In one case, a man wasn't happy that his teenage daughter had a baby, so he locked the two of them in his attic until the cops discovered them when the baby was somewhere around 6 years old. They had lived with very little food and no light, and the teenager's father fed them through a slot in the door. The mother had been able to teach her child some social behaviors and English, so at least they hadn't been completely cut off from human contact, but still, it had been a horrible situation.
In another case, a man imprisoned her daughter in a small bedroom that had no light until the cops found her when she was about 13 years old. She had lived her life strapped to one of those baby toilets used for potty-training. When night came, her father transfered her from the toilet to a crib, and he brought her food throughout the day. When the cops found the little girl, the damage was done. She didn't speak any languages. The only way she knew to communicate was to moan and grunt like an animal. She had the brain capacity of an infant, since she had never learned anything in her life.
The issue of this note isn't whether or not keeping someone locked up in a dark room all his/her life with no human contact is right or not. Obviously, it's not. The issue is: If we, as humans, do not have a social life, we are just like animals or infants. We need at least one person in our lives in order to function normally. If we don't have someone with whom we can socialize, then we can't possibly learn a language, social norms, or the way it is acceptable to behave in public. Isn't it crazy that our future depends on someone else's presence?
There's another issue, though. Why did that one girl behave like an animal when the cops found her? She crawled on all fours, she moaned and grunted, and she literally acted just like an animals. Seriously, I saw clips from the tape. Is it because, in all seriousness, humans are just like any other animal. The difference is: The social part of our brain is more advanced, so that we can actually learn a language and come up with social behaviors. Of course, there are more differences between humans and animals, but this is just one big difference.
I bet you want to know the end of the story. The girl went through all kinds of tests and counseling. Her doctors were determined to give her a normal life, but her brain had already matured as much as it possibly could by the time they found her, so she lived the rest of her life with the mind of an infant, and she died at a very early age. (Most kids in this situation die in their early childhood or teens.)
Want to hear another story similar to this one? In France, some scientists discovered a teenage boy who had been living his entire life alone in the woods. He acted just like an animal; he grunted and moaned like he was speaking a language, he crawled on all fours, and more. Get this: When it snowed outside, and everyone sought refuge inside their homes, the boy ran outside and leaped into the snow, naked. He didn't freeze. He was totally fine.
So that brings me to another issue. People and animals really do adapt to their environment. If we didn't live indoors with air conditioning, then the heat wouldn't be a big issue for us, would it? And if we didn't stay indoors during the winter, then I guess we wouldn't freeze when we go outside. But what about transitioning from one extreme to the other? What about when fall (which is like summer in Georgia) turns into winter all of a sudden? Would we have trouble with that transition, even if we lived outdoors? Are we hurting ourselves by forcing ourselves to adapt to indoor temperatures? Will there be a day when we'll be forced to live outside? That aside, it's really cool that that French kid was able to play in the snow while naked. It just goes to show that, just like animals, we adapt to our environment, whether indoors or outdoors.
If you have anymore weird stories like the ones in this note, tell me. I'd love to hear them. :)
Genie, the feral child who was discovered at the age of 13. Her parents locked her up in a bedroom in their house from birth, and that's how she lived until she was found. They strapped her to a potty chair during the day and strapped her in a baby crib at night to sleep. She rarely came into contact with humans, and if she did, it was only so her parents could feed her and strap her to the potty chair and crib. When she was discovered and taken to a hospital, she did not know language and was virtually incapable of learning it. She growled and barked like an animal, and she, for the most part, walked on all fours. This is a picture of her doing her "bunny walk" shortly after being rescued. Genie is one of the lucky ones, because she actually survived; she is now at the age of 54, although she was never able to learn more than a few words and phrases and, more or less, has the brain of an infant. Most children in her position die before they become teenagers.
You guys have probably seen this before. It's an Etruscan statue from the 5th century B.C. It's called "Capitoline Wolf," and the story is that the twin babies at the bottom are Romulus and Remus, Rome's twin founders. They were abandoned at birth, and this she-wolf rescued them and helped raise them. This is an old myth about "wild children."
This is Oxana Malaya, a Ukranian girl whose alcoholic parents kept her in a kennel all her life. She was raised by the wild dogs that ran through the neighborhood, so she walked on all fours and barked like a dog. She also had acute senses, like those of dogs.
This is John Sesebunya from Uganda. He was about 2 or 3 when he went missing, because his father killed his mother and disappeared. John lived with a family of monkies who taught him to climb trees, to search for food, and to travel with them. He was found when he was 5 or 6 years old, and he walked on all fours, and his nails were long and curled.
Kamala and Amala were discovered in a town west of Calcutta, India. They were found at the ages of 8 and 2. They had lived with wolves, until the mother wolf was shot, and the girls were found. They were said to have had misshapen jaws, elongated canine teeth, and eyes that glow in the dark like those of cats and dogs. After being found, Amala died the following year, and Kamala died 9 years later. She had only learned to say 50 words, but she had learned to walk upright, and she had given up eating animal carcasses, which she had been eating all her life in the wild.
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