Why do so many adults kill their kids?

Drugs, poverty, mental illness?

@Mama_Cakes I’ve been through poverty, I’ve partied pretty hard and I lived with a bi-polar mother for 17 yrs, but hurting a child, or murdering a child has never crossed my mind or hers.

Because they tend to think having a child will be a picnic in fields of yellow Daffodils and when they find out it’s a hell of a lot of work and sacrifice it fries their little minds and they go nuts.

In most cases such people have experienced psychiatric disorders. Some parents had associated suicide attempts where they often take the lives of all their kids. Early screening and identification of psychiatric disorders or mental illness is really important. Counseling, emotional support, and emergency numbers to call when people or parents are overwhelmed can be helpful in preventing such incidents to a great extent.

Mental illness, without a doubt. Procreation is the purpose of life.

As a side note, when I was a kid we had a cat who had a litter of kittens. She carried them up a dense cedar tree to get them on the roof. One fell off and was killed. We got a ladder, got the kittens down, and made her a comfy home. The exercise was repeated until she killed every one of her kittens. There was some essential component missing from her brain.

It’s not just humans. It’s an intrinsic mental defect, or some overactive instinct that they are not able to raise a baby to self-sufficiency.

Better mental health care might help humans.

@ibstubro Ugh, procreation is the purpose of life? Not for a lot of us.

The rest I agree with. :)

@KNOWITALL Procreation is the purpose of life, technically. It was never a personal temptation for ME, either.

But, obviously, if someone had a kid to kill, they had procreated.

@ibstubro It just seems like you could leave it at church or grocery store or something before killing it. So violent and unnecessary.

Oh, absolutely @KNOWITALL! I think we all agree with that. But that’s the whole point of my cat story. An otherwise perfectly normal cat was responsible for the death of all her kittens. There had to be some inherent defect.

To seek revenge/hurt a spouse.
To “save” child from pain/suffering.
Power/control
Money
Sympathy

And, of course, the boring stuff like mental illness. Depression, psychopathy, blah blah blah.

@ibstubro The problem might have been with the litter, not with the mother. Cats have amazing instincts about birth defects and other health problems. If a kitten has any impediments to thriving, surviving, and living on its own, the mother will abandon it—stop feeding and caring for it—or do something to end its life.

Yes, @SadieMartinPaul there was another time that my favorite cat had a litter of 5 albino kittens. She refused them and let them out in the rain to drown. Hard on a kid, but even at the time I understood that they certainly weren’t viable kittens, and that she knew best.

The kittens dropped from the roof appeared otherwise healthy. However, we were country people and allowed nature to take it’s course. Obviously, that’s not a choice with human babies.

This according to Dr. Phillip Resnick, famous forensic psychiatrist here at Case

1. Altruistic-Belief that child is better off in heaven
2. Parent is psychotic
3. Battery to make a disciplinary statement
4. To dispose of an unwanted child
5. Revenge-to punish a spouse by taking away the child.

Why Parents Kill Their Own Kids | TIME.com http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/01/psychiatrist-phillip-resnick-on-why-parents-kill-their-own-kids/#ixzz2jzUqWXS4

Depending on how the child is murdered. There can be so many reasons as I understand it. Stress and life stresses, lack of support a cold society and very little financial support can lead to a person losing it.

Even if for a moment.

Some of course are cold and calculating like that woman that killed her two kids because her lover did not like kids???

I think her name was Susan Smith. Some kids are in the way as I have seen in a lot of reports. People have them then change their minds. Perhaps it is not so new and has been around for decades. Many women poisoned not only their kids but whole families.

I’m very interested in the social mores about women who don’t have children not being feminine or religiously correct. Basically being empowered NOT to have children if that’s the best decision for them, which is why I asked the question.

Personally, I know a LOT of men and women who have chosen not to reproduce for their own reasons, but as one who made that decision and still gets looked at ‘askance’, like I’m abnormal, I hope more people make decisions based on their own self-reflection not society’s expectations.

This also ties into the birth versus adoption/ abortion issues that interest me as well.

News is all the stuff that is so rare it almost never happens. The biggest threat to kids is probably automobiles. Other household accidents (e.g., guns) are probably also much more common as a cause of death than prolicide. There isn’t any reason to panic over a spate of child murdering, and I’m pretty sure all categories of murder have been dropping.

Of course, there are evolutionary reasons for prolicide. Economic stress is probably a big one, especially true with infanticide. Stepfathers (use the term broadly to mean “new male mate”) are especially dangerous to children because they compete with his own children for his resources and perhaps represent sexual competition for the mother with the child’s biological father. Stepmothers aren’t as dangerous.

The answer @Josie gave sounds good to me.

@KNOWITALL Most religions reinforce having children, so since you live in a religious, family oriented part of the country, you are more likely to meet up with people who don’t understand your decision. The Catholic church still talks up multiple kids, I am not sure about all the other Christian faiths.

@ibstubro @SadieMartinPaul We can’t compare humans to cats. A runt in a litter might die if it is not helped, but if humans interveine often it can be saved. Human beings are not survival of the physically fittest in the way that other animals are. Our brains make us different, and our technology and medical knowledge, and not to mention how we live. We don’t need to be able to fight for food or walk across miles of land before the drought season comes in. Not most of us in modern society.

@JLeslie We were not comparing humans to cats. I made the point that I personally have seen similar destructive behavior in other specie of animals and that it’s possible that some mothers are ‘wired’ that way. That it’s possible they have a disconnect that doesn’t allow them to raise offspring.

It had nothing to do with runts or survival of the fittest. I was an example of another animal within my experience killing it’s children contrary to the norm of that species.

@ibstubro I see. Well, there can be psychosis and bouts of frustration in all animals I think. I guess animals also might have the capability of believing a child is better off dead.

Yes, @JLeslie, that’s the point I intended to make. Nothing more. I think a mental illness of some form is involved in a parent killing their child, and it might not be exclusive to humans.

@ibstubro For us, we have to worry about being labelled if we just need a break. Several of the cases in the past the mom was overwhelmed, very religious, and saw no other alternative. If a mother admits she is thinking about suicide or killing her kids, if she isn’t taken seriously she may not get the help she needs, and if she is taken seriously she may not be allowed to see her kids.

Lack of empathy, lack of self-worth.

I’ve heard a lot of instances on the news where a woman’s partner, not the father of the child, is very abusive to the point of doing enough damage to result in death of the child. These children are usually very young babies or just a little older, maybe 2 years old. I think these men/boys get jealous of the children and the attention they need from their mothers, it is often mentioned during the court case that a child’s crying was the catalyst for the abuse. I don’t support capital punishment but I have to say that these cases put my belief to its utmost test.

Someone I know has a (somewhat perverse) theory that nature is making more of these things happen through the process of natural selection. Nature sees that much of the Earth is starting to become overcrowded, and so produces more mentally unstable people who help “take care of” that.

(Hey….I didn’t say it….)

Drugs, bad upbringing, and an unhappy life.

Dude, a baby in bucket of quickcrete? I am completely revolted.

I don’t think the “so many” part of your question is true. It implies that it’s a huge problem, which it isn’t. The vast majority of parents worldwide don’t kill their kids. In the US the life of kids is far more threatened by gun accidents, traffic accidents and lack of access to health care and vaccinations.

So why does it still happen? Why is there a tiny group of parents? A key reason could be this: the disappearance of the extended family with grandparents and other relatives. The Africans say it takes a village to raise a child. If the village isn’t there, some parents are unable to cope. They can’t handle the stress. They don’t know how to manage anger.

Don’t want your kids? Put them up for adoption.
Don’t “accidentally” leave them in a hot car in the summer which is bullshit.
Don’t lose your temper and shake them to death because you “lost control” and didn’t take your meds.

If you don’t want a baby then don’t fuck in the first place or put the unwanted baby up for adoption.

@Exitor98 Who are you talking to? I don’t believe anyone here is condoning child murder. And that’s not what the question is asking.

@Exitor98—Accidents really do happen. I know people who lost their child in a household accident and I know for a fact it wasn’t “an accident” quote unquote. I find your hostility to be disturbing.

@keobooks Why do you find his/ her hostility disturbing? A lot of people feel like leaving a kid in a hot car because you ‘forgot’ your child an excuse for murdering a human being.

I don’t forget my groceries or my dog, so imagining someone forgetting a child is hard to believe, and I get just as angry at irresponsible parents as @exitor98 does. Frankly, if you kill your kid, I don’t think you should be allowed to have more.

Accidents happen. And I think its terrible to insinuate that people who this happens to secretly did it on purpose. Maybe it makes people feel safer. Like nothing bad happens if you have good intentions and bad things happen to bad people. Maybe it gives you the false sense of security it could never happen to you because you’re a good person and would never make that kind of mistake—because it wasn’t really a mistake—they did it on purpose.

When my friends lost their child, SEVERAL people asked me if I thought they were abusive or meant to kill their child. It was an accident and they are still devastated about it. And it was a simple household accident that in hindsight seemed obvious and they were stupid,, but it was an accident.

Until it happens to you or someone you know and love, you can’t understand this. The world you live in a lot simpler because you haven’t had to face something like this. But yes, people can accidentally have their children die due to a few unfortunate mistakes coming together at once.

Bad things don’t only happen to evil people. And that may be too scary to face, but it’s true.

@keobooks

I thought much of your post when I saw the question. “There but for the grace…”

American’s live “innocent until proven guilty” and tantalize “guilty, guilty, guilty”.

Because some people (if they can even be called that) are worthless and should’ve shot in theirs heads long ago.