Scared Stiff

I cried when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I did not watch the video clip showing his murder.

The pogroms of October 7, 2023, personally affected me. I self-monitor the times when I listen to or read accounts of that agonizing day.

I avoid sensational news stories that used to be the headlines on magazines and newspapers which upright people were embarrassed to be seen reading. Now, they scream at us from no-longer venerable publications as well as from our ubiquitous screens. The by-product of capturing eyeballs leaves readers gloomy, anxious, and pessimistic as they focus on the bizarre and unusual. I choose not to go along with the crowd.

All this is to say that I have not been following accounts of Lindsay Clancy, who three years ago strangled her five, three, and eight-month-old children and is currently standing trial for their deaths. There is no question as to her actions. What is under debate is her sanity at the time of the murders.

The incident is irrefutably tragic. Any decent person’s stomach clenches at a mental picture of those children’s final terrified minutes. The case before the court revolves around legal and medical issues. As citizens of a country and of states, we can debate whether we use the correct criteria in establishing those legal and medical issues. Those are not what finally grabbed my attention.

What captured me was hearing about young mothers who are fixated on the case. Their sympathy for Lindsay Clancy scares me. Not because I know what the right conclusion of the trial should be or because I am unmoved by the heinous act, but because this case is serving as one more brick in the edifice our culture constructs telling women that having children is unpleasant, frightening, and downright dangerous.

I have seen claims that postpartum psychosis affects about one to two women out of a thousand with no history of mental illness. Accepting that analysis as correct, think about the 998-999 out of a thousand women who are scared out of their wits by this trial. There is no claim that the .1% or .2% harm or murder their children. But the thought of doing exactly that is now running through too many minds.

Attitudes towards pregnancy go through phases. When I was expecting, the trend was towards assuring women that, “Giving birth isn’t an illness. It is a healthy and natural activity.” Today, the trend is towards scaring the daylights out of girls and women. Would you look forward to ruining your body, losing your individuality, and possibly being a terrible mother, maybe even one who turns into a monster? Would you want to spend nine months being prodded and tested for every possible negative factor that could affect you or your baby? Yet, that is where the focus is. That is what girls and women hear.

I gave birth in a community teeming with young marrieds. I closely followed hundreds of births. We women supported each other physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We also all had husbands at our sides. Out of that group, one mother had postpartum depression. She was the outlier and the rest of us could pay attention and be sure that she got the help she needed. We all had our moments of exhaustion, periods of baby blues, and times when we called for backup. We also regularly got together and had overwhelmingly more frequent times of laughter and joy.

Sadly, our society is producing young adults lacking hope and delight while awash in mental challenges (or being told that they are). Whether that is due to legalizing marijuana, transitioning to screens vs. human interaction, micro-plastics, or any number of other options, it is not a good thing. As individuals, we can’t influence much. But as individuals, we can refuse to follow the Lindsay Clancy spectacle and explain to our sons and daughters why paying attention to it, and hundreds of other gruesome stories fighting for our attention, harms us in subtle but real ways.

This article appeared first on 8/19/2026 on Susan’s Musings.