Hungry For Attention

     Is Richard alone in his craving? Absolutely not. Half of the reason people do things in this life is because they are hungry for attention. I'm pretty sure every naughty thing kids do when they're little is because of a need for attention. And not even only naughty things. I remember when I was little, my friend and I used to clean our bathrooms together. One of the reasons we did it was because we liked to pretend to be Cinderella, but the most exciting part was to finish cleaning and run, pulling our exasperated parents' hands behind us, to the newly clean (and probably not even very dirty in the first place) bathroom, only to hear them say, "Wow Alaina and Rory, this looks so great! You guys are naturals!"
     But even besides children, everyone is hungry for attention. If someone says, "Oh I don't care at all what people think of me, I don't need attention, I don't care what I look like" etc. etc. etc...... Maybe in some ways it's true, but the truth of the matter is, everyone needs a little attention. Everyone wants to know that they are loved or wanted or even noticed by someone. Especially someone special :)
     When Richard sets the house on fire, maybe this is going a little too far. But if you put yourself in his shoes, it doesn't actually sound like that extravagent of a plan. His parents weren't paying any attention to him (and let's face it, when you're little, all you really want is for your parents to love you and pay attention to you) and he wanted to pull the attention toward himself. He didn't know that setting the curtains on fire was going to burn the house down. He was four years old. He was just a little boy who thought it would look magnificent for those leaping orange flames to mix with the forbidden white curtains. He was curious, and smart enough to know that he probably shouldn't be doing what he was doing, and that it might give him some attention. It's hard to be a little kid when your parents aren't paying attention to you. All kids do stupid things to get attention. It's unavoidable.