How's it going, America,
Check out our latest episode of The Pod Millennial! I reveal a personal story about my dad tossing a Beastie Boys cassette out the car window, parental responsibility vs. censorship in the 1990s, and talk to Alliance Defending Freedom's Lorcan Price about how European censorship laws are impacting Americans here at home. New episodes drop every Tuesday! Listen, rate (5 stars, of course!), and subscribe!
Let's get into it:
Massachusetts mom Lindsay Clancy is still on trial for the January 2023 murder of her three children. The story has divided the internet, and for once it's not along party lines, this time it's along gender lines. But it's so bizarre. Women have gathered outside the courthouse wearing pink, making hearts with their hands, carrying their babies, and saying that they support Lindsay Clancy.
Lindsay Clancy murdered her three children. She later said she was hearing voices, a man's voice telling her to kill them. She asked her husband to head out to get some takeout for dinner and pick up some medicine for one of their children, and while he was gone, she took her three children to the basement, wrapped exercise bands around their necks, and strangled them until they were dead. Then she tried to kill herself. Her husband came home and found that scene: his family destroyed, his children dead, his wife paralyzed out the window.
It's notable that a psychiatrist testified from the stand this week that Clancy has not heard voices since she murdered her children and that she is still on many of the heavy psych drugs that her defense claims led her to conceive of killing. He also said that these "voices" were more like "intrusive thoughts," which doesn't exactly speak to madness.
And women keep coming out in TikToks and Instagram supporting this woman. She claims to have suffered from postpartum psychosis, a very rare condition that cannot be detected on an MRI machine. Women announce in their videos, "same, Lindsay," announcing to the world apparently that they want to kill their children too? They're demanding more help for women with postpartum depression: is this a cry for help? Do they want intervention? Maybe families should go check on these moms and their kids.
I get the mental health thing, I get that it's hard to be a mother to young children, and Clancy had three of them. Not easy, for sure. But, and this is a big but, motherhood is something to be grateful for. These massive responsibilities are something to choose, cherish, and for which we must be grateful. We get to be mothers. That is so incredibly amazing.
It's not a burden to be a mother, it is an unbelievable blessing, and being a mom is literally the absolutely greatest thing in the world. I have traveled, I have done well in my career, I have loved and lost and wined and dined and danced on rooftops until sunrise, but there is nothing that even comes close to the joy and wonder of getting to be the mother to my son.
I didn't experience postpartum depression, and I'm sure critics would say "you don't know what you're talking about," but I did experience doubt, confusion, and a moment where the responsibility seemed overwhelming. The life of motherhood I had envisioned had not materialized. Breastfeeding was hard, being super sleepy all the time was hard, being relied upon for an entire human life was hard.
But it wasn't reality that was the problem, it was the expectations I had for it. In that moment I realized it was the expectations that were the problem, not the reality of motherhood. One must adjust oneself, one must not think there is something "better" one could be doing. There isn't. The childfree carefree life looks sexy and fun, but the life of motherhood looks strong, resilient, full of joy and love.
The split over the Clancy supporters and what I would call the Clancy realists is so deep as to be insurmountable. How do you look at your own children and see a burden? How do you look at a life blessed with children and weep? Take pity on Lindsay Clancy, for she has unleashed destruction upon her offspring, her family, and herself. But do not for one second try to justify her actions or seek to identify with her. There is no frame of mind that could ever make right what she's done.
I was on Timcast IRL last night! We talked about all this and more. You can watch the whole thing here.
Libby