I am just not very sanguine about accepting limiting social norms, whether they be about evil mothers or sexually craven Romance heroines. IMO most of these norms are unconsciously accepted and unconsciously transferred (sometimes even against conscious intent), and it’s only by talking about them that they can be identified, challenged, and discarded.

I’m bothered by that, too. And that’s why I write romances that (hopefully) subvert those kinds of rigid roles. But like my bunions, the fact that I’m bothered by them doesn’t mean they won’t (probably) always be with us to one degree or another.

And there’s also, IMO, a difference between being a bad mother and doing thins that are bad mothering/parenting.

When I was growing up, I lived in a small town, and I had a friend who had a very similar upbringing to mine (upper middle class, intact family, pretty normal as families go). Well, one day my friend slept late (we were in 8th grade, I think), and her mother, frustrated, told her she could walk to school rather than being driven there (school was close, and this was the kind of town where we all walked all over the place). So my friend disappears somewhere between home and school. For months there was no word, no sign, until some kids eventually came upon her body in some woods. It was beyond horrible, as you can imagine, and her mother eventually succumbed to cancer, from grief, IMO. Anyway, she faced judgments of being a bad mother for refusing to drive her daughter to school that day, and I don’t think she ever overcame her guilt, even though there was no way to know something like that would happen.

Now, I’m not comparing McCann to my friend’s mom AT ALL. I’m just saying that the notion of what constitutes a “bad mother” is a strong one, and one that I think our society tends to make more readily than that of making some bad parenting decisions. My parents made some bad parenting decisions, but I don’t believe they were bad parents. And FWIW, I don’t think children should *ever* have the burden of being forced to make excuses for or forgive their parents (once they become adults I think understanding can be very healing, but as children they should not be expected to show anything like that). And under the best circumstances, we will all likely have somewhat different definitions of what separates a parent who makes bad parenting choices from a truly bad parent. But I gotta say that the mere implication that my unwillingness to publicly condemn someone as a “bad mother” based on one news story is tantamount to pardoning/excusing a sociopathic criminal is pretty much digging me in to my view rather than persuading me to another.

That’s just it. If she’s published with WCP and Publish America, her career might be emotionally satisfying, but it is very, very unlikely that she is making a living off her writing. I know money isn’t the only thing, but the image of her as successful romance writer is a bit of a stretch.

The article sited above says that she is a part time nurse. But that one of the colleges she claims to have graduated from does not agree on that.

So parts of her half of the story sounds like she’s blowing smoke. Which makes it harder to believe the rest, and harder to be supportive and open minded.

Maybe we don’t know all the facts in this case, but I think it is perfectly fine for women to say, “IF this is the case, then this is wrong.”

I couldn’t agree more Julie.

Also, the fact that a she’s a romance author, (who seems to have been stable enough to make a career out of writing) who abandoned her children, makes this very news-worthy methinks.

But when you abandon an entire house full of children, you have to give up forever the designation of “Good mother”. Doing this makes you a “bad mother” in the sense that you are doing no part of the actual job of mothering.

Totally. You can be a bad son, daughter, sister, brother, father, doctor, mechanic, whatever without being a bad person.

In fact, “totally” to pretty much everything Christine just said.

But I think there’s also a difference between being a bad person and a bad mother.

If the facts are as they appear, then she did something wrong.

If she had, what she felt was a justification for doing it, then she might be a good person who made a mistake.

But when you abandon an entire house full of children, you have to give up forever the designation of “Good mother”. Doing this makes you a “bad mother” in the sense that you are doing no part of the actual job of mothering. You quit. You walked. It doesn’t make you Satan. You might be a good person, but you are a “bad mother” because you are making no effort to care for your children.

And the magnitude of this situation makes it much harder to consider it a blip on an otherwise perfect record. The problems in this family went on for 7 years. How is this not bad parenting? Because we probably have a bad father as well. Both adults get the blame if a 14 year old has to quit school.

And I’m another one speaking from personal experience when I say that mental illness is not a free pass, from the kids perspective. It is never supposed to be the the job of the children to take up the slack because Mom or Dad can’t cut it. If Mom or Dad can’t cut it, they might be good people in many ways, but they are bad parents.

Knowing there is a reason for the behavior is one thing. But it doesn’t turn a wrong into a right. All it means is you were a bad parent, because you were physically or emotionally incapable of being a good parent.

Trying to justify it, means the kids end up taking the blame for unreasonably wanting their parents to act like adults.

Okay, this comment finally crystallized the issue for me.

IMO there’s a difference between someone doing something wrong and someone being a bad person. But these things are often conflated such that wrong and bad become synonymous or bad simply subsumes wrong. Throw the whole mother thing in and you’ve got an epic level of badness happening.

Reading those comments on the ABC site, there seems to be a tenor of “bad mommy” rather than “she did something wrong.” That’s what I’ve been uncomfortable with, even though it’s taken me until now to really be able to articulate that. I don’t think we’ve been having the “she’s such a bad mommy” pile on here at all, but I think what we’ve been debating has been that split, even if we’re not discussing it directly. So for me, that doesn’t mean I want to “pardon” this woman (that’s an action that occurs after a conviction, for one thing); it’s simply that I think our society tends to create the bad mommy far more readily rather than the mommy who did something wrong.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone celebrating McCann’s actions or arguing that they’re not wrong (and no one here is doing that, IMO), but I think there will be disagreement around whether what she did makes her “bad.” Where you hear the ‘let’s wait to judge’ comments I think it’s that leap from wrong to bad that’s being questioned. Not a desire to excuse or indemnify or rationalize (this is also part of my “no” answer to Kirsten’s inquiry about whether the hesitation to condemn is a product of the cult of motherhood). Simply a resistance to the idea that a mother who does something wrong is automatically *bad*. Because IMO our social norm connects “bad” to “mother” in a way that connotes unnaturalness and deviance. That we essentialize both terms in such a way that exponentially multiplies the badness when it becomes aligned with the motherhood stuff. So it’s not even that doing what she did makes her a bad person, but that it interrupts the natural rhythms of the universe in some fundamental way.

In my opinion, too much compassion means that people think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, with impunity.

Now, see, I’m a sucker for those stories about people who, for example, had a child killed by a drunk drive and end up forgiving (in an authentic, substantive way) the driver. IMO, we actually need more compassion as a society, not less. But I don’t see the same connection between compassion and transgression (or perhaps I see it in a different direction, I don’t know). Then again, I’m one of those bleeding heart liberals who believes that our criminal justice system is too punitive and not rehabilitative enough, lol.

PROTECTING your children should come first.

Of course it should, but abuse victims don’t always have the mental, physical or emotional wherewithall to do what any reasonable person would do. I’m not saying what she did was okay, but I know women who survived spousal abuse and in most cases they were lucky to have people around them who made sure their kids were okay until their mother was once again capable of caring for them and protecting them. In at least two cases, harm did come to the child before the mother was able to change her situation and her children’s situation. Weakness is not synonymous with negligence.

Is it possible that this woman simply abandoned her children? Yes. But the fact that it’s possible doesn’t make it so. Women are always and immediately judged harshly, and most often by other women. Is our lack of compassion for human failings really doing us any good?

I’m going to address this comment anonymously. I’m a regular commenter here, however my comments to this are coming from personal experience and the details of it are just. Personal.

I’ve never been involved with an abusive spouse or significant other. However, I’m the child of parents where spousal abuse became the norm. It rarely became physical. It did on occassion.

My father was an alcoholic. As he got worse, he became more abusive.

My mother stayed. She shouldn’t have. When she did finally leave, it was after the kids had left the house. Her reasoning was because she couldn’t provide for us all on her own. Do I understand the reasoning? In a way.

Do I agree? No. She could have provided for us. It would have been harder, but people manage. My brothers and I still have scars from it, particularly the youngest brother.

I love my mother and I’m slowly coming to respect her again, because as she been away from my father, she’s grown and I think she realizes the damage that was done simply by staying.

I love my father. But I don’t like him. I don’t respect him. My relationship with him is nonexistent. His alcoholism is what drove his behavior, and I can pity him for the addiction, but I don’t really pity him.

Some people are criticizing others here because of a perceived lack or a stated lack of sympathy for the woman.

I can have some compassion for a woman trapped in a bad situation and being fearful to leave. I can have a lot of compassion and admiration for a woman in a bad situation who was afraid to leave, but did it anyway because she wanted to protect her children, give them a better life and do the right thing.

But a woman who flees a dangerous situation and does nothing to protect her children, if this is the case here, I have a much harder time feeling compassion. What little pity I do feel is grudging. I have a very hard not judging, because I was raised in a home where spousal abuse happened. I have a hard time not judging, because I am a mother myself and I would never leave my children behind. The only thing that would separate me from my children is death and I’d willingly die before I’d put them in any sort of dangerous situation.

If the story in the press is correct, not only did she leave them in a dangerous situation, she left her old life behind proudly.

The ABC article stated

McCann is the author of a number of romance novels. In an interview about her books with Fallen Angel Reviews, she told the interviewer of her proudest accomplishment: “When I was feeling rather unhappy and unfulfilled with my life, I had the courage to pick myself up and successfully relocate myself to a new country.”

In addition to having lived in an abusive home, I’ve worked with abuse victims before. This rings false.

I’ll reserve my compassion for the children, because they were the ones hurt the most here. Parents are supposed to be there for their children, not leave the oldest one to play mommy so she could leave the country and settle down in a new life.

Weakness isn’t the same thing as negligence, no. Should we have compassion for her? I don’t know the right answer to that. I can tell you, though, that compassion won’t undo the damage she did her kids. It won’t help them. It won’t undo their hurts. Whether she was negligent, or abused and running for her life and too weak to do the right thing, her children are the ones who suffered the most.

This world has become far too lenient on those who do wrong, and in the process, the ones who suffer as a result of those wrong are too often left behind.

Um, in my experience, not really. If this were a man, I think the responses here would have been more universally condemning (less harsh, but more unanimous). Instead, we have a number of comments advising people to be understanding and not judge until we know all the facts. We’re more likely to ascribe reasonable explanations for this because she’s a woman–OMG, it must be abuse, or mental illness, because it’s inconceivable that she’s just a self-centered, antisocial cow. If it was a man, we’d just assume he was a selfish jerk who didn’t care about his responsibilities.

I will grant you, though, that if it comes out that she did this for entirely selfish reasons, yes, we as a society–and we as women–will probably judge her much more harshly than we would a man.

Wishing it were justified, and then vigorously condemning it when we discover it isn’t, are both (I think) symptoms of the same social problem.

I don’t see this as a lack of compassion. In my opinion, too much compassion means that people think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, with impunity. And what kind of society would that be? The idea that shame and regret are bad and shouldn’t be thrust upon people by the society in which they live breeds sociopathic behavior.

Maybe we don’t know all the facts in this case, but I think it is perfectly fine for women to say, “IF this is the case, then this is wrong.”

Of course it should, but abuse victims don’t always have the mental, physical or emotional wherewithall to do what any reasonable person would do. I’m not saying what she did was okay, but I know women who survived spousal abuse and in most cases they were lucky to have people around them who made sure their kids were okay until their mother was once again capable of caring for them and protecting them. In at least two cases, harm did come to the child before the mother was able to change her situation and her children’s situation. Weakness is not synonymous with negligence.

Is it possible that this woman simply abandoned her children? Yes. But the fact that it’s possible doesn’t make it so. Women are always and immediately judged harshly, and most often by other women. Is our lack of compassion for human failings really doing us any good?

Again, you’ve managed to say more clearly what I was trying to: it isn’t that men have no investment. It’s that men have the investment that they choose to have. Because a woman’s investment in reproduction is mandatory, it is more of a burden. That doesn’t mean they’re better parents–but it does mean that they often have parenting thrust upon them in ways men don’t.

Men don’t incur the same risks to their health and life, they don’t get stuck lugging a bowling ball on top of their bladder, they don’t endure the excruciating (I know, I had an 11 lb baby) pain of childbirth, and they don’t spend two or six or 24 months breastfeeding. Men do not have to give up alcohol, or worry about gaining weight and not being able to lose it again. Men do not get stretch marks from their kids, or hemorrhoids, and their genitals look exactly the same after the child is born as they did before.

That is not to say that men have no responsibilities toward their children, or pay no price for having them. And I think it’s a terrible thing to let a man off easier than a woman for walking away from those responsibilities. But I’m not arguing right or wrong. I’m simply stating what is. The woman’s burden is greater than the man’s, and therefore, in the eyes of society the ultimate responsibility for offspring will always, I think, lie with the mother. Is it unfair and wrong? Yes. Will it ever be different? Probably not.

I think people forget that scientists and researchers work within their political social environment, and aren’t free from prejudices.

That is entirely true, and not just of scientists. And with soft science, well, you can probably find evidence to reinforce any ideology. But does that mean we pitch it all in the trash? Just because it’s unreliable, should we stop trying to understand ourselves?

There’s a real desire among us these days to pretend equality means men and women are exactly the same. But gender is going to play a role in reproduction. Sex, pair-bonding and parenting are all functions of biology as much as intellect.

Just as a comment on the original post, I do wonder where were the support mechanisms for this family? The oldest daughter has to mother the family and leave school to do it – where were the extended family and friends? Why did the father not ask/not receive help? Why didn’t anyone ask why the daughter left school? Looks to me that the entire social structure which was supposed to make sure this situation shouldn’t happen, broke down – and the victims, as always, are the kids.

That is certainly true. Things may be entirely different in Atlanta than they are where I am, but here, all it would have taken is one anonymous phone call (from the mother, even from England, ffs) to launch a Ministry of Children and Families investigation. I’m trying to see this as a mother in crisis, but there’s just very little here to reinforce that impression. And part of me wonders if my (and your) desire to apply rationalizations for what looks on the surface to be inexcusable behavior, isn’t as much a symptom of the “cult of motherhood” as the posts denigrating her. We hate the idea that maybe she’s just a selfish bitch, so we’re eager to seize on any way to pardon her.

It’s no coincidence either that sociobiology with its emphasis on biological imperatives for behaviour became popular in the 1970s as the sexual revolution was in full throat, as the ‘natural’ respect for authority was being seriously challenged for the first time in the west, and when people were breaking out of the ‘traditional’ (i.e. Victorian) models for family and marriage.

It’s somewhat ironic that Edward O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology, was in fact an expert on bees – and it’s the application of sociobiological principles to humans which has caused the most controversy. Humans are animals – but we’re also the only one (that we know of) with such a dominance of intellect over instinct. That’s why many scientists hesitate to extrapolate from an observation in non-human animals, to humans.

Just as a comment on the original post, I do wonder where were the support mechanisms for this family? The oldest daughter has to mother the family and leave school to do it – where were the extended family and friends? Why did the father not ask/not receive help? Why didn’t anyone ask why the daughter left school? Looks to me that the entire social structure which was supposed to make sure this situation shouldn’t happen, broke down – and the victims, as always, are the kids. It also might explain why the mother bolted rather than try to solve the problem or place the kids elsewhere – if they have no one they can ask for help, how could she have managed? Of course she might be a selfish sociopath, but as I keep saying, we’re not privy to all the facts.

I get that if the facts are exactly as the reports of the daughter’s comments have them, the mother is truly culpable, and even if they aren’t, she should have found a better solution – but families don’t exist in a vacuum. This one seems to have done, though. At least the publicity given to this family now will help to give them the social support they needed so much earlier.

I’m starting to get confused about who’s arguing what, but I just wanted to clarify that my quote was in response to the idea that men have no biological investment in childbearing.

I think where I fall in all of this (and I’m not a scientist, so I have nothing to back up my belief here) is against the idea that whatever increased burden a woman bears in carrying and nursing a baby, that our ‘cult of motherhood’ beliefs can only be taken so far on this basis. In fact, I’m not sure, honestly, how much of these beliefs are simply attached to a so-called biological argument as a means to justify them or if they’re some natural progression from the biological burden the woman bears in childbearing.

For example, in the 19th century, when doctoring became the province of males (and women lost a number of reproductive choices), doctors were obsessed with women’s ovaries and uteri, taking the smallest opportunity to remove them as troublesome organs. “Hysteria” was believed to originate in the womb, and theories abounded about how the uterus actually traveled throughout the woman’s body, causing various “nervous disorders.” Now we know that such beliefs are crazier than those nervous conditions, but at the time they were seen as “natural,” as based on what was seen as a biological imperative related to female fertility.

I’m not going to argue that women do not have an increased biological burden in childbearing (and pregnancy remains the most dangerous medical condition for women). What I’m trying to challenge is the idea that this biological reality should provide provide any legitimacy to the idea that women are more naturally suited to motherhood. I’m honestly not convinced that it IS the reason we believe that so strongly. I don’t see it as a casual link (biological imperative) in the same way Kirsten does, in other words.

It’s also a mistake to call bullshit on any theory simply because it doesn’t fit in with your world-view.

If we were so predestined by our biology to perform parental roles

I never said that–I actually think Robin came closer to saying that, with the quoted bit on hormone levels in men. But I’m glad you were here to tell me how untrained I am. Clearly sex has nothing to do with pair-bonding.

They may offer possible explanations for an observation, but anyone constructing an overall theory of parenting behaviour will not seize on a single idea – say about bacula – and use that as the sole prop for their ideas.

I didn’t do that, either. I was adding to the discussion, not trying to narrow it down to one theory versus another.

Socialization is important. But speaking both as a woman who has three kids, and a human being with a brain, I can tell you biology is a factor in reproduction. And until we start seeing men walking around with huge, pregnant bellies, or lifting their shirts to breastfeed, eliminating society’s expectations of “the mother instinct”, for lack of a better term, is unlikely.

Not everybody is cut out to be a parent. Male or female. I’ve met plenty of bad parents of both sexes.

But, if you do become a parent-mother or father-you have an obligation to that child. You bring the child into the world, then you need to care for the child, love the child, nurture the child. I don’t care if you’re the mother or the father.

Some people determine AFTER the fact that they aren’t cut out to be parents. It’s kind of like closing the barn door after the horses have escape…but with a lot more impact. You bring the child into the world, you should care for the child. Mother, father, both are parents. I think very little of either parent who’d abandon a child for any reason.

Bottom line is…this woman abandoned her kids in what was a potentially dangerous situation. A 14 year old girl ended up stepping in the shoes of the mom.

It’s wrong. In so many forms. If she had some sort of mental illness, it’s still no excuse, because she obviously recognized the danger to herself.

If it had been the father, I’d say the same thing. Wrong is wrong. The sex of the person doing the wrong doesn’t play into it, and neither do any societal issues, from my POV.

Desmond Morris’s books are not scientific references – nor are his views infallible, though I believe he’s done a lot to explain primate and mammalian behaviour to the non-scientists, and ‘The Naked Ape’ was my first introduction to animal behaviour and ethology, as it was for many of my generation. However, it’s a mistake to take his interpretation of a distillation of the prevailing thoughts in his field as it stood in the 1960s, as unchallengeable. His writing is aimed at making scientific theory accessible, like David Attenborough does – but like Attenborough, he has to leave things out, to keep it understandable for the untrained audience.

If we were so predestined by our biology to perform parental roles – if the lack of a baculum was so crucial for pair bonding – how do you explain divorce, infidelity, the failure of the mothering ‘instinct’, or people who refuse to have children or marry at all?

Socialisation plays a much greater role in our expectations of and behaviour as parents than biology, and reducing these very complex behaviours to whether the offspring are helpless, or we have bacula, is simply not sustainable. Scientists don’t do it for that very reason. They may offer possible explanations for an observation, but anyone constructing an overall theory of parenting behaviour will not seize on a single idea – say about bacula – and use that as the sole prop for their ideas.

Unfortunately, pseudoscience *will* take a single ‘fact’ and extrapolate from that (usually to sell you something.) This is the reason it’s not consider real science.

Yes, you can. But just because that scientific evidence doesn’t mesh with the kind of society we’d like to live in, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, or accurate. Nice thing is, humans (I hope) have enough brains to be able to transcend that sociobiological foundation and leave it where it belongs–in the cave.