Nancy Slotnick: Newtown

I’m from Newton, Mass., which is not the same as Newtown, Conn. But as President Obama put it, Newtown is a town that could have been any town. It could have been any school. So it is the same. Our president also remarked that when he hears about these horrific events, he experiences them as a parent does. I did too. And besides the unspeakable grief that I allowed myself to feel but for an instant (it would have been too painful otherwise), I also felt wrath and indignation. (I may have gotten that from the Passover Haggadah — It did feel like a plague of the worst proportions.)

My indignation first went to all the usual suspects — the shooter himself, the card-carrying members of the NRA, even the inept mental health professionals who cannot identify a human ticking bomb when they see one. But then my wrath settled in on the root cause, the one that no one is talking about. I blame the mom.

I blame the mom for not knowing her son. I blame her for not seeing the signs. I blame her for not getting him help. I blame her for leaving guns in his reach. But most of all, I blame her for how he turned out. It is my belief, from what I know about psychology and what I have seen in four and a half decades of life, that a positive parental experience will not yield a suicidal psycho killer. Period. End of story.

My husband is a psychoanalyst in private practice and a clinical social worker and this is actually his theory, not mine. I have just tested it out in the real world as an anthropologist and it holds true.

Now I have no idea of what goes on behind closed doors in a murderer’s family, but I have seen in my coaching practice that torture begets torture. We have to start holding the moms responsible for their sons. I saw a school classmate of the shooter speaking on 60 Minutes. She said that he always kept to himself, he did not speak to anyone, ever. This is what the man-on-street interviews always say about the serial killers. But it’s always after the fact.

Moms out there right now — I am speaking to you — if you have a son who is like this — get him to a mental health professional ASAP. Even an institution. Definitely medication is in order and intensive therapy and constant monitoring. If you stand by and watch him deteriorate, you are just as culpable. If you are an enabler, you may end up being a child killer. If you don’t know what to do, find someone who does.

The experts on 60 Minutes said that in almost every case in history, the shooter has announced his plans to someone in advance. If only we could listen! It’s like Horton Hears a Who. Moms don’t know how to listen. They don’t want to see. Actually, it’s not even like Horton. This kid was burning himself with a lighter! The message couldn’t have been louder! She told friends she was worried about him. Come on! She did nothing. She left guns where he could get to them. Has anyone heard the expression, “Wake up and smell the coffee?”

My name is Nancy Slotnick, which is not the same as Nancy Lanza. But it could have been any Nancy, right? No, not exactly. I’m a mom. I have a son. I hear his Whos. I nip things in the bud. I don’t want to sound cocky. I am incredibly blessed to have a son who’s more emotionally healthy than I am. Isn’t that the goal?

If G-d forbid my son ever suffered from trauma and showed signs of social dysfunction, I would read the signs. I wouldn’t abandon him. I would get him help, no matter what it took. I would know that my life and his depended on it. Not to mention the lives of others. Yes, let’s mention the lives of others. Innocent children, made to suffer and die prematurely because Nancy Lanza was too lazy to figure out what to do about her son. And she was too unexplored to take any responsibility. And in my opinion, something she did probably made him that way. Because people who hurt children are usually projecting how they were treated as children. Violence is a communication, for a person who has not the words to express himself. And now we listen, but it is far far too late.

So as President Obama said, we all hold our children a little closer now. But let’s also inspect our children a little closer now. Thankfully most of us won’t have a serial killer for a child. But do we have the next Bernard Madoff? Do we have the next Amy Winehouse? Kids show signs. Their tantrums and their art and their sibling behaviors tell us. We have to listen. We have to look. We have to Hear their Who. We have to act. We have to look at our parenting. We can’t stand by. If we listen the first time, they might not need to shout it from the rooftops. Or the school buildings of Newtown. New town, old story.