# RO: Mom kills kid. Eats brain **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 27, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471 "2009-07-27T19:27:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/81 "2009-07-30T23:42:46Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > I think we’re all well aware of the fact that horrible things happen to children, and sometimes parents hurt their kids in some really vile ways. What I don’t need is a graphic description of baby cannibalism rolling around in my head right now. However, like mswas, the thread title was enough to bother me for days until I finally read it. That’s my own fault, of course, but still, I don’t think that not knowing about this case would have made me naive or in denial or anything. It would simply have been one less nightmare to have. ☹ However, it isn’t just you that needs to know about and discuss these things, in order to be able to make better decisions in the future. And really, would there ever _be_ a good time for you to have that rolling around in your head? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/82 "2009-07-30T23:54:41Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > …to know about and discuss these things, in order to be able to make better decisions in the future. So, what sort of decisions will you base on this? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/83 "2009-07-31T00:01:15Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > So, what sort of decisions will you base on this? > 🙂 Seriously-- what “decisions” were made here? A woman suffering from mental illness did something so horrible that there’s no way it could have been predicted. Maybe her family could have pressed her to get treatment, but I don’t think reading this story is going to be a revelation for anyone. People with mental illness need to get help, lest they hurt themselves or others. I guess there are people who deny that, but I’m sure they’d dismiss this story as a completely freak occurrence. So, what’s the lesson here that needs to be learned that only a story like this can teach? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/84 "2009-07-31T00:13:12Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > So, what’s the lesson here that needs to be learned that only a story like this can teach? Don’t have kids. Seems pretty clear to me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MarcinCiez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@MarcinCiez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcinCiez)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/85 "2009-07-31T00:19:38Z")
> [@alterego](#): > > According to Wikipedia, this is known as ‘savaging’ in animal science. > > [Savaging - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savaging) You beat me to it. When I was young I experienced the horror of seeing my cat eat her 3 newborn (only one was left). Without bringing a religious argument into this, humans are animals. And they will on occasion do things that other humans will not fully understand. (Note: I didn’t read the article in full, so please dont point out errors, use the below as an exaple. AND in no way am I saying that this woman should not be punished.) The ‘voices’ she hear heard might have been her brain telling her to ‘eat’ - after she came to her ‘moral senses’ she perceived these voices as something that she’s familiar with (‘the devil told me’). I don’t know why my cat ate her young - she had everything, food, housing… No one will ever know ‘exactly’ why this woman did this either - NATURE was just too strong of a force to be overcome by ‘human moral-ness’. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/86 "2009-07-31T00:43:27Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Don’t have kids. Seems pretty clear to me. 🙂 Best four hundred dollars I ever spent. But I digress. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/87 "2009-07-31T01:03:28Z")
> [@MarcinCiez](#): > > You beat me to it. When I was young I experienced the horror of seeing my cat eat her 3 newborn (only one was left). > > . . . > > I don’t know why my cat ate her young - she had everything, food, housing… No one will ever know ‘exactly’ why this woman did this either - NATURE was just too strong of a force to be overcome by ‘human moral-ness’. You know how some veteranarians have office cats that roam around? I saw one, once, whose back legs were missing. It seemed not to miss them at all, curling its behind up and forward to take a step. The receptionist said that its mother had chewed them off when it was born. She said that mother cats have an instinct to eat the placenta and chew down the umbilical cord and that the folks in the office thought that the instinct to stop just hiccuped in her case. Don’t know if that’s true, but thought I’d throw it out there. ---
**Author:** ![MarcinCiez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@MarcinCiez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcinCiez)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/88 "2009-07-31T02:13:20Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > She said that mother cats have an instinct to eat the placenta and chew down the umbilical cord and that the folks in the office thought that the instinct to stop just hiccuped in her case. Maybe.. but in my case I don’t think the placent argument comes into it. We saw her eat the placenta on the day of the birth. The kitty eating only occured a few days later (if not weeks - I cant recall). Our cat had four kittens… or so we thought, becasue when we checked on a lated day, we only counted 3. Our cat had them in a burrow (by her choice), so couldn’t really see. Days later we spotted her eating one of the kittens (in front of our door). ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/89 "2009-07-31T02:50:57Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Don’t have kids. Seems pretty clear to me. 🙂 Especially if you had a big lunch. You want to be able to finish! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/90 "2009-07-31T02:53:41Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > So, what’s the lesson here that needs to be learned that only a story like this can teach? I had a teacher in Psychology 1300 and 1301, required courses, with whom we later played bridge who admitted, “Some people are just crazy.” ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/91 "2009-07-31T02:54:24Z")
> [@MarcinCiez](#): > > Maybe.. but in my case I don’t think the placent argument comes into it. We saw her eat the placenta on the day of the birth. The kitty eating only occured a few days later (if not weeks - I cant recall). Our cat had four kittens… or so we thought, becasue when we checked on a lated day, we only counted 3. Our cat had them in a burrow (by her choice), so couldn’t really see. Days later we spotted her eating one of the kittens (in front of our door). Yeah, that wouldn’t fit that explanation at all. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/92 "2009-07-31T03:51:09Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > So, what sort of decisions will you base on this? > 🙂 One would hope that anyone that reads/discusses that story would be more likely to intervene before something like that happened. I forget now, but wasn’t her sister living with her? How could she be “in and out of mental hospitals” and people thought it was OK for her to be raising three children? Things like that. Far too many people think that no mother would ever harm their children, apparently including some working in social services. Yes, this case was way over the top, but people are far more likely to remember something like this than “run of the mill” abuse. Me personally? Just cements even further my belief that children are not good for you! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/93 "2009-07-31T13:09:38Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > One would hope that anyone that reads/discusses that story would be more likely to intervene before something like that happened. I forget now, but wasn’t her sister living with her? How could she be “in and out of mental hospitals” and people thought it was OK for her to be raising three children? People _already_ complain about how the Department of Children and Families here (and the same agencies elsewhere) have too much power. Unless a parent is obviously abusive, it’s pretty difficult to get kids removed from parental custody. Presumably this woman wasn’t beating her kid regularly. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/94 "2009-07-31T19:56:37Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > People _already_ complain about how the Department of Children and Families here (and the same agencies elsewhere) have too much power. > > Unless a parent is obviously abusive, it’s pretty difficult to get kids removed from parental custody. Presumably this woman wasn’t beating her kid regularly. I dunno about Florida, but child protective does have a lot of power here in California. They just don’t have time to use it, or research situations to see if they need to use it. For example, they would probably have no idea if a woman who had had some pretty serious mental health care was having any trouble raising her kids, even if someone reported her. ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/95 "2009-07-31T20:07:58Z")
Maybe it’ll make people more likely to heed their doubts about new mothers’ mental health and try harder to get them help, or at the very least, make them more cautious in leaving infants alone (or unmonitored - even just a baby monitoring device) with family members they suspect may be suffering postpartum mental illness (or have a recent history of psychotic mental illness) rather than simply assuming that surely they wouldn’t do something too awful to their own kid. It’s even possible the woman in the article said something about eating her newborn before she acted on it and her relatives dismissed it as something no one, even when not in their right mind, would do. It’s hard for mentally healthy people to imagine a situation in which they would feel compelled to do horrible and shocking things to other people, which makes us more inclined to dismiss the possibility that it could ever happen. Maybe knowing about one case in which it \*did \*happen will be enough to open people’s minds to the possibility that it could happen again and make them better able to accurately gauge the seriousness of similar situations they find themselves in. ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/96 "2009-07-31T20:16:51Z")
Missed the edit. Not that any of us are likely to encounter a similar example in person, but maybe knowing that one woman actually _dismembered and consumed her own newborn_ will make people less likely to dismiss much less egregious situations they come across as unlikely to result in any serious harm being done. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/97 "2009-07-31T22:23:31Z")
Am I wrong to hope that this woman stays insane so that she doesn’t ever really learn what she did? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/98 "2009-08-01T01:51:46Z")
Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of upon reading this was Johnathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal? ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/99 "2009-08-01T02:21:03Z")
Wow, what an evil woman. ---
**Author:** ![GraceTX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c4cdca/32.png) [@GraceTX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GraceTX)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471/100 "2009-08-01T14:58:24Z")
> [@MarcinCiez](#): > > Maybe.. but in my case I don’t think the placent argument comes into it. We saw her eat the placenta on the day of the birth. The kitty eating only occured a few days later (if not weeks - I cant recall). Our cat had four kittens… or so we thought, becasue when we checked on a lated day, we only counted 3. Our cat had them in a burrow (by her choice), so couldn’t really see. Days later we spotted her eating one of the kittens (in front of our door). When I was a teenager, our cat had 2 kittens and did the same thing. We woke up on morning and one of the kittens was missing its head. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-mom-kills-kid-eats-brain/504471.md?page=6)