to feel pity for the mum who killed her kids?

[littlestmummystop]

Obviously it is an unforgivable thing to do..

But sometimes when I see these parent kills kids stories, part of me nods and thinks: There for the Grace of God.

I've never been in the position where I've wanted to do something so terrible. But I have been involved in a horrible, bitter break up, been stuck in the house with a screaming child, been driven to the edge of my sanity by all the responsibility and depressive feelings...

I can see why someone, who IS of a deranged mind, who doesn't have any support can do this.

She'll get villified now and all she needed was help. Those kids were obviously well cared for, for years beforehand. When a good mum turns bad something has gone horribly wrong and it's a shame more people don't help in these situations.

Also agree with ImSoNotTelling's post. I find it hard to pity the killer, whatever their gender.

news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Childrens-Bodies-Found-Dead-In-Car-In-Heathfield-East-Sussex-Sees- Woman-Arrested-For-Murder/Article/201001415536989?lpos=UKNewsCarouselRegion3&lid=ARTICLE1553698 9ChildrensBodiesFoundDeadInCarInHeathfield%2CEastSussex%2CSeesWomanArrestedForMurder

If I have read it correctly she has 2 teenage children.

I'm sorry - I am such a technophobe!

putting those little bodies in a sports bag.

my god!

i can't imagine. i truly can't.

I knew there would be a thread like this on here.

Personally I think that for anyone to kill their kids (and try or succeed in killing themselves) then they must have serious mental health issues.

But on MN the men who do it regularly get consigned to hell whereas the women get sympathy and "it could have been me" - why the discrepancy?

Never heard of andrea yates, just read wiki entry. Looks like the preacher who convinced her that her children were going to hell played a part in the deaths as well as the husbnd. Awful.

And she was super, dooper, diagnosed insane.

well exactly. Take one woman who is mad, tell her that herself and her children are going to go to hell, add in a husband who thinks people with mental illness simply need a kick up the backside and leaves his wife alone with the children against strict doctors orders. Then act all surprised when it all ends in tears. Just awful.

Thing is, a lot of people who kill their children do so because they believe they will be better off that way. So there actions are inexcusable, but their motivations are more complex.

Excepting Yates, I don't pity anyone who does this.

I really don't.

Putting their little bodies into sports bag. Sticking them into a boot.

The little faces that give you the big smiles.

No, it makes me sick, it really does.

It does amaze me on here sometimes int hat if this was a father who had killed the children, people would be up in arms. Whenever it is a mother, excuses seem to be forthcoming and more understanding found. Why is that?

Obviously whenever these things happen something dreadful must have occured to have made the parent ac t like that, regardless f if mum or dad.

YABU

She killed her children, end of, no excuses.

YABU

I would have had immense sympathy if she had killed herself but her DCs, no, it is unforgivable.

I had PND and would have quite happily jumped off a bridge, i thought my baby would have been far better off without me. I would have never harmed him.

There's no double standards for me. Man or Woman (whatever the reason); are neatly labelled under the heading "BASTARDS".

This woman put the bodies of her children in bags and walked into a police station to confess (by report).

If the account is true, it shows some lucidity, direction and purpose. Those same influences should have driven her to seek help before... but they didn't, she killed two beautiful children.

So no; I don't feel sorry for her.

I just feel a tremendous sadness for those poor children.

Having suffered severe PND which deepened into severe depression for many years (with "genuine" suicide attempts); I have some empathy (but no understanding really) of mental health issues; but at no point in the turmoil could I have physically harmed my child.It just didn't even occur to me.

I don't feel sympathy for her at all. If you want to end your own life, fine - do it. Killing someone else, particularly a child, is just beyond wrong.

I understand that mental illness affects people's actions but that does not make me feel sympathatic when children are murdered.

i see another thread on here, i was commented on the other one.
my heart truely goes out to her teenage sons
i dont think i feel sympathy for the mother. she will be locked up now.

YANBU if we assume she was mentally ill. Chances are that she was.

I also agree that there are often double standards on MN between our assumptions of what a man and an woman are capable of and there is a tendency to assume a man is evil and a woman is mentally ill, sometimes even when it flies in the face of the evidence.

In a sense it doesn't matter much. Either way this woman is going to be locked up for a very long time to come, either in prison or in a mental hospital. Whether we pity her is irrelevant and she is going to suffer for the rest of her life for this.

Post natal depression can drive a woman to kill her children if she turns psychotic but that is extremely rare and tends to happen quite soon after birth so unlikely to be the case here if her youngest is not a newborn.

Regardless of how terrible her life was, she had no right to kill her children. The only life she had the 'right' to take was her own....
There are NO excuses for such evil, evil act. NO excuses.
HOW can anyone feel sympathy towards her is beyond me.

Agree Rollmops. Why didn't she just take her own life? Why oh why kill the children?

looks like she was a career woman, possibly 2 failed marriages, large house, being sold.
in my book that is no excuse for taking away her 2 children's lives. you can understand her mental health issues but, sympathy, i dont think so.

I'm another who suffered from severe PND.

I agree re: the double standard, actually, and no, I don't feel sympathy for this woman.

Please can we get away from the idea that depressed = 'insane' and that depression would drive someone to acts like this.

Depressed people most usually turn their feelings against themselves, not other people. Not of course that I'm an expert by any stratch of the imagination, but it seems to be a common experience.

If you're depressed, you seek help. You

Sorry, last sentence should be 'You don't kill your children'.

Here here Janos.

poor little mites.

it's every parent's worst nightmare, to see your child dead. i'd rather die a thousand deaths myself.

and here she put them into holdalls.

and Janos raises an excellent point, depression is a) not an excuse for murder b) not indicative of a homicidal person c) most of the time, the depressed person destroys themselves.

some people who murder are deranged.

some are just fuckers.

I can't summon up much sympathy for her at the moment. I do feel incredibly sad for the two children she murdered and the two that will have to live with what their mother did forever. I wonder who was looking after them when she killed the younger two. I assume it was an act against her current husband or else why were the other two spared?