Part 2
Slate magazine writer Dahlia Lithwick postulates about the reasons men and women kill their children. In her article, When Parents Kill, Lithwick looks at several recent cases of parental murder namely, the Andrea Yates case; a mother of five who drowned all of her children in a bathtub and was subsequently hospitalized after a not guilty by reason of insanity ruling.
Lithwick looks at the punishment which mothers and fathers normally face when they have been convicted of this particular crime. Through statistics she finds that men are disproportionately jailed while women are normally hospitalized with some type of psychosis.
She goes on to explain some of the rationales for this disparity and how the media is partially to blame for the circus that most of these cases turn into; i.e. Caylee Anthony.
I disagree with the method of punishment and how it is doled out to both sets of parents. Men it is true are more physically violent when murdering a child but just because a mother thinks that suffocation or drowning are more humane does not make it so - those children are still aware of what is happening to them and they are just as terrified as if they were being bludgeoned to death or stomped on or ran over or thrown off of a bridge.
I do agree with the author’s assertion that we need to stop thinking of children as property. I have personal experience in this area and it does nothing but causes heart break. I believe that if parents could just grow up and think beyond their own selfish, spiteful, hurtful selves that they would truly know what was best for that child and that most of the time a child has no real responsibility for where the court places them – nor if given the chance would they want to make that choice – they are after all children and they love both of their parents equally. Selfishness and revenge is one reported motive of fathers who kill their children. While women are more apt to kill to keep a new lover in their lives instead of just turning over custody to an ex.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
While well-written, when I looked away from the blog and tried to recall what was written, I found myself only able to recall the condemnation of this particular crime. I think this could be kept in mind more in the language chosen so as to present a more objective writing if that is indeed the objective of this posting.
ReplyDeleteI think that the analysis could benefit from a broader exploration of the conversation that others are having about this issue. I think if you took more elements from the first part of your paper in the other post, and put them in your analysis, it would help a lot in terms of backing up the positions (agreeing and disagreeing with the article)
ReplyDelete