Thursday, November 17, 2016

Why Do Mothers Kill Their Children?

Although it may seem crazy, some mothers do commit the unthinkable act of killing their own children. The act of mothers killing their own children is called Maternal filicide. Each time this occurs, the question is raised, "How could this possibly happen?". Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology in Washington, D.C. says "Mothers don't kill their children unless they are seriously disturbed." The article points out that there are five motives for maternal filicide. These five motives are Altruistic filicide (where a mother rationalizes that killing her child is in the child’s best interest), Acutely psychotic filicide (where a mother kills without an understandable motive, possibly hearing voices), fatal maltreatment filicide (where a mother does not necessarily mean to kill her child, but death occurs after cumulative abuse), unwanted child filicide (where a mother believes her child is a hindrance in her life), and spouse revenge filicide (where she kills her child to emotionally strike out against the father). According to this article, this unfathomable act gets attention because the media likes to report on this type of story, but it should be noted that maternal filicide is quite rare. Studies and experts agree on one common factor when mothers commit such an unthinkable crime, it must be because of mental illness.