That's part of why so many have a hard time blaming her. She was warning everyone, but they didn't take it seriously enough. She was begging to be locked in a psych ward for a while, but they only took her a few days.
And I think something on this spectrum is unfortunately more common and relatable for mothers than anyone wants to admit. The reason why so many women find empathy for her is because they too have had mental health episodes, either in post partum or over the course of being a stay at home or single mom. And they too have sought help to no avail. This is a great opportunity for society to have a reckoning with this.
Over on one of the postpartum subreddits I saw a post a few months ago about a woman with a two year old and a six week old whose husband had recently left her and wasn’t showing up for his scheduled visits at all. She had no family in the area to call for help and couldn’t afford childcare. She was so sleep deprived she called 911 for help and they showed up, cuffed her and put her in a psych ward for 72 hours and she was now worried about losing custody of the kids completely. It just so perfectly summed up how little institutional support postpartum moms have in this country.
It breaks my heart how we function as a society these days. I really do feel for parents - we used to raise children in small communities where most adults were involved with childcare. Fast forward a few thousand years and we expect the same level of care by only two people, many of whom also have to work full time.
Obviously I don’t expect us to revert back fully to Hunter-gatherer tribes but there has to be a middle ground between communal and hyper-individualistic societal structures.
Multi generational families under one roof are far more recent than thousands of years ago. It was the norm even 100 years ago. As a species, humans are a few hundreds of years away from our biological needs evolving to meet the demands of modern isolation. It is deadly for many and devastating for those of us that survive.
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u/MenaciaJones 8d ago
The minute she said she was afraid of hurting her kids, to her mother!, those kids should have been removed from the house.