We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

“You see,” I proceeded, “by the time he was eleven or twelve, this was all too late. The no-gun rules, the computer codes...Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn’t just naïve, it’s a vanity. We want to be able to tell ourselves what good parents we are, that we’re doing our best. If I had it all to do over again, I’d have let Kevin play with whatever he wanted; he liked little enough. And I’d have ditched the TV rules, the G-rated videos. They only made us look foolish. They underscored our powerlessness, and they provoked his contempt.”