Favorite Posts of 2008- Why Mothers Kill To Be Free

I found a really interesting article on why mothers will kill their children to be "free" or to be with a man. Investigation Discovery enrolled the help of criminal profiler Dr. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, President of the Violent Crimes Institute, LLC, to explain why Casey Anthony would act the way she is. Well, she also explained what could turn a mom into a child killer.

"Women who kill their children tend to be very needy. They need attention and an outlet for their frustrations," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said. "Being self absorbed is common. Over time, the responsibility of raising children becomes frightening to them. They do not feel mature enough to handle their own lives, let alone the lives of little ones. So they begin to revert as a form of saying 'I can't take this.' In other words, they become child-like. Prior to killing, they begin slipping into increasingly outlandish behaviors. It is a twisted form of a cry for help. So, instead of staying home with the children and working on becoming more emotionally stable, they engage in teenager type behaviors. They have affairs and quit their jobs. Going out at a moment's notice becomes routine and they withdraw from their children."

Once they start withdrawing, Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said, they begin to lose themselves in fantasy - thinking about what their lives were like before they had children.

"I coined a term in 1999, when I interviewed female serial killers and mass murderers. This term is a White Picket Fence Fantasy. Women who kill tend to long for a knight to come to their rescue and take care of them. This fantasy plays repeatedly in their minds. When they have to break from their fantasies and actually tend to their children, the burdens of being mothers become overwhelming, and they just want out. It is here that Instead of feeling love for their flesh and blood, they feel anger. Everything that has gone wrong becomes the fault of the child."

• "If only that child had not been born"
• "If only she had the freedom to live her life"
• "If only..."

According to Dr. Schurman-Kauflin, those questions eventually turn into an obsession and in time the mother will only think of what she wants.

"These thoughts haunt her until one day, something stressful happens," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said. "Usually, it involves the breakup of a relationship or the introduction of a new lover who finds children unappealing. Females who kill their children tend to see themselves as being very sensual and attractive, and being discarded is too much for them to bear. It does not match with the idealized self that they have created in their minds. So they begin to think of ways to have the lover. They cannot allow a threat to their self image, so they take steps to quell the increasing internal discord. The females project the rejection onto the children and come to believe that if the children were not there, then life would be good. This is the point where plans are made to murder the little obstacles."

Also of interest:

Police Looking For Information on Caylee's Father

Caylee Anthony Update 5 August

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