This is one of the saddest stories
I've ever read. Apparently there's been a steep rise in cases of child
abuse, including and leading up to maternal filicide -- that's mothers
killing their children -- over the past few years in Japan. Most
alarmingly, more than 100 cases of maternal murder have occured since
the end of 2005. Experts there blame a variety of factors, but say that
through the cases
runs a persistent theme: young
mothers, often weighed down with part-time work on top of full-time
parenting, feel an acute sense of isolation from their community
and a lack of support from disinterested or abusive husbands.
Sometimes they fixate on apparent developmental disorders they
diagnose in their children, on other occasions they blame
themselves for abject school performances. Usually they are too
ashamed to seek treatment for their own feelings of depression, and
invariably, in a moment of quiet desperation, they are driven to
kill.
Read More...
