When Children Kill Their Parents

According to CBS News, most offspring who kill their parents are adult children, meaning they are over 18 years of age. Over the 32-year period examined, the number of juvenile parricide offenders was substantially lower. On the average, juveniles killed 31 fathers and 18 mothers per year. The reverse is more common: according to FBI statistics, an average of about 450 children of all ages yearly are killed by their own parents. Parents were responsible for 61% of child murders under the age of five.

The fact that young children or older adult children kill their own parents seems to run counter to one of the themes of this blog: that a lot of behavior problems and self-destructive patterns are caused by the residue of kin selection, the tendency of people to put their kin and ethic group’s interests above their own, and in certain circumstances be willing to sacrifice themselves. Even die for them. If this is really the case, and I’ve been witnessing self sacrifice for decades in my psychotherapy patient population, how can we account for children killing parents?

I must admit I do not know for certain, since I have never had anyone who killed a parent in psychotherapy with me. However, based on my theory, I believe the main reason may have to do with another concept I’ve written about: Hatefulness as a gift of love. In some cases, parents hate themselves so much and think their children are so much better off without them - even if the child ends up in jail - that they act hatefully to such an extent that they kind of give off the message “kill me.” 

Another reason was illustrated in a case I am about to discuss: A parent who wants to murder a spouse may appear to be so selfish as to have their child take the rap for killing that person—thinking that the child would not have to go to jail due to being so young.

In almost all cases, kids who kill parents are victims of severe abuse, as in the cases to be discussed. But severe abuse alone is clearly not enough to induce a kid to do something like that, since the number of cases of severe child abuse massively exceeds the number of such killings. Most children who are abused do not even tell on their parents, let alone kill one of them. As little kids, they often think being beaten is normal, and worry more about their parents’ mental health than their own. So it has to be abuse plus something else. In one of the two cases to be discussed, it was a direct suggestion.

As one piece of evidence that the theory of self-sacrifice is correct even in these cases, one of the persons about to be discussed (Ms. Bailey) says herself in her book: “It is innate in us to want to protect the only thing we know, and even through abuse and neglect we still seek to protect the very ones who inflict such pain.”

Two cases  have been in the media lately: The first was featured on an A&E TV documentary called The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard. When she was in her early twenties, she induced an angry and easily manipulated boy  to kill her own mother. Afterwards, she was imprisoned for almost 10 years before being paroled.,The actual killer is still in prison. 

The second is in a book called My Mother’s Soldier, written by a woman named Mary Elizabeth Bailey. When she was only 11 years old, her mother induced her to shoot and kill her highly abusive stepfather. In that case, she was afterwards whisked away to foster care while her mother went to jail, just as the mother must have suspected would happen.

Both of these women relate horrifying tales of severe abuse by parental figures, while Ms. Bailey was also severely neglected.

Blanchard was a victim of Munchausen by proxy, where her mother faked illnesses in her as well as disabilities in order to get money. People, including supposedly much of her mother’s family, didn’t think she was able to walk, since she was always in a wheelchair. She was subjected to surgeries and medications she did not need. Apparently mom was really good at faking this stuff in her with doctors, and the girl willingly went along with it. At one point mom insisted the girl had a fear of eating, and a stomach tube was surgically inserted in her. She was in the hospital for six months with it.

The two of them moved from place to place. The mother would not let her go to school  or have any friends, so they were each other’s only major relationship in life for years. The child felt so stymied that she recalled her first day in prison as a happy time. For the first time in her life - even in that environment - she felt “free.”

In the Bailey case, the murderous child had  been sexually abused by her grandfather – who of course denied it when interviewed and who theorized quickly that Mary was trying to shift the blame for the murder on to him. But how on earth had he brought up a daughter who would do such terrible things to her own daughter? By comparison, Mom made him look like an ideal parent.

Unlike with the grandfather, Bailey idealized her grandmother. This is understandable since Grandma was the only family member who treated her with love in one-to-interactions, and frequently took her under her care when the mother wanted to go out and party. On the other hand, grandma had also been the one who raised the incredibly irresponsible mother who had dropped out of school very early, ran wild, had sex somewhat indiscriminately with multiple partners even while married to an insecure, violent alcoholic (who probably was doing the same thing) who frequently beat her up. And Grandma often returned Mary to the mother’s abusive, neglectful care whenever the mother asked her to because of the mother's need for help  financing her life.

And she never called the police about any of the abuse. The only time she even threatened to do that was when the stepfather threatened her, and he responded by hitting her so hard on the side of the head that she had hearing damage. And yet still no call to the police.

Mary was generally ignored to the point where she was often given no food for days. Stepdad came into the picture after the girl had been raised for a time by the grandmother. (The fact that he was not a primary attachment figure originally might have made it easier for Mary to follow her mother’s instructions to shoot him). 

Stepdad beat her frequently, and the only things he had to say to her were names like “you little redheaded brat!” He had a job which took him away from the house for significant periods of time, but mom didn’t take care of her daughter either – she would go off to party at some nearby apartments. She rather openly had affairs even though she knew her husband was a violent alcoholic and would find out and beat her as well as the kids.

Pretty amazing stuff.