Desperation?

Leslie

Leslie

Communistrator
Staff member
I can't fathom mistaking another child for mine. I'm not quite sure I understand this. Desperation? Shock? Temporary Insanity?
Nine women in Sri Lanka are reported to have claimed to be the mother of an unidentified infant rescued from the Indian Ocean tsunami.



The boy was covered in bruises and mud when he was brought to a hospital in the town of Kalmunai, a doctor said.

Police were called after some of the women threatened violence, the Associated Press agency reports.

Tsunami-hit areas have reported several cases of parents who lost offspring claiming rescued orphans as their own.

Children are believed to make up about 40% of the estimated 31,000 people killed by the sea surges which struck Sri Lanka on 26 December.

The tsunami also left behind some 1,000 orphans in the country, according to data quoted by the UN's children's charity, Unicef.

Costly tests

Quarrels have broken out among people claiming to be the baby's parents, hospital officials say.

One of the women reportedly threatened to kill a doctor, while another said she would commit suicide if the baby was not handed over.

"Parents who have lost their children come every day to the hospital to check," a doctor at the hospital, KR Saseenthirian, said.

"Some go back, and some stay and claim that the baby is theirs."

The hospital plans to refer the issue to a court.

"If the court asks us to conduct DNA tests, we will do that," said Dr Saseenthirian. However, it is not clear who will foot the bill for the costly tests.
Click to expand...
BBC
 
I think it's desperation, sort of like when wackos who are not victims of tsunamis kidnap other people's kids and raise them as their own. They want a child at any cost. Awful.
 
Probably a combination of that and denial... iI'd say

After everything thats happened, after the shock and trauma...there is undoubtedly a lot of psychological damage...I mean, half of the victims or more were children. You can imagine the frenzy of mothers not wanting to believe they were unable to save their own children. The frenzy of those not wanting to believe their missing baby is dead.

awful.
 
You're right about that, TG. I certainly don't hold it against these particular women as much as I would some lone nut in Iowa, say. They have been through an unthinkable amount of trauma and have all likely lost children of their own quite recently. I can't imagine they're in their right minds, or ever will be again. :(
 
The mothering instinct is extraordinarily powerful and being a mother actually leads to physical changes in brain chemistry that change the individual at least temporarily. Weve all heard about post partum depression and such. And post partum psychosis can occur too in extreme cases. But the fact is mothers will do seemingly bizarre things for their children. Its all built into the machine.
 
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