That is just horrifying. Absolutely disgraceful. I can hardly believe some of the sick things I see on the evening news these days. Well, I’ll tell you one thing: When I have kids, I’m not going to drown them.
To fill your bathtub to the brim and hold your children’s heads under the surface until their little bodies stop flailing and kicking and struggling—that is precisely the kind of thing I am not going to do.
Now, I’m not quite ready to have kids just yet. But when I do, I’m going to be a great mother. I’m going to give my children plenty of love and hugs and kisses every day. I’m going to spend lots of time with them. We’ll play tag. We’ll bake cookies. We’ll pitch a tent in the backyard and spend the night in sleeping bags. With all the fun things we’re going to do, I won’t have time to plan out some big multiple homicide, even if I wanted to.
I’m going to encourage my kids to express their creativity. I’ll buy them art supplies, and I won’t yell at them for making messes. If they want to wear one purple sock and one green sock, I’ll say, “Go right ahead!” Why not? Kids are precious miracles of God. There’s no reason to get mad at them when they mess up or do things a little differently. Let alone drown them.
Of course, I will set boundaries. Children need to be taught the difference between right and wrong. I will instill strong morals and values in my kids. They will learn always to tell the truth. Lying will be a big no-no in my household. So will forced drownings. I’ll be firm when they need to be punished, but not so firm that I kill them. Instead, I’ll send them to their room for a time-out or maybe tell them, “No TV for three days.”
Not everyone has the same definition of the word “mother.” To me, a mother is someone who loves and protects her children. A mother doesn’t line her kids up and kill them one by one while the last child watches in horror, awaiting his or her own inevitable demise. A mother does not systematically drown her children until only one is left and then kill that one, too, the silence of the house broken only by the gurgle of bathtub water slipping down the drain. That is totally unacceptable.
When I have kids, it’s going to be a major priority that they don’t die, whether accidentally or by my own hands. I mean that. The kind of people who drown their children shouldn’t be allowed to have children in the first place. That goes double for parents who strangle, shoot, stab, or bury their kids alive. Or lock them in a car trunk and drive into a river. Or tie them to a fence and drive a car into them. Or douse them with lawnmower gasoline and set them on fire. I think that sort of behavior is disgusting and just plain wrong.
Should I ever get so overwhelmed with the stresses of motherhood that I feel the urge to smash my children’s skulls with a frying pan, I will simply drop them off at my sister’s house and take a drive to the mountains to cool off. Or maybe I’d hire a babysitter and go to the movies—anything to get out of the house and avoid a multiple child murder.
Just imagine: Dragging the lifeless, blue-tinged bodies of the very children you gave birth to down the stairs and into the garage, their sopping-wet pajamas leaving a trail all the way across the floor. How in the world could someone do that? I’m serious: I would never even do that once.
A lot of people talk about what great parents they’re going to be, but then when they actually become parents, they don’t follow through. Not me. I really will be a great parent. This is my promise to you, my future children. I will not drown you. Ever. Cross my heart and hope to die.
