Scapegoating Mothers

Lionel Shriver wrote a great piece for the Guardian about the scapegoating of mothers after tragedies like the one in Connecticut earlier this month:

"Nevertheless, Nancy Lanza has been disparaged from the start. Multiple stories have pegged her as a "prepper" – a survivalist gearing up for economic collapse by stocking weapons and tinned food. Yet this gonzo tag hails from a single, biased source, Nancy's sister-in-law, and has since been contradicted by friends. An acquaintance said she seemed "high-strung" – an opaque and prospectively neutral adjective that went viral, repeated to insinuate that the mother herself might have been unbalanced. And tut-tut: she never seemed eager to invite neighbours into her home."

She also touches on the blaming -- and demonizing -- of mental illness, particularly Asperger's syndrome, which the shooter has been purported to have:

"Sandy Hook has been the most misreported story in recent memory, but a few facts may have emerged. To date, authorities have not located any confirmed diagnosis for Adam Lanza. Relatives and former classmates say he had Asperger's syndrome, but this mild form of autism has no correlation with violence. The boy is described as anything but menacing – rather, as withdrawn, antisocial, even "meek", according to an official at his high school, who explained that Adam was only assigned a psychologist because a scrawny, cringing loner might be tormented by peers."

I'm glad she mentioned that there is no correlation between autism spectrum disorders and violent behavior. The news media has been neglecting this fact, and it's feeding the narrative that something organic in Lanza's brain"made him" kill over twenty people. As for  blaming Lanza's mother, or at least holding her partly responsible, I'm torn. It's wrong -- and all too easy -- to fault the mother, but I can't understand why someone would keep assault-style weapons in her house in the first place.