So, you are 21 years old, with four–yes, four babies under the age of four. And lo and behold, life is just NOW seeming stressful? You didn’t realize that child-raising is a hugely difficult job, say, on the second child? or the third? Didn’t occur to you that money might be tight? That you would have to work while your boyfriend babysat your four babies? That your BABY WOULD CRY???
So when your four-month old fussed, what choices did you have? You could have contacted those people at Social Services who were trying to help you, and LET THEM HELP YOU. You could have called your mom, or your neighbor, or the hospital. You could have locked your sorry self in the bathroom with the shower running. You could have gotten in your fucking car and hit the road forever, or you could have killed yourself. If only, in fact, you had, that little boy would be alive today.
Because instead of any of those options, you held your hands over his mouth and nose until he stopped breathing, went off to work, and then, when your boyfriend called you in a panic, went home and tried CPR BEFORE you even called called 911.
You know what? I’ve been through postpartum depression and it is hell. It really, truly is a horrendous experience, and I hope anyone who goes through it realizes that I am NOT condemning one with such a condition.
But here’s the rub: You KNEW. First you broke his ribs–what was that, five weeks ago? And then a week later, you broke his leg. YOU KNEW YOU WERE HURTING HIM AND YOU KEPT DOING IT. This is NOT a case of losing control momentarily and doing something awful. This is a case of KNOWING you are out of control and NOT STOPPING. You can NOT hurt a baby that badly and NOT KNOW IT.
When my daughter was 2 hours old, I picked her up and said, “She has a broken collarbone.” The nurses reassured me that she didn’t. I insisted that yes, she did–I could tell just by the tone of her cry (and yes, the doctor confirmed the next day, she did indeed have a broken collarbone). There is NO WAY you can pick up an injured baby and hear that cry and NOT KNOW he is hurt badly.
You know…IRL I swear like a sailor, but this is just too sad and sick, and bitch does not even begin to fit the bill here. I have tried to look at this compassionately, to convince myself that all mothers really must love their babies, and all I can do is see my son’s trusting face when he was four months old and just beginning to smile. I hope you are never allowed near another child in your life, and once that life is done, I hope you burn in hell.
~k
That is way beyond terrible. Please tell me this was something you read about in a newspaper, not apersonal aquaintance.
People who do this sort of thing to a child ought to have it done to them until it almost, but not quite, kills them. Repeat daily. For instance–Susan Smith ought to have been fitted with a heart moniter, strapped into a car, lowered into a river, and kept there till she almost drowned. This should have been done every day–maybe holding her in long enough at times to make her wonder if this was the time they’d let her drown. The same for this Yates bitch–except use a bathtub.
I’m not a perfect parent–I’ve made more than my share of mistakes–but HOW in the hell can you hurt a child so badly and close your ears to their screams of pain and terror?
And people who espouse torture as a punishment should be bashed in the head repeatedly with heavy stones. Just not by me. I couldn’t stomach that sort of thing.
By not caring. It can be done. I don’t mean to sound cold or insensitive or any of that (I had to stop reading, FWIW), but . . . it can be done. I don’t know how to explain this. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Not a personal aquaintance, thankfully, but it’s a small enough town that I will probably be able to visit the baby’s gravesite.
Once upon a time, I tried to understand how people could do this type of thing. I mean, I understand (on an intellectual level, at least) that someone who is in a psychotic state may truly not realize what s/he is doing, and thus harm or kill someone. However, this person–I do not even want to call her a parent–wasn’t psychotic. Depressed, stressed, broke, you bet. So are lots of other parents, and they manage to not hurt their kids.
[slight hijack]The first time I worked with a student who had truly been battered, I realized something: It takes TIME to hurt someone that badly–time during which, at some point, in some little part of the brain, you HAVE to realize you are hurting this kid. The boy I worked with was 13 years old, and I documented over 40 bruises or other injuries on his body–and that was from the waist up. No one can tell me that his stepdad didn’t KNOW what he was doing, or that he didn’t make a conscious choice to keep doing it. Same thing with this baby…it wasn’t just a case of someone losing control for an instant and doing irreparable harm. That would be bad enough…but I don’t know–if you hurt your child, wouldn’t you be scared enough of losing control again to go out and ask for help???
Sorry, 'punha. You don’t sound insensitive at all. It’s a horrible subject, and I thought long and hard about posting at all…but no one here is ready to talk about it yet, so I don’t have an outlet.
Thanks, dopers.
hugs bodypoet
hugs 'punha
hugs her knees and rocks a bit
Sounds like a recent story out of southern Indiana–am I right? I read it in the paper and it just made my guts tighten into knots. Ironically, wasn’t the mother recently given an award for parenting or something?
Unbelievable…
When it comes to punishment for something like this I think our current level of technology isn’t far enough along. This will sound silly, but there was an episode of Star Trek-TNG in which a particular culture had a rather unique punishment for murder. The condemned was not executed but received a brain implant that forced one to relive the crime from the point of view of the victim. And not just once, but once every fourteen hours for the rest of their natural life. Many committed suicide after a while.
Ten-odd years ago I had the dubious fortune to be on a high-court jury at the trial of a man accused of killing his infant daughter.
A not-ideal family environment + a difficult baby combined to be contributing factors. He’d tried to tell some people that he was stressed and afraid he might harm the baby and they (friends) had kinda shrugged it off as being private / inappropriate topic for conversation (much as people once didn’t want to get involved in spousal abuse: “It’s just a domestic.” He’d hurt the baby several times before she finally died.
Not fun. In the end he was found guilty.
At the time I had no children and no way of… seeing inside his head, or understanding the stress.
Now, with an 8 week old I have somewhat of a better understanding, and yet, at the same time, less. I can see how a screaming baby, combined with other worries could drive one to breaking point, and yet I just can’t see how a father could hurt his baby… I just can’t.
Just wanted to say (((hugs))) to all. This is just sickening, to say the least.
I saw that episode–I had forgotten all about it, but I have to agree that this might be the best way. I don’t believe in wholesale torture for crimes, but when a completely helpless victim–like a child–is involved, then that flies right out the window. I am far less concerned with the civil rights of someone who has proved themselves uncivilized than I am with the safety of the children. And before I get a constitutional debate going here, I don’t say this about unproven crimes–I speak here of those proven guilty–like Susan Smith, for instance. I just can’t sit and weep for her if her itty bitty rights are violated, when she strapped her own babies into a car and rolled them into the river–up hers!!
Yep, this is in my hometown of Bloomington, IN.
Apparently social services has been involved with her for a while, and had recently given her a certificate of some sort acknowledging her efforts in parenting–from the description, it sounded like a motivational award of some kind.
And I know that social workers have high case loads, etc…but we are supposed to have a really good social services dept here (according to a social worker friend of mine), and they had been working with this mom for some time, and no one noticed that this child had injuries? Injuries in various stages of healing are one of the hallmarks of abuse, and no one caught it? I’m afraid they really dropped the ball on this one.
This is one of those cases where all the support systems were there–family, friends, social services, community support–and somehow, they all failed to intervene. I’m not even sure who to be angry at anymore…I just keep thinking someone should have seen this coming. Look at the risk factors: age, # kids and their ages, financial stress, unstable relationship with SO (I think), a mom who admits that she is considering giving her baby up for adoption–how many red flags do we need before we do something?
Ah, I’m still venting. Sorry.
~k