MANILA, Philippines??Bad? mothers have been lately in the news.
In France, law enforcers, academics and the public are in shock over the case of Dominique Cottrez, 47, who confessed to killing eight of her children soon after delivering them. Experts consider this the ?worst case of infanticide? in France, but at least one expert has said this is not the only one. Just months ago, another mother confessed to killing her six children, and that case was considered the ?worst? until trumped by the Cottrez murders, which occurred in the small town of Viller-au-Tertre.
In our own neck of the woods, a mother was caught in an entrapment operation selling her infant girl for P10,000. And just to show what wide disparities exist in this ?market,? a 25-year-old woman was arrested in Kabacan, North Cotabato after she sold her baby for P1,000.
Not much is known about Cottrez, except that police describe her as a ?large? woman, which they say may explain why her husband, a carpenter, didn?t even suspect that she had been pregnant eight times. Reports say that Cottrez, who is said to have had a bad experience with her first pregnancy (she and her husband are said to have two daughters in their 20s), resolved never to see a doctor or go to a hospital again. She never sought treatment for any of her pregnancies, delivered her babies all by herself, and suffocated them in plastic bags before burying them in their backyard. A couple who moved into the former Cottrez home found two bodies under a tree, leading police to dig up the backyard of the current Cottrez home where they found six other bodies.
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A MENTAL health expert quoted in a wire report described Cottrez?s condition as ?denial of pregnancy,? saying about 500 cases have been reported around the world. The expert said the condition afflicts women who cannot accept their pregnancies and are thus pushed into desperate measures once their babies are born.
We are not strangers to such stories, since time and again we hear news of Filipino women who secretly give birth (or self-aborted) in public restrooms and other such places then ?discard? the newborns or fetuses in garbage bins or canals.
What I wanted to know upon reading the news was why Cottrez?and other women like her and in her situation?didn?t simply use contraception if they feared pregnancy so much or loathed babies that badly.
Cottrez may be unhinged (the kindest explanation I can find for her actions), but consider the story of the mother caught in the entrapment operation. Interviewed soon after she was shown on camera receiving the P10,000 payment, the mother said she was pushed into selling her youngest child because she already had five children and could barely feed them. ?All I can do is to make coffee just so the baby could have something to drink,? she said in Filipino, but it wasn?t clear to me if she was drinking coffee so she could breastfeed her child, or if she was feeding the baby with coffee. (Not so strange, since destitute mothers have been known to resort to bottle-feeding their infants with condensed milk and water.)
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THE TV reporter covering the entrapment operation didn?t bother to follow up on the mother?s story or her situation, but included an interview with someone who looked like a social worker saying the mother would lose her ?parental? rights for her crime. ?If she cannot support her family,? the social worker added, ?the mother should have followed legal procedures if she wanted to have her children adopted.?
Oh, come on. Here?s a desperate mother who can barely scrape up the money to buy food for her children (or access contraceptives to prevent future pregnancies) and you expect her to consult a lawyer about finding someone to adopt her child?
Of course, I support legal adoption. Couples or singles who badly want children but cannot spare the time or expense of going to court to adopt them legally and thus protect the youngsters? rights deserve to be prosecuted. And human traffickers who trade in children to use them for slavery, prostitution or organ harvesting (as well as their clients) deserve not just jail time but the harshest punishment the law can mete out.
But perhaps we can spare some compassion for mothers driven to such desperate straits as to sell their children, or kill them upon birth, or resort to abortion.
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BEHIND every bad mother?s story is a story of a woman driven to the edge.
We would think that women today enjoy all sorts of freedoms and choices and can thus protect themselves from violence, deception or just plain bad choices. But the truth is that women are still caught in mental and social nets that trap them in unrealistic expectations, dangerous illusions or impossible situations.
Women caught in violent relationships, for instance, can find their self-esteem so degraded they cannot act in their own self-interest, such as using protection from unwanted pregnancies, let alone defending themselves from rape. Women who are raised to believe that wifehood and motherhood define their persons will willingly go through serial pregnancies even if told it is dangerous to their health. And when there aren?t any avenues of escape, such women will carry out the unthinkable, such as sell a child or kill the child at birth.
Given the many sensational stories we encounter these days, the reverberations from the Cottrez infanticides or the sale in babies will eventually fade away. But before we do, perhaps we should spare a thought for the back stories of these bad mothers.
