Hansel Gets a Lobotomy

"The fact that the mother or stepmother dies when the children have killed the witch has suggested to many commentators that the mother or stepmother and the witch are metaphorically the same woman." - Wikipedia

In the Marchen (folk tale) of "Hansel and Gretel" a combination of a weak father and his abusive second wife (the children's stepmother) leads to them being cast in the forest to die. (You can see this same dynamic in "Cinderella," in which there is no father at all.)

Then they encounter the witch, who is worse than the stepmother, because she seduces them with lies, because she wants to murder and eat them.

There are a few lessons here. One is that you cannot trust cruel stepmothers and weak fathers. Another is that you cannot trust lying, manipulative witches because they'll try to destroy your life. That third is that you need someone to trust - the way Hansel and Gretal trust each other. And it is Hansel who figures out to fix things by gathering pebbles and the bread crumbs (although it is Gretel who shoves the witch into the stove).

Now let's look at the case of Howard Dully.

Born in 1948, he was a rowdy, rather disobedient boy, but the doctors said he was just fine and would mature. They also said his stepmother "was the problem."

The stepmother was blaming her problems on other people, specifically on an innocent 12-year-old who wasn't the quiet, obedient child she wanted.

So she talked his weak father into having Howard lobotomized when he was 12-years-old.

Yeah, lobotomized. At 12.

The operation was done by an insane doctor named Walter Freeman, who died in '72. He seemed to think lobotomies cured almost everything. He performed at least 3,439 of them, some of them in his "lobotomobile" in which he traveled the country and charged $25 to stick icepicks above people's eyes and mangle their brain.

He once performed a lobotomy on a four-year-old. Of course people died, including one when the icepick went too far in his brain when the van stopped for a photo opportunity.

Finally, so many people died he was banned from performing any more surgeries. The last one was a woman who died after her third lobotomy.

It was too late for Howard Dully, though. He ended up institutionalized for years and when released became a homeless alcoholic. After sobering up in his 50s, he got a college degree in Computer Information Systems and a job.

His parents deserted him a year after his surgery and his stepmother, Lou is described as a "cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention."

Dully eventually wrote a book about what happened to him, appropriately titled, My Lobotomy.

It's bad enough the hate I've seen from mothers toward sons. It is as if they want to destroy them. As for stepmothers, they can be far worse. Say, for example,our feminized stepmother-schools and their attempts to turn boys into lobotomized zombies through the use of drugs. So they'll be quiet and obedient.

These is what happens when too many women get into a field. They try to destroy men, even though they're too stupid to realize they're destroying men, because without men they've got nothing. That's the lesson of Howard Dully - and centuries before, Hansel and Gretel.

In mythology, in religion, in folk tales, women are far more imperfect than men. Eve and Pandora, for example. Women are always portrayed as nurturing or destroying. That is, when they don't nurture, they destroy.

We'd be better off listening to older folk tales, which contain a great deal of truth, than modern hallucinations.

"Studies have found that not biologically related parents are up to a hundred times more likely to kill a child than biological parents." - Wikipedia