Making sense of the unthinkable

Some things happen in life for which there is no reasonable explanation. We try to find a compartment, a safe space in our experience of human nature where we can deposit these things we’d rather set aside — but there isn’t one.

Last week’s news about two children being killed — possibly by a parent — is one of those things.

We respond emotionally, but that is inadequate because our intelligence demands more of us and that is where we come up empty.

As humans, we engage in practical reasoning. We deliberate about what to do, and how and why things happen. At our best, even at our worst, we try to act in light of reasons that can then explain actions, and might sometimes justify them.

But the thought of a parent killing his own children is so far outside reason that we have nowhere to go. The temptation is to despair about what we thought we knew concerning human behaviour.

While up-to-date statistics are difficult to come by because of the variety of circumstances that result in the death of a child, there are some numbers, as stunning and appalling as they are.

According to Statistics Canada, when a child is murdered in Canada, it’s usually at the hands of a relative, not a stranger. Family members were found guilty in 63 per cent of the 1,990 solved cases of child and youth homicides in Canada between 1974 and 1999.

With few exceptions, the rate of child and youth homicides perpetrated by family members has been consistently higher than those committed by non-family members.

When it comes to parents killing their own children, the number of mothers accused almost equals the number of fathers accused. Between 1974 and 2000, 460 fathers and stepfathers were accused of killing their children, compared with 400 mothers and stepmothers.

Between 1997 and 2006, 56 per cent of children killed by a family member were killed by their fathers (both biological and stepfathers), 33 per cent by their biological mothers, and the remaining 10 per cent by other family members, including stepmothers, siblings, grandparents, cousins or other extended family. Rounding up the numbers accounts for the final one per cent.

The collateral damage to people such as relatives, teachers, social workers, first responders and even neighbours has not and cannot be calculated.

I mention teachers because often they are the first to notice evidence that a child might be abused or endangered: Bruises, shying away from any touch, a previously outgoing child who has become afraid and withdrawn are all indicators to teachers that something is wrong.

Normally, a concern will be expressed to a social worker, but there is no guarantee, even in situations where a child might be apprehended and placed in foster care, that the child is safe.

In B.C., whenever a child is taken away from their family for their own protection, a court process starts. A family court judge hears evidence from all sides and makes the final decision about who the child will live with, and under what conditions.

But none of that prevents the unfathomable motivation that results in a parent killing a child.

Sometimes, it is as much a matter of saving the adults from themselves.

Dr. Carol Lieberman of California is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, author, forensic expert witness and legal analyst who is often called upon to provide expert testimony in cases involving harm to children. Lieberman suggests that in her experience, when a parent kills a child, it is often an impulsive act by a stressed adult. The stressors most frequently include a custody battle.

Other stressors include selfloathing, mental illness, physical illness, financial problems or health problems.

None of this is stuff we want to think about.

But the senselessly cruel deaths of two innocent children is here and now and demands that we not just turn away from what we don’t understand or don’t want to understand.

It is an event that should focus us. When the grieving is over, let’s get to work and at least open the discussion about strategies for addressing what we know to be the recognizable flags of adult problems that could result in child deaths.