Customer Reviews

Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the "Prom Mom"

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This book traces a tradition of which most Americans are unaware: mothers who kill an infant post partum have generally been treated leniently (prior to the last ten years or so) by the criminal justice system. Indeed, in England there is a statute so providing. Oberman and Meyer explore the tradition and its probable policy basis and whether it should be retained.

I ordered this book based on the cover - assuming that this would be a case by case synopsis of various murdering moms. However, I was wrong. This book is like reading 1000 articles from a medical journal. It is definitely not for casual crime readers such as myself. The vignettes are a paragraph long at best then dissolve into various author opinions on what is wrong with the state of our social service departments, society in general, fathers today, poverty, and on and on. I was really surprised by the Susan Smith case review as the author seemed to completely miss or purposely disregard the fact that the real motive for killing her children was prompted by her dream of a new life with a rich man at work. I do no think her vague unnamed personality disorder was the main factor there. Not recommended.

Mothers are the majority of child killers and are one of the greatest hazards to children. On the rare occasions when this subject comes up it is inevitably accompanied by a remark that this is "the hardest crime to understand." That's because common wisdom views women as incapable of evil. When stories of female teachers who molest male children surface, they are always followed by disclaimers that female pedophilia is "rare," even though these stories number in the hundreds and are likely underreported. It was inevitable that most treatments of child-killing and battery by mothers would treat the perpetrators as "troubled" or "victims of abuse." But aren't male killers equally troubled? Do they come from happy, well adjusted homes? The discussions of Susan Smith and the "Prom Mom" ignore the very obvious motivations for their crimes.

This type of double standard does a disservice to the innocent children being killed. It is a thin and frivolous justification for a heinous crime.

I work in the field of abused children. I felt this book did not hold the women accountable for their actions. The author's basically gave them a "free pass" in life by making excuses. It does not matter if you are rich, poor, abused....you took a life ( a very innocent life that could not protect him or herself ).
In addition, they did not go into enough detail with the stories they presented. Basically, they gave a few lines regarding a case, and that was it. I think it would have been better to have spent more time on a few cases including all of the history.

Took 3 weeks for product to be shipped due to seller was in the process of moving. I had to give a deadline or I was requesting my money back for the seller to finally ship it.

I read the book in an attempt to gain understanding however the authors provided only excuses. As a woman, a mother, an antiviolence activist/advocate; I found this book lacking. This book lacked empathy and compassion for the most powerless victims-the children.

This book lacked objectivity. The cases summaries, if you can call them that, are actually far leaning slants towards devaluing the lives of children. The authors made the case that these women were so depressed and defeated during the moments that they were murdering children, yet not too depressed and defeated to try to cover up the evil acts in an attempt to escape the punishment.

This book lacked hope. We are presented with "case summaries" of women who had run into very trying and difficult obstacles and yet we are to consider accepting that they had no other choice but to kill their children. Is dying any better at the hands of your mother than if it were a stranger? Are you any less dead because it was your mother who killed you?

Listen, if you are writing a truly objective research paper or something like that then this book will serve you well in coming up with a counter argument to common sense.