I was on a snowshoe outing far away from the worries of the
“real world” last weekend when ,during a lull, I took out my phone to take a
picture and unwittingly switched to my Facebook feed, I knew that this was a
mistake even as I was doing it and felt remorsefully chided for my actions when
the first feed that came up was the headline about a woman in Olympia who had
slashed the throats of her three young children to “keep them quiet for their
father.” I was horrified and
shaken. The random acts of violence done
to children by adults never ceases to amaze me, our capacity as mothers to be
as cruel as we are loving is a mystery.
I promptly put my phone back into my pocket, willing the vileness of
what I had just read out of my mind, in that moment I sought peace in the sun
on a mountain top sparse with frosty snow and a teenage daughter who had
invited me to go out snowshoeing.
When I got back home I looked at the comment threads on fb,
the public was clearly condemning this monster of parents, the worst mother in
the world. I had to read the story. It was sad.
The poor babies, crying for comfort only to have their throats cut by
their mother. The upside was that the
younger two, six-month old twins, were reported to be “crying uncontrollably”
when the paramedics arrived, this gave me hope that their airways were intact
and they probably would survive. The
news story did not mention if the two-year old, covered in dry blood, was
making any noise, I can only pray that this child too survives this ordeal.
After absorbing these horrific details, my mind went to the
state of the mother. Post Partum
depression and medication to treat it were mentioned. The father was reported to be a solider. The evening of the attack, the parents had
been watching a movie and drinking wine.
Mom reported frustration that dad “did nothing to help” with the
children and, based on her report, he
could not stand to be in the same room with the children when they were
crying. As a mother of now 13-year old
twins and a sister two years their elder, I can certainly understand. Infant’s cries are often unsettling,
especially when blasted in stereo in two and sometimes three part harmony. I get it, I have been there. I was also depressed and taking medication
for Post Partum depression following the birth of my twins. My husband went back to work full-time a week
after they came home from the hospital.
The care of the two babies and their toddler sister was mine. Not that I ever considered something as
bizarre as slashing their throats to keep them quiet, but I can imagine how
this mom must have been feeling.
While I want to make it clear that I do not condone her
behavior, I can certainly see how she got to this point. We are a society that demands perfection from
mothers. Asking for help is considered
to be a sign of maternal weakness, especially if you are a stay at home
mom. While working mothers are expected
to manage it all without missing a beat, there is a definite social stigma for
stay at home moms who ask for or hire help, especially if they are not
wealthy. The thought on the mind of
everyone who is judging the situation, and judges of mothers are plenty, is,
“how can they afford that?” “Shouldn’t
that mom be taking care of her own children instead of paying someone to look
after them while she goes to the mall or the spa?” Working mothers are not exempt from this
judgment, it just takes a different tone, “Paying someone else to raise her
kids while she goes to work, how selfish?”
“ Hiring a babysitter so she can get some ‘me time’ isn’t that what she
has all week while she is at work?” and then the clincher, even if it isn’t
said, “If that mom really loved her children she would make the necessary
sacrifices to stay home with them.” The
“animosity” between working and stay at home moms is then duly fueled by the
media to promote increased sales of parenting magazines and to make sure that
moms and women in general remain divided and ineffective at making meaningful
change in society.
I do not know this particular mother’s story beyond what I
have read in the current media hype about it.
But I do recognize the same judgment and willingness to “let the mom
fry” for her actions in the comments from the public at large. Not a single one that I have read has offered
any question as to how the woman got to this point. She was depressed and taking medication and
was the primary and maybe only caretaker for three very young children. In the United States our stigmatizing all
problems related to mental health has reached epidemic proportions. The tone of the comments on many of these
threads is also one of accelerated and trigger happy hate, “just put a bullet
in her head,” or blaming, “she should have reached out, there are plenty of
resources available” because, of course, it is just so easy as a depressed and
overburdened trained by society to believe that she should be able to handle it
all mother, to just reach out and “ask” for help. Asking for help is hard, and unfortunately
not always encouraged. The refrain,
“just let me know if you need anything,” may come from a meaningful place, but
it still requires asking for help and, more often than not, tends to sound as
meaningful as, “how are you today?” Do people really want to know? Do people
really want to help?” “What if I ask and they resent what I am asking them to
do?” or “What if they say, ‘no?”
Helping requires some recognition of the need of the
recipient on the part of the helper. For
a new parent this may mean that the doorbell rings one morning and a cleaning
crew is on their doorstep ready to give the house a deep clean, or a delivery
of fresh fruit and vegetables arrives unannounced, a student in the
neighborhood is sent over to take the kids to the park while the mother enjoys
some downtime. As a society we need to
be more proactive in recognizing those that need help and stepping in to help
them and I include myself in this group.
Perhaps the most meaningful and telling piece of reporting that I have
read about his case so far comes from neighbors lamenting that they did not pound down the doors
offering to help this family. If we were
more supportive and less judgmental, kind instead of critical, embracing
instead of alienating, there is a better chance of eliminating maternal
violence.