The post was called ​ “ Think­ing the Unthink­able,” it was lat­er repub­lished under the head­line ​ “ I Am Adam Lan­za­’s Moth­er.” It quick­ly went viral.

That con­flict end­ed with three burly police offi­cers and a para­medic wrestling my son onto a gur­ney for an expen­sive ambu­lance ride to the local emer­gency room. The men­tal hos­pi­tal didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nice­ly in the ER, so they sent us home with a pre­scrip­tion for Zyprexa and a fol­low-up vis­it with a local pedi­atric psychiatrist.

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threat­ened to kill me and then him­self after I asked him to return his over­due library books. His 7 and 9 year old sib­lings knew the safe­ty plan — they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I man­aged to get the knife from Michael, then method­i­cal­ly col­lect­ed all the sharp objects in the house into a sin­gle Tup­per­ware con­tain­er that now trav­els with me. Through it all, he con­tin­ued to scream insults at me and threat­en to kill or hurt me.

I live with a son who is men­tal­ly ill. I love my son. But he ter­ri­fies me.

On Fri­day, as the nation griev­ed the mass shoot­ing in New­town, a moth­er blogged about her fears for her 13-year-old son, Michael :

Michael’s moth­er, who blogs as ​“Anar­chist Soc­cer Mom,” described what it’s like to fear that your child is going to kill peo­ple, and have nobody take you seriously:

I am shar­ing this sto­ry because I am Adam Lanza’s moth­er. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s moth­er. I am James Holmes’s moth­er. I am Jared Loughner’s moth­er. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s moth­er. And these boys — and their moth­ers — need help. In the wake of anoth­er hor­rif­ic nation­al tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about men­tal illness.

A vicious back­lash against ASM is already under­way. A wide­ly-cit­ed post enti­tled ​ “ You Are Not Adam Lan­za­’s Moth­er,” accus­es her of dehu­man­iz­ing the men­tal­ly ill, traf­fick­ing in stereo­types, and over­med­icat­ing her son. (This Mon­day morn­ing quar­ter­back­ing of psych meds real­ly both­ers me. It’s extra­or­di­nar­i­ly pre­sump­tu­ous for this blog­ger to sec­ond-guess the doc­tors of a kid s/​he’s nev­er met.)

. Most dis­turbed kids don’t grow up to be mur­der­ers. Hell, most mur­der­ers don’t become mass murderers.



utism spec­trum, ADHD, Oppo­si­tion­al Defiant‑, or Inter­mit­tent Explo­sive Dis­or­der,” but she says nobody knows what’s wrong with him.

Some crit­ics are angry at ASM for vio­lat­ing her son’s pri­va­cy. In this case, I think she was right to go pub­lic. Her blog is pseu­do­ny­mous, but the post got repub­lished under her real name.

A social work­er warned ASM that nobody will take her seri­ous­ly unless Michael’s charged with a crime, but she does­n’t want to send him to jail. At least by get­ting her sto­ry on the record, she’s forc­ing doc­tors, admin­is­tra­tors, and law enforce­ment to take her seri­ous­ly. If Michael hurts some­body, they won’t be able to say they weren’t warned. Yes, a blog post could fol­low Michael around, but it’s a lot bet­ter than a crim­i­nal record. Pri­va­cy is impor­tant, but it’s not an absolute right. Michael is vio­lent and the peo­ple around him have a right to know what he’s already done and what his moth­er fears he might be capa­ble of.

Anoth­er blog­ger, Sarah Kendzior , is spelunk­ing through ASM’s archives, try­ing to prove that she’s a bad mom or a liar, or some­thing. This is despicable.

I read ASM’s entire archive, which con­sists of about 35 posts, spread out over 5 years. Kendzior promis­es ​ “ the truth” about ASM. I’m here to tell you Kendzior’s full of shit. Mali­cious shit.

The post about Michael’s ill­ness is a major depar­ture for ASM. She usu­al­ly writes about being a clas­sics profs, reli­gion, the books she’s read­ing, cheap chic out­fits, her divorce, and her own adjust­ment to life as a sin­gle moth­er of four.

2012 that describes him as Kendzior implies that ASM is lying about her son because there’s anoth­er post from Jan­u­arythat describes him as a typ­i­cal annoy­ing teenag­er , as opposed to a mani­ac.* Guess what? Men­tal­ly ill teens are teens. They’re walk­ing the same devel­op­men­tal path as their neu­rotyp­i­cal peers. As ASM said in her men­tal ill­ness post, Michael is charm­ing and intel­li­gent on his good days.

Kendzior holds up this goofy Irma Bombeck-like post as evi­dence of ASM’s parental deprav­i­ty. ASM jokes that she could throt­tle her kids. What a mon­ster. Get a load of this part:

Final­ly, Mr. Teen Hero in the front seat, blast­ing your music through your Skull­can­dies, if you take the name of Our Lord in vain one more time, I will tell all your face­book friends that you are real­ly lis­ten­ing to Justin Bieber instead of Linkin Park.

Why then do we choose not to sum­mit a moun­tain? That ques­tion is more dif­fi­cult for me. We choose because when we reach the moment of deci­sion, we find our­selves insuf­fi­cient­ly aware, informed, pre­pared. We choose not to suc­ceed at some things because the risks out­weigh the ben­e­fits. To give up some­thing that you val­ue great­ly for those you love is to know the mean­ing of sac­ri­fice in the Bib­li­cal sense. As I turned back from Mr. Regan’s taunt­ing sum­mit, as I wedged my body between sheer rock faces with ver­ti­cal drops of more than 30 feet, as I scav­enged for hand­holds in flak­ing gran­ite, I thought of Abra­ham, knife poised above the body of his inno­cent son. Why does God give us these urges, then tell us not to act on them?

As if all this truth weren’t shock­ing enough, Kendzior solemn­ly reminds us that ASM is D‑I-V-O-R-C-E‑D. Classy.

Kendzior went out of her way to malign a par­ent in cri­sis, a woman who’s already liv­ing in fear that her son will kill her or her children.

Is this some sick man­i­fes­ta­tion of the ​“just world hypoth­e­sis’? Does Kendzior assume that only a bad mom would end up with a vio­lent, men­tal­ly ill son?

It’s iron­ic that the real Nan­cy Lan­za­’s corpse was­n’t even cold before peo­ple start­ed attack­ing her for fail­ing to con­trol her son. With zero evi­dence, strangers were rant­i­ng and rav­ing about how she did­n’t do enough to stop Adam.

Con­ser­v­a­tive pun­dit Ann Alt­house even spec­u­lat­ed that Nan­cy con­spired to kill school children:

Why did Adam, after killing his moth­er, trav­el to the school where she worked? Should­n’t some sus­pi­cion fall on the moth­er? She looks like a vic­tim, but could she and her son have been oper­at­ing together?

ASM is afraid that her son might be vio­lent. She had the courage to voice her fears. Now she’s being vil­i­fied for try­ing to pre­vent anoth­er tragedy. Total strangers, again with no evi­dence, are lec­tur­ing her about her own son.

A mom just can’t win.

*The post might not even be about Michael. ASM has two teenage sons, and the post does­n’t men­tion any names.