Content warning: Discussion of murder, childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect.

the bigger picture: what happens when we stop protecting human beings?

We know what cruelty does to people. We know what happens when children grow up without love, safety, or stability. We know what poverty, violence, institutional abuse, and neglect can do across generations. So why do we keep repeating the same mistakes?

I have been thinking about Charles Manson.

I read Helter Skelter when I was young, and one thing has stayed with me: the idea behind his words, “You made me.”

Manson was a murderer who manipulated others into committing horrific crimes. Whatever happened during his childhood, he was responsible for his actions. But his story also raises uncomfortable questions about how people become capable of such cruelty, how vulnerable people can be manipulated, and how society responds to the damage it helps create.

Manson wasn't the only one. There was Robert Pickton here in British Columbia, Clifford Olson, Ted Bundy, and countless other violent offenders whose names we remember long after their victims have been forgotten.

Why do we keep looking at these cases as isolated monsters? Why aren't we also examining the conditions, warning signs, institutional failures, and missed opportunities that might have prevented some of the suffering?

We cannot explain every violent crime through childhood trauma. Many people survive terrible childhoods without harming others, and not every cruel person has a history of abuse. But we know that childhood adversity can have lasting consequences, and we know that violence, neglect, and dehumanization can be passed from one generation to the next.

So what are we doing to interrupt that cycle?

the children we hurt

Canada took Indigenous children from their families and placed them in residential schools, where many experienced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Children were separated from their languages, cultures, communities, and the people who loved them.

The United States operated Indigenous boarding schools with similar objectives.

Enslavement, racial segregation, forced displacement, and other systems of oppression have also inflicted suffering that extends beyond the people who directly experienced them.

These were not simply unfortunate events. They were systems created and maintained by people and institutions.

Children who experience severe trauma may struggle with trust, emotional regulation, relationships, and a sense of safety. Their families and communities may carry the consequences for generations.

That does not mean survivors are broken, or that trauma determines anyone's future. Indigenous communities have demonstrated extraordinary resilience, preserving culture, rebuilding connections, and protecting future generations despite attempts to destroy those bonds.

But resilience should never become an excuse to keep putting people through suffering.

We should be preventing harm, not congratulating people for surviving it.

and now, the children of today

Look at children separated from their parents through immigration enforcement. Look at children living through war in the Middle East. Look at children who have lost their homes, their families, their schools, and any reasonable sense of security.

What happens to a child who grows up believing the world is dangerous, that adults cannot be trusted, and that nobody will come to help?

We cannot predict what that child will become. Many will grow into loving, compassionate adults. Others may struggle with the consequences of what they have endured.

But why are we so willing to expose children to terrible conditions and so surprised when the consequences follow them into adulthood?

We know that safety matters. We know that love matters. We know that children need stable relationships, food, shelter, education, and protection from violence.

Knowing these things should mean something.

what about the people who are almost homeless?

This is where the bigger picture becomes personal.

Imagine being one paycheque away from losing your home. Imagine having a disability, a history of trauma, or simply not earning enough to afford rent.

Now imagine your choices are a shelter where you may not feel safe, or sleeping outside, where you may face theft, assault, sexual violence, exposure, or even murder.

Not everyone experiences these dangers, and shelters differ in their safety and quality. But these are real risks that people experiencing homelessness can face.

Where is the logic in waiting until someone is desperate, traumatized, assaulted, or seriously ill before we decide they need help?

A person should not have to surrender their privacy, dignity, independence, or sense of safety simply to have a roof over their head.

And homelessness does not affect only human beings.

People with dogs and cats can find themselves trapped between keeping their animals and finding somewhere to sleep. Some shelters cannot accommodate pets. Some landlords prohibit them. Some people remain in unsafe situations because they cannot bear to abandon an animal that depends on them.

Then the animals themselves become homeless.

We talk about responsible pet ownership, but what happens when a responsible owner loses their housing through circumstances beyond their control?

We cannot keep treating housing as though it is a privilege that people must continually prove they deserve.

A home is the foundation from which people rebuild their lives.

millions for some things, nowhere to live for others

We can mobilize enormous sums of money to transport captive belugas across the continent, build specialized facilities, and provide intensive veterinary care. We can raise money for animals, fund cultural institutions, build expensive developments, and spend billions on projects that governments and private interests consider important.

Some of these expenditures serve legitimate purposes. Animal welfare matters. Art and culture matter. Scientific research matters.

This is not an argument against saving belugas, caring for dogs and cats, or supporting the arts.

It is a question about priorities.

How can we recognize that an animal deserves specialized care while accepting that a human being may have nowhere safe to sleep?

Why can we organize complex international transfers of animals but struggle to ensure that people have access to affordable housing and basic support?

We should be capable of caring for both.

The issue is not that we care too much about animals. It is that our compassion and our resources are not distributed according to the basic needs of living beings.

And when people lose their homes, the consequences can reach far beyond the immediate crisis.

A person who becomes homeless may lose their possessions, their community, their employment, their health, and their ability to feel safe. Trauma accumulates. Opportunities disappear. The longer the crisis continues, the harder it can become to recover.

Then society looks at the person struggling on the street and asks why they cannot get their life together.

Perhaps we should first ask what happened to the life they had.

when cruelty becomes normal

This brings us back to Manson, and to the politicians and powerful people whose behaviour makes us question how much empathy they possess.

We should not diagnose people from a distance or assume that their childhoods explain everything they do. But we can examine their actions.

Do they humiliate vulnerable people? Do they encourage hatred? Do they accept responsibility when their decisions cause harm? Do they use their power to protect people, or to make others afraid?

A society teaches its values through what it rewards, what it punishes, and what it permits.

When children learn that power means domination, when adults learn that cruelty brings rewards, and when institutions repeatedly fail vulnerable people without meaningful accountability, we should not be surprised when those patterns continue.

This does not mean everyone becomes violent. It means we are failing to address conditions that can make suffering, exploitation, and dehumanization more likely.

We cannot excuse an offender by blaming society for everything. But neither should we pretend that individual crimes exist in a vacuum.

Personal responsibility and social responsibility can exist together.

We can hold people accountable for the harm they cause while also asking what could have prevented that harm in the first place.

the bigger picture

We live in a world where children are traumatized, families are separated, Indigenous communities continue to deal with the consequences of colonial policies, people are displaced by war, and others are pushed out of their homes by poverty.

We spend enormous amounts responding to crises after they happen.

But prevention rarely receives the same urgency.

Protecting children, supporting families, providing stable housing, addressing abuse, making mental health care accessible, and intervening before people reach a breaking point are not merely acts of kindness. They are investments in the future of our communities.

None of these measures will eliminate every violent crime, every tragedy, or every instance of human cruelty. There are no guarantees.

But we already know that neglect has consequences. We know that unsafe environments cause suffering. We know that children need protection and that people need somewhere safe to live.

What are we waiting for?

I don't believe we need to choose between helping a beluga and helping a homeless person. I don't believe compassion should be rationed according to whether someone is cute, wealthy, productive, popular, or politically convenient.

I believe we should be asking why we have the resources to do extraordinary things while so many basic human needs remain unmet.

And I believe we need to stop looking at every tragedy as though it has nothing to do with the world we have built around it.

When another child is abused, another family is displaced, another vulnerable woman disappears, or another person dies without a home, we should ask more than who is responsible for that individual tragedy.

We should ask what failed, what could have been different, and what we are prepared to change.

Because the bigger picture is not simply about serial killers, residential schools, immigration detention, war, or homelessness.

It is about the kind of society we are creating, one generation at a time.

We cannot keep hurting people, neglecting children, abandoning the vulnerable, and then wondering why the world is full of suffering.

If we want a different future, we have to start building it now.

Not after another generation has been damaged.

Not after another life has been lost.

Now.

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Written by Tina Winterlik, aka Zipolita

I write about people, places, and things because the stories we tell about our world matter. Sometimes the most important question is not whether we can afford to help, but why we have accepted a world in which so many people need help and cannot find it.