Distressing court cases
There have been a couple of distressing court cases taking place recently. The one I am going to write about today concerns a family who moved to New Zealand from South Africa. This was during the Covid epidemic and required a period of lockdown in both countries before the family was able to shift into their new home in Timaru, the husband having secured a job as an orthopaedic surgeon there. They had not been out of isolation long, when the mother killed her three daughters, a six-year-old and two-year-old twins.
This is so tragic for everyone concerned. The court is now debating whether the mother did this intentionally, or whether her mind was so disturbed that she could not be held fully responsible for her actions. She had had a long history of mental illness and suffered post-natal depression after each of her pregnancies, which also included a miscarriage in the second trimester. Coupled with this, was difficulty in conceiving her children. She went through 17 rounds of in-vitro fertilization.
In an interview with the police after the deaths of her children, the mother said one of the twins was being really horrible to her, and that the others were playing up, before she took their lives and tried to take her own. She was apparently sick of screaming at them. I feel so much sadness for all involved in this saga, that a mother could be in such a negative space to even think that a child was being horrible to her. As mothers, it is our role to comfort and provide love to our children, especially if they are experiencing unhappiness themselves. Screaming at a child won’t make them happy and stop negative behaviour, it will only induce more of the same actions we are trying to stop. We have to remember, we as parents are the adults, not our children. This case highlights the need to seek help if we are not coping. It is not the children’s fault if they are not listening to a parent, not at that age anyway. Remember, they are only children. It is the parent who teaches discipline, who guides with love.
My own mother hadn’t coped very well with us as children, so I do know what it feels like to be constantly growled at. I tried to do my parenting differently.
None of us get it right as parents but we do our best and I am sure this woman was doing her best as well. In my mind, she must have been in a terrible space mentally to have done what she did. A sane person knows that one doesn’t kill their children, and a sane person wouldn’t be thinking a child was being horrible to them. It is a shame that this tragedy can’t be undone. There will be so many grieving hearts. I feel so much compassion for all involved.
It will be a difficult task for the jurors, not only having to listen to all the evidence, but to come up with a verdict at the end of it. There will be no winners. If the woman is found guilty of infanticide, she could face a much lighter sentence. If it was me, I would be so full of remorse I would want to be locked up for life as I don’t know whether Id ever be able to forgive myself. Whatever the outcome, it will be a difficult journey ahead for her and her husband and relatives – all those who loved both her and the children.
As I often do, I think of the bigger picture. I know that there is always one of these at play on a soul level. What a huge thing for all those involved to have to go through. I know huge grief and tragedy has the potential for huge healing. I do hope that those involved can find solace in this lifetime but sometimes we need more than one to heal completely from something.