Even though many mothers and fathers are loving and figures that should be looked up too, they can also be deadly and dangerous. My question is: why would a mom and dad would want to kill their child? I am interested in this because our world depends on fathers and mothers and it is interesting how in many ways we can depend on them but in some ways we can’t. Parents all over the world have problems with their lives and many lash out and do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do because of relationships, marriage, or financial problems.
A quote from The Nature and Extent of Child Homicide and Fatal Abuse stated that “The killing of a child by a carer is likely to have been preceded by a distortion in family relationships. But should these trials in their own lives be taken out and blamed on the child? (Browne & Lynch 315) There are many questions I have about this and it deserves to be examined and explored. It saddens me that there are so many filicides-suicides, infanticides, and child- homicides and there seems to be no end to it. I have found many answers in the research I have done, and I believe it has satisfied some of my questions.
Whenever I see a child getting yelled at or threatened at the store or in public, I cringe. I fear the child will be hurt later once they get home possibly for making the parent angry. I do not ever want to meet someone who abuses and harms their children in any way. I would not want to come across any of the men or women who have committed these crimes. I suspect that the more parents refuse to help each other and be more supportive for each other the more likely they will be able to take out their anger on, and possible harm their children.
The Essay on Is Daycare Beneficial For Children And Parents?
When you are a child, who takes care of you? Now, the cost of living is so high that many people under age twenty-five are moving back in with their parents. Young people are getting married later now than they used to. The average age for a woman to get married is about twenty-four, and for a man twenty-six. Newly married couples often postpone having children while they are establishing careers. ...
Heather Strang from the article The nature and extent of child homicide and fatal abuse analyzed over a thousand victims of homicide in Australia in 1989 and 1992. Of all the victims only 8% were under 15 years old. Only 59 out of 83 got killed by parents or step parents. Other family members and friends killed the other remainder. It said that three were victims of strangers, and the 30% of them died in a family fight and 20% were mentally ill. One third of the children were pronounced victims of abuse and neglect (312).
Before I could focus on the impact of parents killing their children, I needed to learn more about filicides and the crimes associated with them. In a case by Kevin D. Browne, he defined filicide as a parent who kills their child or a parent substitute such as a stepfather (309).
Resnick described filicide in a 2005 study: Filicide is the third-leading cause of death in American children ages 5 to 14 (Browne 312).
My opinion on the research question why parents want to kill their children is definitely negative towards filicide and I feel my research gave me a better understanding of the definition on what filicide is.
Before I could focus on why parents would want to kill their children and what motives they have. I also needed to read about a filicide case itself and establish what filicide really is.. This murder case was an altruicide case which is a type of filicide. I started reading the news article, “ Yates Thought She Was Possessed,” from Good Morning America, to help me better understand the topic I’m researching. I learned that on June 20th ,2001 Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub because she thought she was possessed by the devil and had the sign of Satan, “666,” on her head.
Her five children were all less than ten years old and they were found dead in their home (ABC News 2012).
The Essay on Serial Killers Kill Killer Murder
I didn't want to hurt them, I only wanted to kill them. This is a quote from David Berkowitz, A. K. A. , the Son of Sam. David Berkowitz and all of the other serial killers tend to think in unique ways. This paper will talk to you about characteristics, motives, different phases, and the correlation between behavior and aggression. Serial killers like everyone else have certain characteristics ...
According to the Times Magazine, Andrea told the police that she drowned her children because “ they weren’t developing correctly”(Times 2002).
Russell Yates, her husband, said she has been suffering from postpartum depression since the birth of her youngest daughter. This didn’t surprise me because depression has been linked to many of the deaths of victims of filicides. Andrea thought that she needed to kill her kids because of the devil and she did it out of love (ABCNews 2012).
This article helped me realize that a killing can be out of love, and that is one of the reasons I have discovered thus far in my search. “In altruistic filicide, the parent perceives the killing as being in the child’s best interests” (Child Abuse Review 2012).
I believe Andrea Yates was altruistic but her actions were still wrong. Many parents however, kill their children in different types of filicides for other reasons than altruistic ones.. I needed more information on filicides to contrast if men would kill their children like women do, so I next turned to the recent news study about Josh
Powell. In my research I found some more information on a filicide, this time is was a murder-suicide. Murder suicide is rare and it is not usually committed by parents. Murder-Suicide involves a firearm and shooting the victim in the head then killing yourself, but this wasn’t the case for Josh Powell. Ed Troyer, of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, stated “This was Josh Powell, who we believe killed his kids and himself … dead in the fire” (Tracy 1 ).
It is presumed that Josh Powell killed his two children and himself to protect his kids.
Powell learned he could not keep his children, thus leading to his one of his motives for killing his children. There are different motives for murder- suicide and one of the motives Josh had for committing this murder was the murder motive which is related to spousal revenge. In murder suicides, most of the offenders are 38 to 43 years old. I did not know men killed their children in different ways like a mother does. This helped me understand a little better why a father would kill his kids because sometimes fathers want to protect their kids too.
The Research paper on United States Children Aids Parents
SO CW 2361 Research Project 4-04-02 Research Question: How does a child cope with the loss of a parent who suffered from AIDS: Introduction: This research study will show the challenges that children face when dealing with the loss of a parent due to the AIDS virus. The sources for the research have come from the Tarrant County College Resource Center, online internet sites, and an interview with ...
Children are more likely to be killed in their own home by members of their own family than anywhere else or by anyone in society (Browne 312).
I learned in my research there is also a common type of filicide called infanticide. I discovered information on this in a journal (The nature and extent of Child Homicide and Fatal Abuse).
It says infanticide is described as ‘the killing of a child under the age of twelve months by the child’s mother when the balance of her mind was disturbed because she was not fully recovered from the effect of childbirth. Morris and Wilczynski 1993) When the dead child is over 12 months old, more than three quarters of the mother’s charged were convicted of manslaughter and the one quarter was imprisoned. This shows that even babies can be killed. I think that is a scary thing. This helps with my question because parents kill their baby because they are disturbed, or even sometimes they are upset about the childbirth. While I was researching on Infanticides I came across a case on infanticide that I felt would relate to my paper. The article was written by Robb Quinn who is from the Newsers staff.
The article is Mom charged with murder of five babies and it is from the website newser. com. This article talks about this a women who had five pregnancies. Following the fifth pregnancy the babies were soon found dead in her home. Reading about this I thought how terrible that someone would want to kill their baby. Throughout this whole article I read about a women who doesn’t care about her children (2012).
This relates to my question because one reason parents kill their children is when they don’t care about them or have a hard time caring for them. After looking at the views and information of Morris and Browne and the other authors who wrote about the topic filicides, I felt I understood why parents might kill their children. I learned they kill because they have a sick mind and have some kind of mental illness, or they are very depressed. However, I still had some doubts about why children were still getting killed. It still seemed like there is really not a sure reason. I found myself wondering if there is another filicide that might describe another possibility.
I found more articles that talk about another type of killing which is retaliation. In the next couple of sources I found research that did not quite answer my question. It did provide helpful information on some reasons why parents kill, however, the next topic I researched was on retaliation killings. Retaliation killings, means anger towards another person- typically the person’s partner is displaced onto the child (d’ Orban 366).
Child Marriage Research Paper
Child Marriage: Why is the Act Performed Throughout Countries Around the World? According to the International Center for Research on Women, “if present child marriage trends continue, more than 142 million girls worldwide will be forced to marry adult men during the next decade-the equivalent of 38,000 girls every day.” Child marriage is defined as marriage before the age of eighteen ( ...
The articles I read on this was interesting because men did these killings more than women.
I thought women killed their children more than men. But as we can see that is not necessarily true. Orban states that female retaliators were motivated by resentment at their lack of power (366).
This explains why a mother might hurt her child. After researching retaliation killings I chose to focus my research on how kids are killed and where. I have learned through my research why parents kill their kids. The question now is, how exactly do some parents or mothers do it and what does this tell us about why they kill?
In my research I found the method of murder some mothers use drowning, drugging, strangulation suffocation, neglect, physical abuse and stabbing (Bradley and Brown 281) The article also stated some other ways they murder, such as throwing their children in front of a moving vehicle, pet shampoo into an infants bottle for the purpose of poisoning the baby, and striking a child with a object. I learned that one of the common methods of killing younger children is drowning them in the bathtub. These are some of the ways children are killed.
By identifying how children are killed it helps with analyzing why the parents commit the crime (281).
In my research I also learned men are a more violent in killings than women. They use guns and other kinds of firearms and knives (Brown 309) Women shot or stabbed the child if they were going to murder them and then many times they commit suicide (281).
Some of the women that kill used a less violent way of killing like poisoning and drowning. I questioned why someone would want to kill in a less violent way when poisoning seems to be a harsher death?
I learned that sometimes the mother wants to not put the child in too much misery and the ways the women kill are not as violent as when a man kills. This research helped me look at my research question and learn that how parents use objects and weapons to kill their child many times give insight into why they kill.. After learning the ways parents kill and why they would kill, I have concluded that parents kill their children out of love, due to mental illness and often postpartum depression and because of their own personal problems.
The Research paper on Unified School Child Children Parents
Barstow College Randy Payne Essay Six 29 May 03 Research Paper How the Barstow Unified School District Deals with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) And Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) I believe that children are our future Teach them well and let them lead the way Show them all the beauty they possess inside Give them a sense of pride to make it easier Let the children's laughter ...
I’ve concluded that if the parents would seek help and possibly see a counselor and calm down, maybe they wouldn’t have the urge to kill their children. Although seeking medical help can help them, they might not even want help, however.. If people honestly really feel like they need to harm their own child or if they are feeling really stressed they should seek help. We do not need anymore children being killed. In a section of North American Journal of Psychology it states that counselors and therapists should encourage others to find ways to love and serve others and appreciate beauty (289).
By encouraging these behaviors individuals and communities could help people in need. Counselors should also help the parents find the meaning in parenting process. The therapist should take a longer look at the amount of violence a patient has. This is a very useful kind of help and anyone should want to seek this type of help (289).
After learning some of the reasons why parents kill their children, I have also concluded that the parents don’t kill just out of hate- some of them do it out of what they perceive love is. I now know the many other reasons why and how parents kill.
This has helped broaden my understanding. I personally think parents kill either out of a mental illness or because they are extremely depressed. I think it is important to watch out for children’s parents and if there is something wrong going on it should be reported to a responsible adult like a teacher or church leader,etc. It is important to be careful and never find yourself alone with a unstable parent or you might not know what they will do. Although my question was asking why parents kill their children, I think it is important to have children and care about them and love them.
This research shows me that if you get mad at your children at times, or take the blame out on them because of your own life you need to calm down and get help so you don’t have the temptation to take out your frustration out on them. If I had Postpartum depression or mental illnesses of any kind, I would seek medical help and care. I would not want to harm my child over something as selfish as my own problems. I still want to have kids. I know the road will be tough but it is worth it. The research I researched was scary to talk about but I learned a lot.
The Term Paper on Cultural Differences in Parent-Child Communication
Today’s children face more diversity than their parents were when they were at the same age. The cultural differences in how the parents deal and communicate with their children around the world are a great challenge. Parent’s involvement in their children’s literacy and communication either in school, home or community will be effective through communication strategies and awareness about ...