Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Someone stole my daughter's CDs

My wife left her car unlocked accidentally when she came back to town Sunday evening, and overnight, someone got into her car and took a CD holder, mostly full of my daughter's favorite music.

Now, I'm not sure what the motivation would be to steal out of someone else's car in the first place, but once the thief discovered that the CDs had children's music on them, would it be unreasonable to think he/she might just quietly return the stolen items? Just leave them on the porch when we're not home?

I'm expecting too much out of someone who is unscrupulous enough to steal someone else's property in the middle of the night, I know, but man...I'm just so angry and saddened by this violation of our privacy.

People who have read this blog in the past know that my child has autism. She craves structure, and if certain music isn't playing when she wants it played, chaos ensues. Now, we do have some measure of discipline with her (she knows what "no" means and will often listen), but neither my wife nor I should have to deny her the music she likes because some jerk decided to come onto our property, open my wife's car door, and sift through her things in the console in between the seats, hoping for something valuable.

I'm sure the thief isn't going to read this article, but on the off chance that you are that person, are you happy? Are you happy with the copies you stole, which we made so we wouldn't damage the originals? Are you happy that you stole a kid's favorite music? Is your own kid enjoying it now?

It's just stuff. It is really just stuff. But hey, a person who would take my kid's stuff out of my wife's car might not care much about how wrong it would be to break into my house and take more of my kid's stuff. The thought of explaining to my kid that her favorite treasures are gone (little plastic toys she carriers around and collects; nothing very valuable to anyone but her, really) just makes me shudder, because she's not going to stop crying and screaming for awhile, and I'm not really going to be able to make her understand. She understands "broken", but not "gone", really.

A worse thought is that this person could break in when we're here, or when I am gone and my wife and kid are here, and do who knows what to them.

So now what? I'm thinking of canvassing the neighborhood, leaving a flyer on every door that explains exactly what this theif did. If nothing else, it will make the neighborhood aware that there are theives around. At best, someone might turn the culprit in to us.

I really just want my kid's music back. I can burn the CDs again, but it would be nice to know if this thief has a conscience.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Greg,

That's really unfortunate about your daughter's cds. As a mom, music producer and children's music publicist, I would love to send your daughter two award-winning children's cds to replenish her collection.

Check out my self produced album FUNKY KIDZ at www.funkykidzmusic.com

and my client, Jonathan Sprout's award winning album American Heroes#3, at www.jonsprout.com

Let me know if you'd like me to send them to her. Lauren@asapprod.com

Best,

Lauren

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry her things were stolen.

On another note, as an atheist, how can you really say stealing is wrong? There is no objective standard within atheism for good and evil.

Anonymous said...

That's a shame about your CD's. As an Atheist though I would expect you to expect this kind of immoral behavior. After all, according to you there is no God, and thus no morals. I am afraid your daughters CD Thief is a product of your own creation Greg.

Master G said...

To Tom and Justin:

The answer is empathy. Empathy is a near-universal trait of human beings. The only exceptions are sociopaths and psychopaths.

Research has demononstrated that altruism appears in children as early as 18 months (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11641621/). Altruistic behavior is what I would expect out of a species that survived through a hunting and gathering existence through cooperation. Altruism comes from empathy.

There are studies that demonstrate that the vast majority of human beings do not want to other human beings suffer. By the same token, they do want other human beings to do well. In a world without religion, I would expect our inherent trait of empathy would be our source of morals.

Unknown said...

I'm shocked - first of all, by the post itself. I'm so sorry to hear that someone stole your daughter's favorite music! I can totally relate to how kids with autism need their routines and comforting music. But I'm really shocked by the self-righteous assclowns who commented about your faith, or lack of faith, as the case may be. WTH?? Anyway. I have 2 sets of twins, and a HUUUUGE musical library of kids' music. Let me know what you're missing and I'll see if it's something we have. I'd be happy to pass along what we have!

Master G said...

I don't know if you're following the blog, Laura (I know you can check off a box to get follow-up comments, if there are any), but I'm going to follow up with contact through your site anyway. I just wanted to say these things publicly.

I appreciate your comments and the offer of music. Lauren at FUNKY KIDZ sent me a couple new CDs that my daughter loves, and that was cool. As far as replacing what I have...well, two of the CDs were made by her music teacher at The Abilities Center, and they can't be replaced. I usually rip CDs as soon as I get them so I can replace ones that get abused, lost, or--hopefully not again in the near future--stolen, so I can copy them, but those two are history because they weren't ripped, and they had some unique stuff on them. The teacher actually recorded most of the songs herself.

I burnt new copies of the stuff I had on my computer already, so we're cool there.

As for the self-righteous Christians who think that Christians have a monopoly on morality: I have answered them. One of them, Justin, sent me two books as a gift. The books are about the caliber I'd expect from someone who decided to use a post about how my autistic daughter's CDs were stolen to make a statement about how Atheists are without a moral foundation. I have gotten a few chapters into one of them. I can't read too much at a time, because my head begins to hurt. The arguments could have been made by a child, and one with no critical thinking skills whatsoever--but it's so insulting to Atheists in general, it is just frustrating and painful to read.

I have to wonder if these people think that it's okay to do bad to people who don't share their beliefs, since they believe that those outside of their religion must not have a code of ethics adopted from life experience or instinct.