NOW CLOSED We Need to Talk about Kevin - tell the film makers your views on the topics it raises (spoiler alert) - a £200 Amazon voucher to be won

[NewGirlHelenMumsnet]

Hello. As you may know, the film version of "We Need To Talk About Kevin", based on the book by Lionel Shriver, is out in cinemas soon and we've been asked by the film's producers to find out how you feel about the issues the book/film covers.

WARNING - This thread may well contain spoilers for anyone who hasn't read the book/seen the film.

OK, so, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" has been called a "compelling and repulsive" book about motherhood. It is, as one MNer put it "one of the first novels to put motherhood under the microscope and to state honestly that motherhood isn't always a walk in the park".

It's the story of a woman who doesn't bond with her son - and whose son grows up to do something monstrous. It's deliberately - and unsettlingly - unclear how much the difficult relationship between mother and son was a catalyst for his monstrous actions.

Do come and post your thoughts here on motherhood, bonding, parental guilt, nature/nurture etc etc. It doesn't matter whether you've read the book or not. (This isn't really meant to be a debate about the merits of the book, more about the issues it, and film based on it, raises. Comments will not be used anywhere - the film producers are just interested to hear what you think).

You can read what author Lionel Shriver has to say about it all in the fascinating Q&A we did with her recently - and you can watch a trailer for the film .

Everyone who adds their comments to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £200 Amazon voucher.

Thanks
MNHQ

And having seen the trailer Tilda looks VERY like I'd imagined Eva while reading the book, which never happens! I don't usually watch films of books I've read, as they almost never do them justice / match up with the images in my head but it's been a while since I've read it so I might see this.

I've been putting off reading this as I had problems bonding with ds and I still struggle with the guilt 11 years on.

reading some of the spoilers here I may give it a go.

Have just read a rave review of the film in the Evening Standard so am tempted to give it a go. Plus Tilda Swinton is always worth watching - something very compelling about her in any role.

My DD is my mirror. At only 5.5mo, I smile and she smiles, I frown and she frowns and so on. I can't imagine not feeling anything but overwhelming love for my DD.

I read this book when it was shocked by the attitude of the mother and her attitude towards her child. I can't say that it made me worry though.

Saw the film last night with dh who has also read the book. I have to say i think you'd struggle to keep up with it unless you had read it.

I loved the film and Tilda and Ezra were fantastic all the characters were as id imagined in the book.

There were two its left out which i thought were very important to the story.
The bit with the police and the brick thrown at a car and the Nanny who also couldnt cope.

maryz I had/have a bit of a troublesome son-now grown but still lives life unconventionally. I aggree about seeking help but i also dont think that help is available.
I did have attachment issues with him as i was only 17 and in an abusive relationship.
The guilt is still there

pessimisticpiggy see I didn't get that overwhelming love for ds. I loved him, missed him when he was away from me and I worried about him. but it wasn't the deeply intense love obsession I had for my 2 dd's. of course at the time i knew things were not 100% right, but I didn't realise until much later the difference in my feelings.

I have a huge amount of guilt and fear that I may have done him some long lasting damage. obviously this book is on a whole other scale to what i'm saying, but it has still put me off reading the book thus far.

off into town later so will try and pick up a copy.

But what about the father's role in all this? Why do readers, and viewers, and reviewers, and anyone who ever comments on a child gone wrong always focus on the mother alone?

It's a while since I read the book, but my impression of the father was that his role was just as destructive as the mother's and the son's. He ignored the problems, insisted it was all fine, and refused to listen to the mother's fears. If Kevin's fate was at all to do with parenting, and not innate, then both parents played a part.

Maryz just curious, do you think she DID try and seek help by trying to explain/show Franklin that she thought something was "wrong" with Kevin? And with him being selectively oblivious (I feel) only increased her feeling of "getting it wrong" and confusion as it were?

I'm shocked that they left the bit about the nanny out of the film. For me that was the one aspect that showed that it wasn't just Eva who thought there was something "wrong", validated her observations. I will go and see the film but I'm now wondering if the angle has been changed somewhat with Eva being portrayed as unhinged etc.

edam The book is written from the perspective of the Mother so we can't surmise what the father's true thoughts/feelings were, only what he said/did. So not only do we opnly have her perspective, but as Mothers ourselves, we identify with her (or not, as the case may be and simply compare ourselves) not something we're likely to do with the Father character.

Agreed his actions/words/indeed genetics all played a part in who Kevin was and became but we're never going to discuss it fully from his perspective, are we?

Eva I saw that same documentary and it was fascinating. I think, though, the gene was expressed, but not fully switched on, if you will. His children talked of his 'different' personality' and other members of his family about some of his behaviour as a child. But he spoke himself of being surrounded by love and care at all times and so I guess that what you say about the gene not being properly triggered by enviroment/nuture rings true. Certainly, of all the serial murderers I have read about or watched documentaries about, they seem to have, shall we say, difficult childhoods.

Pre-children, I was very much in the nurture camp. After having my own first two, and seeing how utterly, utterly different they were from the moment they were born it almost wiped away the nuture thought. I've since come to the conclusion that it's neither one or the other, but infact a combination of the two, probably with nature at the heart of everything despite nuture (as in, if you're not genetically predisposed to be a serial killer, can nurture ''turn you into one'? I really think not, having experienced much abuse myself in my childhood, and in reading the 'A Child Called It' series which sees him growing up as a compasionate man, always looking to help others despite the awful neglect and abuse he suffered).

Agreed that Eva showed very little, if any, maternal guilt which seems to colour so much of all the Mothers I know. I wonder, perhaps, if that was where Kevin's dodgy genes were from. I can't even blame possible pnd for her lack of...anything (other than wanting to appear 'normal') as I had it after DS1 and still felt overwhelming guilt that I wasn't happy and enjoying what should be a special time - I wanted to die, to 'protect' the children from me. I think even in the throes of pnd that many, if not most mothers still very much feel that they need to protect and nurture their children... it seems that only if it tips over into post natal psychosis that a mother starts to seriously think about harming her child or acting upon it.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the film; to seeing Tilda's performance, particularly. If nothing else, the producers can take that I think hers was genius casting, as without her in the lead I'd probably wait for the dvd or see it on tv, eventually, rather than wanting to get my butt to the cinema.

This film will stir the emotions in mothers definitely. Some will doubt themselves over their bonding and love for their child.

For anyone who is not or didn't or hasn't bonded with their child:

To think for one minute that this (imaginary) boy was made to be how he was because his (imaginary) mother didn't bond with him is is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

It is completely over-simplistic to think that you can explain something as complicated as a personality just by how their mother felt about them or behaved towards them. There are millions of influences in a child's life, all of which will have some effect on that child and how it turns out, how it behaves and how it feels.

This is a book, and now a film, neither of which are based on real life, but come out of the author's imagination. The author clearly has little idea of what he/she is talking about, and has written this for shock value, with little recourse to research or profundity of thought. There is no relation to real life.

Stop beating yourselves up. You will NOT produce a child like Kevin just because you're having some difficulty bonding right now.

I think it does bring up the nature vs nurture issue. Was he born bad, if he'd been raised differently would he still have done the same or would he have been a different person?

I think as a parent you'd always blame yourself on some level. Youd look back and think well maybe if I'd given him more attention, etc he would have been different.

Ive been doing some training on the attachment disorder theory and have to say it is interesting.At first i scoffed but it certainly makes interesting uncomfortable reading.
This has made me re think the nature/nurture theory but i aggree in this case it is fictional but i did enjoy it.

I read the book ages ago on a family camping holiday it ruined it

interestingly all I remember is what a norful, norful baby/boy/teen Kevin was

I didn't find it ambiguous, didn't for a second think that Eva was to blame, or that you were supposed to think she was to blame- as I remember it my sympathies were nearly totally with her. I remember being really frustrated with the dad, as well

maybe that says more about me than it does about the book

I think that the book definitely raises an issue which isn't tackled very well in this country. (Albeit this would be a very serious case in point.)
More support should be given to pregnant women as it's a wholly natural thing to bond, or not to bond, immediately.

Being a parent is so difficult in so many ways. To have such ridiculous standards pressed upon you by the media and other parents- You must do this, have this, feel this - dehumanises parents.

Better education on what is required to be an effective parent is definitely needed in this country.

I thought that the book was an interesting thought experiment about motherhood by someone who wasn't a mother (I wasn't a mother either when I read it btw).

In some ways LS was in an interesting position in that she was writing about this relationship without any influence from her personal experience. Maybe that was how she was able to write it - it's a huge taboo breaker and I think it would be harder for a writer who was a mother to break those taboos.

But the main thing that I took from it was that mothers will justify things after the fact. The mother is blaming herself for what Kevin did and how she was, as well as justifying how she behaved (some fairly bizarre early scenes with Kevin as malevolent foetus/newborn which only make sense to me if seen through the eyes of an unreliable narrator). It's one woman's story. Kevin's story and his father's story might be completely different.

It's been a long time since I read it though, and got to say that I wouldn't read it again.

Actually, for "mothers will justify things after the fact" read "people will justify things after the fact". It's not something unique to mothers.

I found it a harrowing book to read. I don't really want to watch the film, but I expect I will out of curiosity. I think that the big thing for me what that she had had such a dysfunctional family herself and didn't know how to be a mother.

I just got my copy and look forward to reading it, even though I don't expect to enjoy it as such. Should be an interesting read. I'll let you know how I got on...
:)

Maybe the emphasis should be on how the whole, extended family and society fail to intervene with Kevin and his dysfunctioning family rather that on the subject of 'failing' mothers.

I read it before i had children and felt that the mum was justified in her actions and that Kevin was a bad sort..it was almost out of her hands. Re-read as a parent and am horrified at the mum, but more that the family, a wealthy educated family, had not done more. it just did not ring true. but was a compelling read either way and will be going to see the film.