A Moment of Self-indulgent Self-pity

A Moment of Self-indulgent Self-pity

They say that moms know what’s best for their children. But in some cases, we question that. Take for example, the 1994 case of Susan Smith. She put her two young children in the back of her car and let the car roll into a lake. Then she called police and said she had been carjacked and the children were still in the car. She got on TV and pleaded for the safe return of her children – all the while knowing they were at the bottom of the lake. Soon enough the police caught on or perhaps the stress was too much for her and she confessed. During the trial her whole painful and sorted life became public knowledge. She had been abused as a child and now suffered with mental illness. Despite that, everyone wondered how a mother could do that to her children.

Then there is the more recent case of Susan Yates. She was a religious, home-schooling, mother of five. She used her bare hands to drown all five children in the family bath tub. Then she turned herself in. The resulting investigation and trial revealed that she suffered from serious post-partum depression and psychosis. Still everyone wondered how and why a mother could do that to her children.

When I’m in my role as mother, I often ask myself how these women could do such horrible, unforgivable acts. I look at my beautiful daughter – her joy and thirst for life and the pleasure and sense of wonder that she brings to me… I think these women must be monsters. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. How can a woman feel the soft warm breath of her baby on her neck and then kill him? How can any human being with any amount of soul hear their child say, “I love you” and feel their tender hug and then destroy that?

But there are other times… times when I’m feeling like a daughter; like a child myself and I ask myself why don’t more mothers do the right thing and let their children go. Why don’t more mothers realize what their own mental illness is doing to their children? At times like that… sometimes it almost feels like Smith and Yates are heroes. Sometimes living with yourself is almost more than you can bear. At times like that, I think how lucky the children of Smith and Yates are. They don’t have to face the destiny their mothers would surely leave to them. Oh, how sweet it would have been to have avoided the darkness and the demons.