I don’t see the point in mindlees retribution. The kids are dead and gleeful fantasies of making the drunken bitch suffer won’t breing them back.
The woman needs treatment to get sober, and then the state needs to get a court order to have her sterilized so that she cannot have any more children. She has forfeited that right.
I dunno…do you think she was willful or do you think she’s out of her fucking mind and probably semi brain-dead? If it’s the latter, I think some form of compassion is in order. No one is asking anyone to absolve her of anything. That’s hardly the point.
Compassion for any living entity is an important thing. I respect those among you who in the face of a “lynch mob” (that part of me wants to be in) cry out for reason, understanding, and express a general sadness for a terrible situation. However, these emotional responses to this terrible tragedy cannot blur an obvious reality. This woman has done something terribly wrong and she must be held responsible.
What if the story had changed and, while she was drunk, she beat the children. How much compassion would there be then. Abuse and neglect are in the same book in many circumstances. Neglect can lead to death, as we have seen here, which is why many experts stipulate that abuse and neglect are one in the same.
I am not saying that other posters are doing this, but before you start mitigating her behavior by saying she was drunk or alcoholic, ask yourself, is the alcoholic who comes home and beats his wife, or the alcoholic who comes home and rapes her son, worthy of any mitigation because of the alcoholism. If you answer no to this, then you cannot give this woman any mitgation for neglect. Since this neglect led to the death of the children it is MORE serious than the man who beats his wife or the woman who rapes her son.
In a court of law, being under the influence of drugs/alcohol is not a defense for a crime. Furthermore, being very sorry for the consequences of your bad decisions is not an excuse either.
I only hope that we, as a society (in any country), can begin to develop programs that reach out into the community and seek to help these types of people in order to prevent these terrible tragedies. I do not know what programs would work, how it would be funded, or anything. But sterilizing her, imprisoning her or executing her will not repair the damage that was done. Nor will it care for the surviving children. Although I feel strongly some punishment must be enacted, it will take an average of 18k or more a year to keep her in prison and that money could have been better spent in preventing this tragedy.
sigh There is no easy answer and it just sucks.
It’s a shame you don’t have enough compassion within you to go around to everyone who could use a dose.
And a hearty kumba-fucking-ya to you, too.
And this is what makes me come to the opposite conclusion from yours. A functional person wakes up and thinks of what they need to do for their kids; an addict thinks immediately of what they need to get their fix. No choice involved.
I’m sorry, but when it comes to stuff like this I’m entirely biased. I have a daughter. When I read this, I imagine a child like mine going through what I can only imagine those kids going through while mommy dearest kicks back another bud light. It puts a sick feeling in my stomach.
I’m not trying to accuse anyone here of not having any feelings for the kids by expressing a whit of sympathy for the mother. I just think the remarks made by metacom were highly and purposefully insulting. To imply that the people in this thread expressing disgust, anger, and outrage at this were just “chest thumping” is beyond the pale. :mad:
Have you ever seen post partum depression(not that I’m sure this was in play here, but it seems likely with a seven week old) firsthand? I have and I don’t think your description would even remotely approach justice. Mainly because it was heading the wrong direction.
I have three daughters and two sons, if that matters.
Enjoy,
Steven
Being disgusted, angry, and outraged is fine. They’re reactions that normal people have when they hear of a tragedy. But they should be tempered with compassion and empathy, or you’ll be indulging in the same kind of disregard for life that you’re condemning this woman for.
Do you truly believe this?
If you were sitting in the same room as this woman five years from now, and you’d talked to her for an hour and learned that she’s a person like you in many respects, and she’d so deeply changed that her actions 5 years ago were as shocking to her then as they are to you now–only far more so because it was her that did it–and all she could do was sob, could you calmly look at her and wish her constant suffering for the rest of her life?
If not, you were chest thumping.
That’s just it. It’s easier to be sympathetic (or judgmental) if we’re dealing with something in our own experience. This is totally outside our experience.
I can’t sympathize but I can’t judge either. It’s just inconceivable, all of it.
IMO, that analogy doesn’t hold, because beating and rape can and do exist independant of alcohol. Being in a drunken stupor and all of the mental incapacitation that goes along with it, cannot exist independently of alcohol.
Hypothetically, a woman who neglects her kids knowingly and in cold blood, is IMO guilty of a different crime than a woman who goes on a bender, forgets what day it is, and wanders in a cloud of intoxication for so long that her children die of dehydration.
Anyone else notice the striking resemblence between Marie G. Robinson and Edgar G. Robinson?
I can’t believe I missed this post–it was very good…
For what it’s worth, I’d be arguing for compassion then too. I think neglect is abuse–even if the physical consequences aren’t always this extreme, the emotional ones can still be devastating. I’d still argue that she should be treated with compassion, because I’d still believe she’s a human being with the capacity to change. And I’d have no problem keeping her away from kids until there was little doubt that she had changed.
No. I don’t believe that anything (save some kind of organic brain injury) mitigates bad behaviour. I think people deserve compassion and empathy regardless of how the APA labels them.
Amen.
Her children are dead. Dead forever and ever and ever. No matter how sorry she is, it doesn’t change anything.
You can look in every corner of the world, and you will never, ever find these children. They are gone.
You are a kind person, Metacom. But kind is wrong. Wrong when the deed can never ever be mended.
Sorry for posting my sig in such an inappropriate thread.
Clicking the little box is a habit.
I do truly believe this. I can understand where people want compassion for her. Yeah, she has a problem. From what the articles say she has a big problem. To me, it doesn’t make a difference. I explained my reasoning in my last post.
I’m sorry if I came insulted anyone who expressed sympathy for the mother. I didn’t mean to. However, I cannot find a way to feel sorry for this mother at all. I meant every single word I said in my first post and my opinion on this will never change.
I know you have a brain, ivylass. Being outraged and horrified does not give you a free pass to stop using it. Her kids died while she was passed out drunk. Unless the CPS guys told her immediately - which the news story implies was not the case - then when she got that beer she didn’t know they were dead.
Was she neglectful? Obviously - but she’s just as obviously a hardcore alky. She probably got that beer on autopilot as part of her waking-up ritual.
Or getting a lot of calories from the dozens of cans of beer she drank.
I’ll feel sorry for her, sure enough. She’s certainly a sorry enough person, and deserves a moment’s consideration for a life wasted getting wasted. That’s always sad.
But along with that sorrow comes anger and contempt. Anger, contempt, and sorrow are not mutually exclusive. No need to go to any effort explaining the “why” of my anger and contempt. Any human capable of empathy knows where that comes from.
But pity? For this woman?! Not a chance. My pity is reserved for her victims.
I’m so f’n glad you have this infinite ability for compassion and understanding. Please continue to thump your chest-thump about your moral superiority for possessing it. I don’t. I don’t pretend to. I don’t hide it. My compassion is limited, thus I only spend it on those who deserve it.
If I’m sitting in a room with this woman 5 years from now, there better be prison guards nearby. Leg irons would be a nice touch. When she tells me how sorry she is and how she has changed, I’ll tell her to ask her dead babies how they feel about that. Then I would tell here that’s how she is supposed to feel. Read the last link. People tried to help her. But not only did she refuse help, she continued to be a baby factory. She walked a self-destructive path, and continued to add to those she dragged with her down the path.