“This American Life”

The first story that affected me was the story of the abused bank robber. The boy’s father was abusive priest. The boy swore he’d stab his dad if he beat him or his brother again. The dad picked up on the fact that boy had told Susie, the dad’s girlfriend, about the abuse. The dad tricked the boy and the boy confessed to ratting out dad to Susie. After the boy confessed, the dad beat him so badly that he later ended up in the hospital. During the beating, the dad took a break and left the house. The boy took the opportunity and put a knife under his pillow. The dad came back into the room and started to disassemble weights. The boy stabbed dad in the neck with the knife and said “you did this to yourself” as the dad lay on the floor bleeding. The dad survived but lost sons to foster care. The boy stole instead of working because he didn’t want to. He went on a 14 month bank robbing spree because he wanted to spend tons of money. His reasoning for robbing was because his mom died and his dad was abusive. The robbing gave him power, was validating, and he could make people experience what he had to.

This story particularly affected me because it shows the background behind a thief. I feel bad for the robber because typically you think of a robber as a bad person but he had actual reasons for robbing. While they weren’t necessarily good reasons, they made sense. It gave him the power that he didn’t have when he was growing up.

The old woman was accused of stealing from a really crowded store. When the police showed up, she emptied her purse and they accused her of taking the aspirin. After a while, she finally owned up to taking the aspirin and had to face to consequences. She shoplifted her whole life and doesn’t see herself as a thief. When she was younger, she couldn’t wear hair up so she shoplifted bobbypins and she couldn’t wear earrings so she took whatever she wanted to. The shoplifting allowed her to pull something off somebody else couldn’t so she felt good. She kept the shoplifting a secret from everyone she knew. She shoplifted whenever she felt like it because it made her feel better. She did it to not be lonely and to be on her own and take her mind off of the pain and being lonely in the nursing home.

This story affected me in a similar way as the first one did. When most people see a thief, they see a terrible person, somebody who does it because they’re bad. This woman stole because it was one of the only things she could control in her life. I feel so bad and its hard to blame the woman after hearing her story and reasons for shoplifting.

Both of these stories make me question why I judge people so quickly. Once you hear that somebody is “bad,” most people immediately assume they’re just bad people. After hearing somebody’s story you make a different decision on what you think about them. Everything relates back to “judging a book by its cover,” and these stories are the perfect reason not to.