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<p>I think we can’t leave the story alone because we just can’t understand it…our minds can’t work it out but they keep trying.</p>
<p>We, too, made life insurance a priority, both DH & I have over $1MM and the kids have policies, too. I especially recommend a large term policy on a healthy kid going off to college, lock it in before they pick up bad habits or have health changes.</p>
<p>The other important consideration for those of you with term policies- if you have a health change, check with your agent to see if your policy is convertible. If you have that provision available you can switch from term to lifetime coverage at the original rate based on your prior good health. If you have a need for coverage beyond the end of the term it will save you $$$</p>
<p>The local mom who strangled her kids a couple of days ago did so because they were autistic. They were 2 and 5. When she called the 911 operator, she said she strangled them with wire; she said she tried to get them to swallow cleaning products but they wouldn’t drink them. She said they were autistic and she wanted normal kids.</p>
<p>As a SAHM, Pakastani immigrant, she probably had no idea how to give up her kids if she had reached her breaking point. (Not that her husband would have agreed.) Who knows - faced with a “life sentence” at home with two special needs kids/teens/adults, maybe she decided that prison would be more pleasant.</p>
<p>missypie- I hope you mean that she thought she was facing a “life sentence” with two special needs children and that perhaps prison sounded better to her. The way you wrote it sounds like you agree that raising special needs kids is a “life sentence”- I don’t think you mean that. </p>
<p>I do think that some folks see children as property, rather than human beings with value of their own. In this case, the woman said she wanted “normal kids” and hers weren’t normal. It also sounds as if she called 911 more as a “trash pick up service” than in any remorseful way.</p>
<p>What I meant was that she knew/thought she would be caring for these kids for her entire life - which might have actually been true. Although there are certainly other options, many couples do care for their special needs children at home their entire lives. As an immigrant, did she know there were options? The 5 year old probably could have been in a year round school program. </p>
<p>The 911 operator asked her how she felt and she said, “Nothing. I feel nothing.” I don’t know any family with a special needs child that doesn’t love the child deeply. Sounds like this mom didn’t love her kids - just wanted to be rid of them.</p>
<p>" It also sounds as if she called 911 more as a “trash pick up service” than in any remorseful way."</p>
<p>I agree. She sounded incredibly narcissistic.</p>
<p>Strangling someone takes a long time and is even more personal than shooting someone. I don’t know how anyone could do that to anyone, least of all their own young children.</p>
<p>Another example of a mother who killed her kids who doesn’t seem mentally ill, but psychopathological.</p>
<p>And remember that she tried to get them to drink poison first, then stangled them when they wouldn’t swallow the poison…so add that time to the process.</p>
<p>NSM- OK what’s the difference between mentally ill and psychopathological? I would like to understand this distinction.</p>
<p>I think of psychopaths as having something wrong with their characters, something that also can’t be fixed by medication, therapy, etc. For instance, I don’t think that one can teach an adult to have empathy for others.</p>
<p>I don’t think that psychopaths do horrendous things to others because they have hallucinations, delusions or other problems that prevent them for being able to make rational decisions. I think that psychopaths see the world clearly, but make decisions purely based on what they think is in their own interests without any even distorted compassion for their victims or empathy or consideration for the other people in the world.</p>
<p>Consequently, Susan Smith could callously drown her kids because they were impeding her relationship with her lover. The woman who strangled her autistic kids after unsuccessfully trying to make them drink poison could do so without caring about the pain she was inflicting on them.</p>
<p>I think these actions are different from those of people who kill others thinking the victims are devils or or thinking that by killing the other people, somehow they are helping them.</p>
<p>OK- but aren’t psychopaths considered mentally ill? Does the scientific world know why there are psychopaths? I guess in laymen’s terms we would just call these folks evil or extremely narcissistic. As opposed to delusional. </p>
<p>Can a psychopath change? If not, then how can we hold him/her totally responsible for their actions?</p>
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<p>Sounds like you’ve got her diagnosed, Northstarmom.</p>
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<p>The psychopath on *House *couldn’t change, but that’s the entire sum of my knowledge on the subject.</p>
<p>"Can a psychopath change? If not, then how can we hold him/her totally responsible for their actions? "</p>
<p>Psychopaths could choose to follow the law. </p>
<p>Moving on: Until this thread, I hadn’t realized that every day, there are stories in the news about mothers deliberately killing their children. Here’s yet another one:</p>
<p>“A South Lyon mother, who police have said may have killed her disabled, 13-year-old adopted daughter with prescription pills, died today, police said.”</p>
<p>[S</a>. Lyon mom and her disabled teen dead in apparent murder-suicide | freep.com | Detroit Free Press](<a href=“http://www.freep.com/article/20100722/NEWS03/100722020/1318/S.-Lyon-mom-and-her-disabled-teen-dead-in-apparent-murder-suicide]S”>http://www.freep.com/article/20100722/NEWS03/100722020/1318/S.-Lyon-mom-and-her-disabled-teen-dead-in-apparent-murder-suicide)</p>
<p>^ yes, sadly there are quite a few of these cases of mothers killing their children. and it isn’t really clear that the Peters case is different from those. much still seems based on conjecture.</p>
<p>There is currently a case in S FL where the father killed his twin sons. No diagnosis yet–its a tough call.</p>
<p>I think the Peters case just resonates with us here on CC because the daughter was supposedly heading off to college. We look at her, and we see our own kids. But then we look at the mom… and none of it makes sense.</p>
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<p>Exactly! In the era where some parents *do *handle the entire college application process, what if a parent said they did but didn’t? We’ve all heard the stories of kids who say that they applied but didn’t…but for a parent…</p>
<p>with the s. lyon case- it seems that the child had become violent on occasion- breaking her mom’s nose in the past- not a justification for murder by drug overdose by any means, but could indicate that the mother had a rising fear for her ownsafety. The article didn’t indicate how the mom committed suicide.</p>
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You are kidding … it’s been days and I still can’t my head around murder being the 3rd leading killer of kids</p>
<p>07Dad: Re life insurance. My H let his lapse without telling me because he didn’t want to pay the premiums. When I discovered this it had been the case for three years!!! I thought that if he died I’d receive $750,000. Instead, I’d receive nothing. Imagine if that had happened? Well, we have less now because I am making my last tuition payments this year and can sell this big house.</p>
<p>Some teams function better than others.</p>
<p>Not sure why I’m still married to someone who would do that. Sigh.</p>
<p>And yes, I do have life insurance incase he was left alone because our incomes are about equal.</p>
<p>And I couldn’t pay his because I couldn’t afford it, and his is paid from a business account.</p>
<p>Yuck.</p>
<p>So although we can speculate, we don’t know how any other couple/family function.</p>
<p>But the bottom line is that it is odious to use any justification to kill one’s child.</p>