I debated whether to write this post, because it’s pretty rough stuff, but just be warned – it could be hard for some to read as it centers on children being killed by their parents. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to skip…I just need to get it out of my head, and it seemed like as good a topic as any for a horror/suspense blog post.
Recently in our local news there was a story about a younger couple who had abused their ten-week old twins to the point where one of the babies died. The other was seriously injured, and is now in the care of others while the parents are in jail. Both parents were complicit in the abuse, and admitted as much.
Shortly after, I saw another news story about a mother who smothered her baby to death, and left said baby in a closet (somewhere not local). And then just in the past week, a mother whose small kids were found left in a car and dressed for summer on a very cold day. When pressed, she admitted she left them there to die.
I have a pretty sick mind. I can generally look at things a serial killer does or says, and see the twisted logic in it. I can see how someone would arrive at the conclusions they do even when it’s just a one-off killing, given their own circumstances and environment or whatever. I’m almost too good at putting myself in other people’s shoes (it’s draining, as I also have a pretty high personal moral code, so my understanding their thoughts & actions doesn’t at all signify agreement with their decisions on any level).
I could even understand wanting to euthanize if a child has some horrific disease or problem that will plague them throughout their lives. Not a decision I’d probably make, but I can understand the logic behind it and how one would come to that conclusion.
These killings of one’s offspring though, probably due to stretched tempers/lack of sleep/messed up hormones (though in the first case, the father was abusive as well…) – that I just don’t get. There are so many people who want kids that there is just absolutely no excuse for keeping them if you don’t want or can’t handle them. So many ways to get help with parenting – and those programs are very easily accessed too. Yet so many adults choose to keep or kill the kids they can’t cope with. Which signifies something far worse going on in those psyches, in my opinion.
I have let a child die in fiction before (under my own name)…but it was an accident, and something that just sort of happened while I was writing, and it seemed organic and plausible enough that I left it in. I don’t know if I could even write a character who would deliberately kill a child though. Because to write that, I’d have to get inside their head…and that might be too much for even me to face.
I’m not a parent, so obviously my perspective is skewed a bit, but by all means, if you’d like to discuss, feel free to share in the comments…
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