This appeared in the Toledo Blade just a few days after Susan Smith confessed to killing her children. At the time, speculation was that she had snapped under the strain of motherhood. It was to this that I was responding.
Picture this: You are sipping coffee while your toddler son plays in the next room. He calls "Mommy, come see, I draw you!", so off you go. There in the living room is a masterpiece suitable for the Museum of Modern Art. Portrait of the Artist's Mother, in Scarlet." Lipstick. On the freshly cleaned beige carpet. Again.
You sternly explain that we do not draw on the carpet, make him help clean up the mess, and banish him to his room for a timeout. Then you go to your room and laugh your head off because he was so proud and he thought you would be too. Later, relating the incident to a friend, you say "Sure, it's hilarious NOW, but when he did it, I could have just killed him!"
" I could have just killed him." My words came back to haunt me as I read of Susan Smith's confession to the murders of her two sons. What drove her to commit such a heinous act? How many times have we said those words to or about our children? Was it and incident similar to my budding artist's work that drove her to cross the line between saying those words out of frustration and actually committing the act? Her crime is unforgivable.
In the film "The Crow", the late Brandon Lee's character admonished an unfit mother: "Mother is the name of God in the hearts and on the lips of all children." How true! Our children love us and trust us implicitly. Each scribble is an offering, each sloppy kiss an act of worship. God entrusts to us the precious seeds of the future, our children, and our love is what makes them grow. Who are we to betray the trust of God and our children? That is what Susan Smith did when she sent those precious children to die.
This tragedy could have been prevented. When the frustrations of parenting get to be too much and you are afraid you will take your anger out on your children, stop. Pick up the phone and call someone, anyone. Call a crisis intervention center if need be. Most people are not aware of these services until they have beaten their child - or worse.
"Mother is the name of God in the hearts and on the lips of all children." Make yourself worthy of this worship, love and trust. Please don't hurt your babies. Nothing our children can do to anger us justifies what Susan Smith and countless others have done.<
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