On Monday, November 22 a 911 operator placed a call to Dena Schlosser of Plano, Texas after her husband John called the daycare to check up on his wife and daughter Margaret Elizabeth.
The 911 operator asked if there was an emergency. Dena answered "Yes". The 911 operator asked Dena Schlosser if there was an emergency and she said "Yes". "What happened?" says the operator. "I cut her arms off, " Dena replied. In the background the hymn He Touched Me was playing.
Again we are reading about a mother that has fatally injured their child. KXAS-TV in Dallas reported that Child Protective Services opened a case for this family soon after the birth of Margaret Elizabeth.
Geoff Woll, Department of Family and Protective Services spokeperson says, "When we investigated her case and opened the case up for intensive family based safety services, we referred Mom to services that she fully participated ..." Wool also states taht the state agency "conducted extensive monitoring of the case and accompanied [Dena] Schlosser and her family on some visits to the mental health services. This case was closed up in August.
Reports from the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday, November 24 are saying that Dena Schlosser had told her husband John that she wanted to "give her child to God". Dena was found with a knife in her hand but it is all too soon for answers to why Dena harmed her child. Read more at HoustonChronicle.com
I think that there needs to be some serious changes in the standards of care we give to mothers who have demonstrated Postpartum Depression. More importantly peoples attitudes towards motherhood.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, medical anthropologist, cross-cultural studies including children and motherhood, violence, and mental illness says, " We should detach from the idea of universal motherhood as natural and see it as a social response. There's a collective denial even when mothers come right out and say, "I really shouldn't be trusted with my kids" Scheper-Hughes discovered that women in jail reported that noone believed them when they said they wanted to kill their children.
Only about 4 percent of women who become psychotic kill their babies. It looks like Dena might fall into this percentage, it is too early to say right now. The public opinion courts all over the country have already judged her.
I went looking around the Internet for some reactions to this story and found remarks similar to the following:
"Give me a damn break! I am tired of these women committing horrendous things to their children and then they blame it on post partum"
"I take mental illness very seriously but I'm sorry the whole "postpartum" excuse is a bunch of crap."
"Women need to stop using post partum depression as an excuse to kill their children. EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES! I'm so sick of people making excuses for idiots who do such horrible things like this! Psychosis my foot! All I see is an EVIL hateful soul that could do something like this! Stop having children if you are too selfish to take care of them! Give them to someone who will love and cherish them! Better yet, sterilize this bitch. Dena Schlosser is just what her name is Sch..Loser. These evil bitches deserve the death penalty!" I freely admit the disgust these comments are to me. Over 20 years ago I began to learn about Postpartum Depression (PPD). Back then I had small children myself and it was hard for me to imagine any harm coming to them by my own hands. The more I learned the more I have found out that so many people think that there is a natural state of Mother Love. In fact this belief is so strong that it interfears with helping families like John and Dena's as well as creates such hate filled statements from the ill informed. The actions of Dena Schlosser, Andrea Yates, Deanna Laney cannot be justified in our minds. It is horrible what their hands have done, but wiping out the ignorance and attitudes is possible.
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