If it hadn’t been nearly 20 years ago and if I still lived anywhere near where it happened, no way would I have gone into any detail about the personal circumstances. I’m not bound by any ethical obligation to maintain privacy (legally speaking) but I still have not revealed anything which would allow her to be…

Yeah: I’m not trying to take anything away from the tragedy of this event, but it could have been something a lot worse.

The anger is definitely justified, but it is such a delicate issue with so many larger and smaller issues at play. There are no winners.

I’m glad to hear that emergency services were compassionate in this case.

...

I totally understand that anger. Police brutality and abuse of power are absolutely real and need to be addressed, but the narrative has gotten out of control and is a danger to the majority of officers who are just out to do their jobs within the confines of the law. Admittedly, it is a debate I tend to stay out of…

It IS relevant. The French just love eating their cheese, and drinking their wine, and murdering babies. Common knowledge.

Yeah, losing a 3 year old child is *totally* different from losing an infant. Incomparible.

You think there is a point where a child “ages out” of inspiring hysterical grief in a parent?

Yeah, and the thought that if she stopped pushing that swing then he really, truly is dead and she just can’t face that. So she keeps on pushing, hour after hour.

Season opener of SVU: The older daughter of a popular reality TV family known for their strict family values is found pushing her deceased infant brother on a swing in new York (they’re in town to be on a morning show). Girl admits that she had a mental breakdown after remembering that her brother molested her for…

That was my thought. Something happened to him and she literally could not deal with the fact that he passed away and her way of coping was to basically shove the idea out of her mind completely. :(

Yes. Single mom with bad circumstances (Amish - so you can imagine) I called social services and stayed with her through a drawn out, but surprisingly compassionate, police and medical investigation and intervention.

Oh god my heart just broke into tiny pieces. That poor woman. What did you do? And I’m guessing she was a single mom?

Yes. It’s even a cultural trope. Haven’t folks seen Gone With The Wind?

My guess would be that she was in denial about the death of her child and went so deep into shock that she got stuck performing that monotonous motion for hours. (In the vein of “He can’t be dead. See? We’re at the playground. Playing like we always do. Everything’s fine.”)

Sadly it’s not even close for me. I once did a postpartum home visit to find that the infant had died several days before but the mother was still bathing and dressing the little body and frantic because “She just won’t eat.” I suspect this will turn out to be something similar. Grief can do some powerfully tragic…

Rest assured, the L&O:SVU writers are already on the final draft of the script after three rounds of Tragedy MadLibs.

This isn't that uncommon actually. Losing a child is a unique loss that isn't comparable to anything else. Nobody knows how they would react after they lost their child. Lots of women go into shock and don't hand over their child's body right away when something happens to them. I just hope she's getting help and has…

This is the creepiest fucking thing I’ve ever read.