'Tragic Family Situation' - murder of children, apparently by their father.

For me it is the word "situation". I don't know why but it implies that this awful thing happened to his wife, DC and him. But the situation doesn't just happen to men like that, they are the orchestrators of it, the murderers. That word syas to me that they had no control over it.

I agree with Plump. There was an incident like this in my hometown many years ago. The father tried to drown himself and two children. He survived and was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic after the event. Nothing to do with family background or revenge or infidelity - a tragic case of severe mental illness. His mother boards the 11.15 bus to the mental hospital every Wednesday to see him, such a tragedy for all concerned.

Yes, they were murdered, seemingly not currently clear by whom, though. Perhaps it's worth remembering that as you're posting on a public forum.

Have reported this thread as some of the presumptous posts seem really inappropraite (to say the least).

Using 'murder' is quite appropriate in this case. They were murdered. That they have obviously been murdered isn't in question.

There's no need for the word tragic or family situation. These are horrific murders. i note actually, on the news t#I'm watching in progress, the reporter ben Ando says 'tragic and 'family' but the police officer at the press conference does not use either such phrase.

And Huff Post is being deliberately targeted.

Lets face it, the father in this instance was a first class c*. I have no sympathy for him, whatever she did or didn't do, he had no right to take the lives of 3 children, no right at all !

Lucyellensmum has it spot on. If you are not involved, and are trying to judge what happened in a situation like this through reading stories on the internet or in the papers- frankly you have no right to pass comment on what the person involved did or did not intend.

A friend of mine's children were both killed in cold blood by their manipulative ex-partner, in a twisted act of revenge and control. We got to read in the press and online that people could not believe that the killer was anything other than ill in some way.. why? Because she was a woman.

Meanwhile, my father had bipolar, which gave him very severe delusions. He planned to kill the entire family on two occasions that I know of- out of a sense of compassion, if you can get your head around that (even I find it tricky!). He was one of the kindest, gentlest men you could ever meet. But if he had succeeded, he would have been portrayed as a monster by the media, for sure.

Two very different motivations, with potential to be misjudged largely because of gender stereotypes...

Actually I've just read the coverage and it's absolutely awful obviously
I don't actually feel comfortable talking in these terms about something so recent
I can't get past how horrific it must be for their poor Mum, talking about the terminology as a feminist issue (whilst I appreciate it is a valid point), is a bit much for me so I am going to bow out

The breakdown of gender when someone kills their own child is roughly even. Very very sad when it happens.

""Killings of children by a natural parent are committed in roughly equal proportions by mothers (47%) and fathers (53%), but where the child is killed by someone other than a [birth] parent, males strongly predominate".

nspcc

Plumpdog - of course, and crossed posts, we just don't know what happened. Its just so horrible.

I would be interested to know if these incidents are becoming more common and if they are a result of the pressured times we live in - like we are all living in a giant pressure cooker?

But the thing is drjohonsonscat we don't know what happened. Apart from the fact that four innocent children lost their lives. We can surmise as much as we like, but i guess we will never know. Just the same as that idiot on aol.

I can't contemplate that men would murder their own children just to hurt their ex wives. Im not saying that isnt the reality, but that i just can't contemplate it.

drjohnsonscat - if you read my post again you might notice that i was referring to what i understand to be your sister's response to similar stories to this one. Perhaps I should have said 'utterly fucking stupid' instead of 'beyond absurd'.

mince - you are absolutely right. The press are simply not in a position at the moment to state that this man murdered his children.

Lucyellen - those remarks sound very ignorant and presumptive too, but these are reactions - not the same as press reports.

Perhaps are rather wiser approach to this story would be to avoid making presumptions about what happened or what are the political implications of it?

Hi, I don't venture into this section so excuse my lack of information on the subject
I do understand your point, but I do think the police (specifically) aren't able from a legal perspective to use more specific terminology. Therefore the furthest they can go is to imply (by saying it's a family situation) that the father is the perpetrator. I'm not sure they mean that in any other sense than factual

Lucyellen that's horrific and depressing and not at all surprising all at once. Also just underlines the point even more - this poor man was forced to kill an entire family but a mean woman made him do it.

Well quite, monkey. The family and friends are hardly going to be concerned about how they talk about it. Presumably they would use a passive voice, if that's what you want to call it, because they don't want to talk about it to all and sundry who ask. Because it's too painful.
You don't want to go through it to every person who asks, every time someone asks how many children you have or whatever

When i read about this on the computor today, i made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments section. This is roughly what i read - "yet anotehr father feeling that he couldnt protect his family from his exW" "until the law stops favouring women, this is going to continue to happen" i was flabberghasted and appalled. There was a couple of comments in reply to this post - i thoguht they would be telling him what a cunt he was - err, no, they were agreeing with him. I reported it, but when i checked later, the posts were still there this was on aol huffington post - which i know is mostly regurgitated drivel, my excuse is that aol is my email provider, but you couldnt make it up :(

I can only imagine that someone must be totally out of their mind to do something like this. I would feel the same anger if it were a woman who did it, but there is, deep down inside and i am not sure why, some compassion for people who do this as surely they must be profoundly ill - the alternative does not bear contemplation :(

But presumably they can't report it as 'murder' until it has been investigated and the outcome decided from a legal perspective?
Not because they don't want to, but because they can't ?

Plumpdog I'm not sure why you think it's absurd. It's a common phrase which underlines the OPs point which is that men who lose control are not excoriated by society and even in a horrible case like this the violence is glossed over or made 'private' whereas women's transgressions are the subject of public commentary and either amusement or vitriol.

SardineQueen it's sort of the passive voice, but with the subject removed altogether. So the same event could be described as:

Politicians made mistakes (subject-verb-object)
Mistakes were made by politicians (object-verb-subject)
Mistakes were made (Object-verb-no subject)

The last version is favoured sometimes for 'obscuring agency'. There are lots of academic analyses of this sort of thing - Norman Fairclough's Language and Power would be one. But the overall point and effect is, as you said, often noticeable anyway.

The reporting here does something similar, since 'It is a tragic family situation' obscures what the 'it' actually represents = murder of children.

or 'deaths' and not 'murders' if there is any legal implications at all. 'Tragic family situation' is not acceptable. It's lazy and dumb. There are always police media liason officers on these cases and they should choose their words more carefully and correctly. 'Tragically' the police choose to remain lazy and simplistic when it comes to describing such murders.

All the police have to use is the word 'murders' and 'not looking for anyone else in connection with these murders.' The use of 'tragic' is not acceptable. End of. Police need a lot more media training in these areas.

The police should say it wasn't a stranger attack then rather than use the"family situation" phrase which harks back to the days of dv being seen as a family matter, ie none of our business