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WHY MOTHERS AND FATHERS KILL THEIR CHILDREN:
A FAILURE OF SOCIETAL VIGILANCE
by
Cliff McKenzie

GROUND ZERO PLUS 1177 DAYS,--New York, NY, Thursday, December 2, 2004--A thirty-nine-year old mother was convicted for killing her husband and two young children in 1987. Her motive, claimed the prosecution, was a $100,000 life insurance policy.

Frances Newton was given a last minute reprieve for the deaths of her two young children

Frances Elaine Newton has been on death row for sixteen years and was given a last minute reprieve just hours before her execution was to be carried out in Huntsville, Texas. Governor Rick Perry granted her 120 days to review disputed evidence that convicted her.

Ms. Newton falls in category of Maternal Terrorists with others such as Andrea Yates who methodically drowned her five children in a bathtub and then calmly called police.

There are forty-nine women currently on death row--eleven for killing their children. According to the American Anthropological Association, more than 200 children a year are killed by their mothers. The current women on death row for killing their children include:

Patricia Blackmon was 29 years old when she killed her two-year-old adopted daughter in Dothan, AL in May 1999. Debra Jean Milke was 25 when she killer her four-year-old son in Arizona in 1989. Dora Luz Durenrostro killed her two daughters, age four and nine, and her son, age 8, when she was 34 years old in San Jacinto, California in 1994. Caro Socorro was 42 years old when she killer her three sons, age five, eight and 11, in Santa Rosa Valley, California in 1999. Susan Eubanks murdered her four sons, ages four, six, seven, and 14, in San Marcos, California, in 1996 when she was 33. Caroline Young was 49 in Haywood, California when she killed her four-year-old granddaughter and six-year-old grandson. Robin Lee Row was 35 years old when she killed her husband, her 10-year-old son and her eight-year-old daughter in Boise, Idaho in 1992. Michelle Sue Tharp was 29 years old in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania when she killed her seven-year-old daughter. Frances Elaine Newton was 21 when she murdered her husband, seven-year-old son and two-year-old daughter in Houston, Texas. Darla Lynn Routier was 26 in Rowlett, Texas when she killed her five-year-old son. Teresa Michelle Lewis killer her 51-year-old husband and 26-year-old step son in Keeling, Virgina when she was 33 years old.

There is a terrifying element to thinking of a mother killing her own child or children. Those who question the presence of the Beast of Terror, or its ability to pervert every ounce of sanity in a person, need only look at the eleven women on death row as samples of how Internal Terrorism can lash externally at those closest.

But women are not the key source of infanticide. According to the Bureau of Justice, men represent the dominant force behind killing children age five or younger. Of nearly 600 children in that age group who were murdered by adults, 31% were killed by others, 30% by mothers, 23% by male acquaintances, 6% by relatives and 3% by strangers.

It is easy for Americans to rally against the war in Iraq and to protest the U.S. government for allowing young men and women to die for the rights of others to be free in far-off lands, but it is far more difficult for those same people to look heartily into their neighbors' living rooms and become alarmed that down the street, around the corner, or next door a mother or father may be on the road to killing one or more of their children.

A Parent of Vigilance is one who understands the power and presence of the Beast of Terror. A Parent of Vigilance has no delusions that a person can suddenly turn into a "beast," filled with anger and rage. Most people control and manage that anger and rage and live within the parameters of "civility." But those same people have also embraced "murderous" thoughts or become so angry that they may have thought or said: "I could kill over this..."

The soil in which a child's roots initially grow will make the fruit of his or her being sour or sweet

The seeds of brutality and hate against others are as deeply planted in each human being as the seeds of compassion and love. It becomes a function as to which seed is nurtured or neglected that dictates the behavior of the parent. A parent who grew up in a frightening world of Terrorism--emotional or physical--has the seed of brutality and hate fertilized far more than the one of compassion and love.

It has been said many times that if you want to know what a child will be like when he or she grows up you simply follow the child home. The soil in which a child's roots initially grow will make the fruit of his or her being sour or sweet.

But, the background of a child is not the sole and determinative factor in the evolution of any being. Humans have the ability to break the bonds of the past, to step outside the circle of Complacency in accepting their "lot in life" and to rise above the primordial ooze that often drowns many into thinking they will always be what those before them have been, and that no matter how hard they try, they cannot escape the grip of destiny to repeat itself.

New mothers, fathers, obstetricians should be aware of "post partum blues"

It also becomes a serious matter for Obstectricians and husbands to ease new mothers over what has beem called "postpartum blues". During the first few weeks after delivery up to 15% of new mothers experience different levels of postpartum depression. This is characterized by mood swings, lethargy, feelings of inadequacy, and anxiety due to oscillating hormone levels. Some women are afraid to talk to someone about their feelings because they think their children will be taken from them. Until recently not much thought was given to treating or preventing postpartum depression.

One such example is the case of Deanna Laney who beat her two boys to death with rocks in May, 2004. She was determined to be a sufferer of "postpartum blues" and mentally insane and was aquitted of the crime by apparently understanding Texas jury.

Keith Laney with his wife, Deanna, and the two children she killed, Joshua, left, and Luke

New mothers owe it to their children to be aware of this potential life threatening condition and to take all precautions to ward it off.

Thus it becomes vital that every parent become a Parent of Vigilance.

There is a resistance in us all to change. We find levels of comfort that atrophy our will to change and we sink down into them as we might a quagmire that seems impossible to free ourselves from. Terrorism's three elements--Fear, Intimidation and Complacency--feed heavily off the last of the Triads of Terrorism--Complacency.

Most parents become parents by virtual accident. There is no training to become one other than what we experienced growing up in our households, so what a "father" or "mother" is or is supposed to be is isolated into the people we wake up to and go to sleep with in the same household.

Becoming a parent then is simply an accident of nature, not an intended, planned, purposeful event on the part of a husband and wife. If the later were true, we would have Parental Colleges where we would enter and undergo at least a year or two of intense training so that we could raise a child with the most efficient tools possible to offer our children maximum opportunity in the world.

Instead, we bear children and "wing it," using the only experienced role-playing resources we have at our disposal--those given to us by our parents or guardians.

If our mother and father showed hatred and anger toward us, directly or indirectly, the odds are we are going to pass that behavior on to our own children. If our mothers and fathers abused us, emotionally or physically, there are even odds we will abuse our children in similar ways.

If our mothers and fathers abused us, emotionally or physically, there are even odds we will abuse our children in similar ways

The opposites are also true. If we come a loving, nurturing, caring background that respects human life and fosters the dreams of others as one might precious jewels, then we will probably honor and respect new life and become great guardians of their safety and security.

But, whether we are victims of abusive, uncaring parenting, or beneficiaries of nurturing loving parents, we still haven't stepped outside the "accidental parental" ring. The only way we become "intentional parents" is to commit ourselves to be a Parent of Vigilance on a daily basis so that our children and their children's children's children can profit from it.

Only when we have looked at our Fears, Intimidations and Complacencies and isolated them so that we understand they flow from the viscera of the Beast of Terror will we be armed to battle the Beast of Terror with Courage, Conviction and Right Actions that benefit future generations more than ourselves.

The point is that when we shake fingers at the horrible people on death row and our skin crawls thinking about how a mother or father could kill his or her offspring, we need to stop and look around. Parents of Terrorism are everywhere in greater or lesser degrees.

While they may not hold their children down in a bathtub until their bodies stop struggling and the bubbles from their mouths stop rising, they can kill the spirit of a child with the lash of a tongue. "I wish you were more like Johnny...look at how good he is at..."

Some might discount this comment as just a "comment," but if you are the child receiving the comment, you become worthless in the eyes of your parents. Johnny becomes more important. Johnny replaces you. A part of you dies, just as though the parent who said those words had held you down in a bathtub and waited until your kicking body went limp.

The "infanticide" of children can be even more subtle. A child running to a mom or dad who comes home after a long day of work and wants to be hugged and loved and played with, but is told: "Mommy's too tired and too busy right now...Mommy will play with you later..." And, then Mommy pours herself a glass of wine and sinks down in a chair...

What impact does the rejection of a child's thirst for love have in the killing of his or her spirit? Does a part of the child die? Is there a wound left by the neglect?

The behavior of the parent can usually be traced back to the parent's parent. The Complacent CopOut--"We'll, I turned out okay...so what was good for me is good for my kids"--carries with it the false assumption that whomever is speaking those words is ultimately free and happy from the inside out and has all his or her Fears, Intimidations and Complacencies in managed order.

We owe it to our children to teach them that parenting is a lifelong process

As a society, we owe it to our children to teach them that parenting is a lifelong process, not something accidental or instinctual. If we followed the animal kingdom's signal, as soon as a child was breast fed we would eject it from the nest to fend for itself. In a vast majority of cases, this is exactly what happens.

Children are born and virtually left to grow on their own. Discipline is given to them to appease the habits of the parents. If a child starts to cry and the parents don't want that, the child is threatened with severe physical pain unless he or she stops. This is ejecting a child into the cold.

The child in the nice, expensive house with a garage loaded with expensive cars in an exclusive neighborhood who sits up in his or her bed shaking with fear because of a storm outside, but is even more afraid of running into his or her parents luxurious bedroom because his or her father will accuse the child of being a "baby" and tell the child that he or she needs to be "strong" and "stand up" to his or her "fears" and not be a "wimp" exercises a similar abuse to the parent who threatens to slap a crying child unless that child shuts up.

Many children cry silent tears.

Many children cry silent tears

In a way, there are tens of thousands, perhaps millions, who should be on death row for "killing the spirit of their children." Infanticide is, unfortunately, measured by the decaying flesh of a dead child. If we had the ability to peer inside children with a "TerrorScope" that identified "holes in the soul" where a child was virtually "Terrorized" by his or her parents abuse or lack of love, we might find that the seeds of Terror have been planted in a vast number of our progeny.

Knowing this, we might stop wasting so much energy protesting the war in Iraq or lambasting a president and start working on how we could increase our ability as a parent, grandparent and loved one. We might seek out our neighbors and do what we could do to help them overcome their Fears, Intimidations and Complacencies that stunted their growth as a Parent of Vigilance.

While no one can guarantee anything in life except the ultimate end of it, it can be easily projected that a human being from any background--abusive or positive and loving--can become a better Parent of Vigilance by subscribing to the Pledge of Vigilance and applying the Principles of Vigilance to daily life.

The only reason one kills his or her children apart from a mental or hormonally caused defect is because the value of life--their life--has been so diminished by selfishness on the part of the parent that removing that life seems justified in some perverted way.

But if one believes in the Spirits of Vigilance, and that our primary mission on earth is to be Parents, Grandparents and Loved Ones of Vigilance, protecting the children from Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, and teaching them how to overcome their Beast of Terror with One Percent more Courage than Fear, One Percent more Conviction than Intimidation, and One Percent more selflessness through Right Actions that benefit future generations than surrendering to the selfish nature of Complacency, then it would be virtually impossible to kill one's child, one's grandchild, one's ward, one's loved one.

I find it sad that we are going to kill the eleven mothers on death row. I think a far more important sentence would be to force them to undergo daily Parent of Vigilance training so that they might understand better how the Beast of Terror afflicted them, and can afflict others just as easily.

I would urge them to write books and record tapes to other mothers, warning them of the dangers of the Beast of Maternal Terror, and how to protect themselves from its wrath, expressed directly or indirectly upon children.

Who best to be a Saint of Vigilance than a Sinner of it?

I find it sad we are going to execute the eleven mothers on death row

Instead, we are going to waste these resources of Vigilance. What wisdom they might be able to impart will die with them. We need to all cry over that.

But, in the interim, we need to look in the mirror.

We need to see ourselves as the Sentinels of Vigilance, and not think that just because we are parents or grandparents we are Parents and Grandparents of Vigilance.

We need to know we have to grow into these roles, and as we do, our children and grandchildren grow.

Perhaps, one day, when everyone is a Parent of Vigilance, there will be no infanticide.

Let us do our job today to make that happen. Become a Parent of Vigilance. Take the Vow of Vigilance now.

Homicides of Children under Age 5 by Race of Victim(link) White Black Other Total 1976 300 239 6 544 1977 286 242 3 531 1978 310 250 4 564 1979 293 208 9 511 1980 315 231 11 557 1981 328 214 13 556 1982 355 248 18 621 1983 311 254 16 581 1984 328 213 13 554 1985 330 216 10 556 1986 361 308 17 686 1987 350 234 17 601 1988 357 282 10 649 1989 386 263 18 667 1990 379 274 17 671 1991 409 343 26 778 1992 371 304 16 691 1993 371 362 28 761 1994 413 329 21 763 1995 412 288 18 719 1996 424 307 25 756 1997 351 255 25 631 1998 368 259 14 641 1999 338 239 25 601 2000 328 253 12 593 2001 354 260 16 630 2002 325 238 23 586 Source: FBI, Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976-2002.

 

Go To November 30 Story: "Boutique Terrorism Uses FBI To Help Baby Beasts Of Terror"

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"Can You Teach Your Children To Be Patriotic?"

 

 

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