Revenge incites parents who kill

Washington Times ^ | 6/24/02 | Joyce Howard Price

[kattracks]

Stories of parents who kill their children always will be rare enough to hold the power to shock, but it is still uncertain what's behind a recent rash of such reports here in the greater Washington area.

Some analysts say these crimes could be evidence that more parents are killing their offspring as a way to get revenge against a spouse who is threatening to leave and take the children.

[Tall_Texan]

So when a woman kills her children, it's due to depression or hormones. But when a man kills his children, it's just that he's evil and wants to punish the woman. And it's the man's fault that she leaves because he's "abusive" and "controlling". Same old "blame the man" theology that dominates our society.

I don't doubt that there are men who kill out of evil and women who kill out of depression but would it help just once not to blatantly stereotype these things?

I've grown weary of the kneejerk double-standards.

[kattracks]

The very same women who claim that a woman's emotions and/or hormones play an important role, when it comes to 'defending" her actions, will then scream the loudest when women are perceived to be swayed by these same things in their careers.

[foolscap]

And it's the man's fault that she leaves because he's "abusive" and "controlling". Same old "blame the man" theology that dominates our society

There may be an element of this mind set in this story. However you must admit that anyone male or female who kills their children to punish a partner is violent and abusive. It takes a very sick person to even entertain the thought that behavior like this is justified.

[Tall_Texan]

I'm not denying that at all. I'm just pointing out the story stereotypically suggests that whether the man kills his children or the mother kills her children, the blame points back to the man. How many here were far too willing to string up Russell Yates?

I'm not saying a man who kills isn't violent. That's absurd. But when women kill, everyone seeks a non-judgemental reason. Yet, when a man kills, there's no other excuse than that he's evil.

Society finds women killing their children so incomprehensible that, when it happens as in the case of Susan Smith, they makes severe leaps of logic to try to explain it rather than confront evil as just evil.

[PoisedWoman]

neighbors interviewed speculated that Mr. Ilyas, who is from Pakistan, was trying to hurt his wife..... "You're probably mostly looking at revenge in this case. He thought he owned the boys and could do with them as he chose,"

With a growing Muslim population, we'll be seeing more cases like this. Men at a certain level of that "culture" do believe they "own" the children. Liberal lawyers will get them acquitted because "their culture is different," no matter how many years they've been here.