Is it me or is the crime of Parents killing their children shot up in the last few years?

30 comments

1. Poor baby, my own son is about the same age. I’m grateful every day for my relatively ok mental health, especially postpartum, and that of my family. I never ever take it for granted. I don’t know what her situation was but it’s a shame she felt she couldn’t spare the life of her little lad.

2. Could be lots of reasons, but especially notable lately is that mothers doing it seems to have become more frequent. Three cases in just over a month (although the child in the Clare case is expected to survive, thank goodness).

3. I was looking at the KKWSPCA page and they had a tribute to the two of them.

   Kind woman, lovely lady etc.. and numerous other nice things in the comments section.

   I found it all very strange.

   She killed her child.

   Obviously I don’t know her background or what she was going through but to have that grandiose feeling of ‘if I die the child won’t be able to live without me so I’ll take them with me’ in my opinion is such a selfish act it must erode anything good she did while alive and is being remembered for.

   There is no balance. Do her many good acts of which she does have many; balance out what she did in her final moment.

   My judgement may be skewed as I am a parent but I have to imagine my opinion is shared even by non parents.

4. It’s just so sad.

   3 in a few months, what goes on their minds to think this is the only way out?

5. A lot more people on xanax and a different depression meds lately.

   Now add in the Irish propensity for alcohol mixed with meds that can cause feelings of disassociation and this is how my mind settles on it.

   Had a friend who was on anti depression meds and said he had thoughts of opening the door of his car and just “wanting” to jump out.

   Some of the side effects of these meds seemed super scary like how he said “life felt like a video game, not scary anymore”, gives me the chills

6. There is little to no support for new mothers. You get handed a leaflet and away you go. You’re expected to just get on with it! I’m lucky that I had my husband supporting me and helping around the house.
   Feel terrible about this tragedy, may they RIP.

7. Honestly its probably because there’s no support for new mothers/parents (or even second or third time around mothers/parents). We don’t talk about the ugly side of pregnancy or parenting. We don’t highlight the hard stuff. Only good things that are socially acceptable to talk about.

   There is very little support for parents in the post partum time frame. Doctors just pass you along or dismiss your concerns.

   I’m American and cases like this are so common unfortunately. I remember one specifically where a woman literally drove her vehicle into the ocean from the beach with her children inside. She was clearly having some form of mental health episode but instead of offering support and compassion, she was villified by the media etc. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but that’s only because it was in daylight. If she’d done it at night without witnesses, it would have likely been worse.

   Women in particular are often expected to take on WAY more than men are in the parenting realm. Its usually their careers that suffer, their social lives that decline, their sleep that’s lost, and their mental health clinging on by its toe nails.

   And when you have a society hell bent on making you feel like a shite mum for not cutting the crusts off your child’s sandwich to make it look pretty or not having your child in matching clothes, you’re sure as hell not going to admit you’re struggling to parent or seek out help. You’ll be crucified more often than not by the Mum groups.

8. You need to be careful with this type of exclamation. Just because you’re noticing something does not mean it’s on the increase. Our brains are really bad at this stuff which is why we should rely on good data to tell us whether something like this is getting better or worse.

   Also, randomness is clumpy. It wouldn’t be unusual for three similar events in a short span after relative quiet.

   https://www.oreilly.com/radar/the-inherent-clumpiness-of-randomness/

9. A lot of people here saying a lack of supports for new mothers, this is obviously an issue, but shouldn’t some blame be put on the mothers for having a child in the first place? Having children is a huge responsibility and if you suffer from mental health or aren’t financially stable it’s very selfish in this day and age to procreate, what kind of life are you bringing the child into? Being responsible for looking after a child is just plain selfish if you have regular mental health breakdowns or live in poverty.

   I think it needs to become more socially acceptable to not have children in Ireland, its all the same among your older relatives, as you get older they’re all asking when are you going to have kids. It just seems like its the normal thing to do which results in a lot of people having children that don’t really think twice about it and what it means, leading to situations like above.

   I don’t agree with anti-natalists overall philosophy, and I think the majority of them are just nihilists, however, I do agree with some of their logic (ie. not having children if they can’t be properly looked after)

10. I can’t get that story of the women who burnt her kids to death a few weeks ago out of my head!

11. There definitely feels as though it is more common now that I’ve had a child. Fucking horrible reading the news these days. Such a mix of sadness and rage at most of it.

12. An act was passed in 1949 to deal with infanticide. (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1949/act/16/enacted/en/html)

    As in all things, the media focuses on the most shocking stories to drive engagement.

13. I know Kate, had met her at her groomers and bought dog items from her, almost adopted a dog through her but decided upon another dog. We were acquaintances, not friends but I’m still trying to get my head round it all, it’s been playing on my mind. I’m angry at her for what she did but I also understand she must’ve been suffering I just wish she made sure Vincent was safe. I don’t know her history or her circumstances but it must’ve been PND or psychosis. I just feel for Vincent.

    And having had a baby late 2019 I know how shit the services are, the PHN said here’s my card with my number give me a call if you need anything. She then ignored all my calls and I’ve now moved countries and the PHN equivalent coming soon to check over my son, having missed her previous appointment (confusion over time).

14. Maybe society should just stop putting pressure on women to have kids.

15. There’s subs on here with hundreds of thousands of Redditors all fucked up from the emotional, mental and physical and I’ve no doubt sexual abuse their own mothers put them through.

    Traditionally we’ve been brought up with stories across the world of the abuse that male family members inflicted but I feel that maternal abuse is one of Ireland’s last big taboos. Literally thousands of us walking around fucked up because the woman that biologically programmed to love us just happened to be evil narcissists.

16. I can in a weird way understand some of the mothers that do this. I’m on my own with a very challenging toddler, he’s just gone 2 and I have to say it’s been the hardest 2 years of my life. I found out I was pregnant when I was 41..I’m 44 now and some days I honestly feel its too much for me.

    I tried to put him in creche but because his behaviour is so challenging they said they can’t manage him ,he headbangs,bites his hands and lips till they bleed.

    My family can’t help ,no one will mind him for an hour or two .no one can manage him only me. I’ve brought him to my gp they say he’s too young to be diagnosed. My other children are completely overlooked because he takes up so much of my time. Sometimes I feel like it would be the best way out. Obviously I’m just venting here but I can see why some of these mothers do this.

17. There seems to have been about 1 infanticide killing 2003-2016

    [https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-rc/recordedcrimeq42017/homicidestatisticsrevisions/](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-rc/recordedcrimeq42017/homicidestatisticsrevisions/)

    Which makes it seem that there ar emore now.

    Domestic abuse killings are now the highest percentage [https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/domestic-abuse-now-behind-majority-of-murders-in-ireland-for-first-time-garda-figures-show-42012132.html](https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/domestic-abuse-now-behind-majority-of-murders-in-ireland-for-first-time-garda-figures-show-42012132.html) but that article implies a reduction in gang land killings rather than a huge increase in them causes that. I could be reading that wrong though.

18. It’s a sure sign that the supports aren’t readily available. We have a large healthcare system that covers a lot but it’s so over capacity that hardly anything is available when there’s an emergency.

    What’s worse when it comes to mental health problems is that people suffering from them are more likely minimize them and less likely to actually seek help when they’re in crisis. This is why it’s so important that we look out for each other.

    There’s always people to turn to or numbers to call.

19. Post natal psychosis and depression has always been with us.

20. Is the lack of services a new thing? Did they really have better services 5/10/30 years ago when people weren’t killing their children?

    Chances are the first incident put the idea somewhat in the others head, normalises it somewhat when you hear of that sort of thing happening to someone in your country. Happens a lot with suicides too, if there’s a suicide in a school/college/group, the chances of a second in that group goes up massively

21. I’d be curious to see the stats over time.

22. The worst one was Alan Hawe murdering his entire family back in 2016 with knives and a hatchet. That sick bastard confessed in his suicide note that a part of him enjoyed what he did. That one will always stick with me, I wish I never looked into it as much as I did because how he murdered his family was awful. And the fact that they buried him beside them after it happened was ridiculous. He was subsequently dug up and moved somewhere else.

23. Postpartum psychosis and depression.
    They’ve barely started just allowing partners in maternity hospitals now, where the nursing staff didn’t have enough capacity to give everyone attention. After that, you go home and you cannot afford childcare, and cannot find a place even if you can. You don’t get full maternity pay, and your partner only gets 2 weeks off. There’s no other help or support, unless you have family or really close friends. All of this doesn’t help with the mental state of new mothers, and postpartum psychosis or depression on top of that can push you over the edge.

24. Family annihilation in Ireland is frighteningly too common and has been happening for decades.

25. I think the Irish state support system is pretty horrible for mothers and babies. I’m from a different country, our economy is far worse and we’re poorer but the paid maternity leave is 2 years for example. Here it’s 6 months. Imagine leaving your tiny baby that still needs nursing most of the time, either in creche or with a baby sitter. That alone costs money. But you can’t afford not working either. And if you work, someone else, a stranger, is basically raising your child. I know a couple of single mams here and their life is so hard I’m really wondering how they manage to survive.

26. Social media makes motherhood out to be the most enjoyable thing ever – “privileged” and “blessed” are two words I see used all the time. The reality is very different, the stress of pregnancy and being a new mother makes a woman incredibly vulnerable

27. There would be lots who would drive the car off the open dock here in Cork and it wouldn’t make the papers back in the day.

28. What the fuck is it with people putting the kid gloves on when discussing women murdering kids?

    Sleep, support, depression? Get fucked. These are not excuses for murder. In no other circumstance my entire life have I seen people spout this kind of shite when talking about twisted fucks

    What the fuck is up with some of you people.

    You’re allowed to call child killers scum, what the fuck is this pseudo understanding shit going on, fuck the lot of them, I hope they’re buried under the prison

29. This has played on my mind a lot. The absolute head fuck that having a baby does to you is not to be laughed at. They call it baby blues and tell you it will last 3 days but that’s absolute bullshit. I’m expecting my second, my toddler is 2 in 2 weeks time and still not really talking. My gp is constantly telling me not to worry because he is verbal however even he admits thats easier said than done when we are the “social media generation”. Everything is compared to other’s kids etc. The intrusive thoughts that I have experienced so far on this pregnancy have been tough to shake. I’ve been referred to a mental health specialist and she has said everything I’m feeling etc is completely normal and not to worry.

    Any mam, new or old, will tell you sometimes you just want an hour to yourself to gather yourself. Some people don’t have a support system like family who could take baby/kid for a little while to give the mother that headspace. I wonder if this mother had a safe place/person to leave her child with, would it have played out the way we are now reading about it.

    The mind is such a powerful yet fragile thing at the same time. It’s terrifying.

    I was in the shower the other day after hearing about this and was wondering was there any charity services that could provide a “drop a tot” service – free, no judgement childcare service for mams and dads who maybe felt like they were at their wit’s end. Ring a number and a fully garda vetted childcare professional could come to the house and mind baby for a while. Some people don’t have the luxury of childcare and the words social worker/tusla can terrify parents – what if they don’t think I’m a fit parent because I reached out for help and my child is taken into care?

    Unfortunately I think it’s happening a bit too regularly now for it not to be acknowledged or some form of supports to these parents to be made available.

30. anecdotal but I say the same thing every time one of these awful stories come out, it always seems to be older mothers that do this, women who wait until well into their 30s or 40s. Maybe these instances seem to have shot up because mothers are getting older.