Don't Compare Your Son to Adam Lanza
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Instead of the real mother, this time we have an imposter, Liza Long, blogger and single mother of four who wrote the incredible post “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” which was reprinted by Gawker and Huffington Post this weekend and viewed by millions. Long is of course not Adam Lanza’s mother. She is the mother of 13-year-old "Michael" (whose name she changed but so what, since her own name is public), who she describes as belligerent and mentally ill, so much so that “he terrifies me.” The pure sympathy phase for Long after her essay went viral lasted about 24 hours before another blogger, Sarah Kendzior, pointed out that Long had written a series of “vindictive and cruel posts about her children” and was not to be trusted. This morning, Long and Kendzior made up and issued a joint statement about “the need for a respectful national conversation on mental health” and declared that they were not interested in perpetuating a “mommy war.”
Good for them. “Michael,” meanwhile, has a long life to live, during which his neighbors and teachers and future employers will know that his mother regularly called the police on him, committed him to a mental institution, and considered seriously accusing him of a crime so she could send him to jail. (She didn’t because jail would exacerbate his “sensitivity to sensory stimuli,” she writes, a cold clinical rationale that in her piece passes for maternal sympathy.) People who meet "Michael" in the future have a good shot at finding out that his mother thinks he is the equivalent of a man who just shot 20 schoolchildren point blank, and that she once listed her son’s name in the pantheon of greats. (“I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother. I am Jason Holmes's mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho's mother.”)
We have of course gotten used to mommy bloggers embarrassing their children, saying which child they like best or how much they drink while stuck at home doing art projects. Louis C.K. regularly embarrasses his kids and surely one day they will get their revenge. These are humiliations that might require a kid to get therapy later, but they are not on the same order as what Long did. They are unlikely, for example, to prevent the kids from getting a job. So far the children’s rights movement has focused on protecting children from neglect and abuse, but maybe it’s time to add a subcategory protecting them from libel, by their own parents.
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I might trust Long more if she doled out the drama a little more carefully. Is she actually going to call a parole officer if her 11-year-old doesn’t stop poking his brother, as she writes in one old post, or is that just something moms say when they’re frazzled? Does she really think it’s crazy for a 5-year-old to cry if he drops his lollipop, or for an 11-year-old to shoot rubberbands at his brother? Or was she just in a bad mood that day? Surely it was just a bad mood, right? But then she claims that her ex-husband actually did have their 11-year-old incarcerated for failing to do his chores, and their 14-year-old committed to a mental hospital, so these things are in the realm of possibility in their family, I guess.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/12/17/i_am_adam_lanza_s_mother_liza_lang_essay_libels_her_son.html
The blog entry has been posted numerous times on DU over the past few days. Upon reading it, unlike every other person here, I was alarmed- by the mother. This woman has posted her real name, her son's real name, his photo and evidently her blog has quite a few disturbing comments about her other children. She claims she's not seeking fame but she's making the rounds on TV.
Frankly, I think what she's done is despicable.
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