have foster parents who became werewolves.

Do you not think that would increase the child's anxiety?

Mr. . Most foster children, I am sure, are not in homes such as were described in those stories. Those were pretty miserable homes,

Mr. . You mean the liouses thet bad vampires in them, those were not nice homes?

Mr. . Yes.

Mr. . Do you know any place where there is any such thing?

Mr. Gainers. As vampires?

Mr. . Yes.

Mr. . No, sir; this is fantasy. The point T am irying to make is that 1 ain sure no foster children are kept Jocked up in their room for morths on end except in thease rare eases that you hear about where there is something wrong with the parents such as the foster child in one of these slories was, und on the other hand, Fam sure that no foster child finds himself with a drunken father andl a mother who is having an affair with someone else.

Mr. . Yet you do hear of the fact that an awful lot of delin- quency comes from homes that are broken. You hear of drimkenness in those sane homes.

Do you not. think those children who read those comics identify themselves with the poor home situation, with maybe the drunken father or mother who is gomg out, and identify themselves and sce themselves portraved there ?

Mr. . It has been my experience in writing these stories for the last 6 or T years that whenever we have tested them ont on kids, or teen-agers, or adults, no one ever associates himself with someone who is going to be put upon, They always associate themselves with the one who is doing the putting upon.

The. You do test them out on children, do you?

Mr. . Yes.

Mr. . How do you do that?

Senator. Is that one of your series, the pictures of the two in the electric chair, the little girl down in the corner?

Mr. . Yes.

Senator. As we understood from what we heard of that story, the little girl is not being put upon there, is she? She is triumphant apparently, that is insofar as we heard the relation of the story this morning.