Some time ago the public was shocked by the murder of a child by his parents. The perpetrator, admitted that he killed his children because he did not want his child to live a difficult life like that. It is known that this 35-year-old woman helps her family's economy by working as a makeup artist, because her husband is only a casual worker who often wanders .
Due to economic pressure, he was determined to commit heinous acts on his children. Of course this news invites anger from the public . Many have cast malicious and judgmental comments on this mother of 3 children. However, there are also some people who give their sympathy because the perpetrator is reported to have a mental illness.
Wise comments and sympathy given by people did not get a good response. In fact, in fact the case that happened to him can be categorized as a mental illness, known as filicide, which can attack parents out there.
What is a Filicide?
The case that happened to him was filicide. Filicide is the killing of children by their parents due to certain factors. This crime case is indeed the most sad to hear, because the perpetrators are parents. Moreover, if it is the mother who commits this heinous act, because as we know, the mother is the protector of her children.
According to the National Library of Medicine, the United States has the highest number of child homicides. About 90 percent of the perpetrators of filicide are biological parents and 10 percent are adoptive/stepparents. In this case, the stepparent may be more likely to do so, because they are not his biological child. Not only that, in cases of molestation, murder, and sexual abuse of children, the stepparents are mostly done by the stepparents rather than the biological parents (Daly and Wilson, 1994).
Other factors that can be the strongest predictive factors in filicide are the relatively young age of the parents, lack of education, single marital status, and the absence of prenatal care or late, which makes some parents mentally disturbed when they have children.
Factors Causing Filicide
Launching from the National Library of Medicine, Resnick (1969) divided the factors that cause filicide into five, namely:
Altruistic Filicide
The first factor is altruistic filicide which occurs because parents do not want to see their children suffer. They believe that death will reduce the burden of life, compared to having to live with various kinds of suffering such as disease, economic problems, and others.
Not only that, this factor can also be regarded as suicide. Usually parents already have the desire to end their own lives, but because of the natural feeling of parents who cannot leave their children and are afraid to imagine how they will live alone, they finally choose to invite their baby to join in the suicide act.
This happened in 2011, Leshanda Armstrong (25 years) drove her car into the Hadson River, drowning herself and three of her four children.
Acute Psychotic
Furthermore, on acute psychotic factors, namely killing the baby without having a clear or comprehensive reason. It could be that the parent who commits this heinous act is under the influence of hallucinations, orders, epilepsy, or delirium.
Acute psychotic factors are actually closely related to the mental health of parents, especially mothers who may suffer from postpartum depression and postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. According to the National Library of Medicine, nearly three-quarters or 72 percent of postpartum mothers have bipolar disorder, while 12 percent have schizophrenia.
In 1927, Hopwood reported a case of an epileptic mother who put her baby over a fire and a kettle. In addition, Smith (2015) also reported the case of an epileptic woman who put her baby in the microwave when she was in a postictal state.
Know the Factors, Impact, and Prevention of Filicide
Unwanted Child
The third factor is unwanted children. In this factor, it generally occurs when parents feel they no longer want their children or even consider their children as obstacles in their lives.
As was the case with a 25-year-old single mom who chose to end her child's life, because she was offered a marriage but her potential life partner didn't want her children. After his application was rejected by the local charity, he decided to throw it away with an ax and gasoline to burn.
Child Abuse
Murder in this factor occurs because of child abuse by their parents. The torture, of course, didn't just happen once or twice, but continued to happen until the child's life was lost. An example is a couple in Bogor who killed their child through torture because the child was naughty and disobedient.
Revenge
The last factor is revenge. Parents who do filicide in this category are as a means of revenge against their partner, or want to see their partner suffer. Common triggers are infidelity, divorce, and custody disputes. As happened in Australia, a father blew up his children because he could not accept his partner ending their relationship and intended to punish him by killing the children.
Impact After Doing Filicide
Beauties, even though parents have done vile acts on their children to the point of death, their actions have a very bad impact on their lives.
According to the National Library of Medicine, parents who kill their children experience a lot of suffering and loss, including their children and even their spouses. The actions they have done will forever stick in their minds, so that they can cause prolonged depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Not only that, they tend to blame and find it difficult to forgive themselves, get negative stigma from the local community, and have suicidal ideation.
Filicide Prevention
Hearing the death of a child is very heartbreaking, especially if the cause of death is their own parents. This can be prevented in several ways, including understanding parenting and the importance of education about marriage.
In addition, do not underestimate mental illness, especially one that can attack a mother after giving birth. And last but not least, build a stronger relationship with your partner when you have a baby.
That was an explanation of filicide or the killing of children by their parents. Beauties, from this case we can learn that being a mother is not an easy thing. He had to go through many things, especially the unhealthy environment that affected his psychological condition. The pressure received by the perpetrator became a trigger for him to prefer ending the lives of his children rather than having to see their children live in pain.
The act is clearly wrong, but this is an important education for people out there not to underestimate the role of a mother and not to underestimate the mental illness that can attack a mother after giving birth. Couples have an important role so that the mother can stay sane in caring for and taking care of her baby, even in an environment that should not judge a mother. Because we never know what he has been through and how he really feels.
