In my opinion, Patsy was a fair nanny and coach to JonBenet, but a good mother? I see no proof of it. Yes, Patsy was devoted to JonBenet's pageant career and her various activities, but I have read every single available word of character testimony from Patsy's friends and family, and not a syllable of it ever says that these people witnessed Patsy simply interacting with each other as loving mother and daughter. Patsy took JonBenet to the doctor? So would a coach with a valued athlete. Patsy fed JonBenet? So did Pasta Jay every week when the family dined at his restaurant. But has anybody said they often saw Patsy playing with dolls with JonBenet, or getting down on the ground and tickling each other just to make themselves laugh, or learning how to play hopscotch or play catch? No, nobody has said they saw this.
Would you like to hear one of the saddest things about Patsy's lack of mothering instincts? One of her friends has described how she (the friend) took JonBenet and her own daughter to a movie and the children sat on her lap during a scary scene in Snow White. The friend described how, when she heard JonBenet had been killed, her memory went back to that moment, and how she remembered the warmth and weight of JonBenet's body cuddled on her lap. It is a black mark against Patsy that she has never described JonBenet in those terms, as her own child whose warmth and scent and laughter she misses beyond all other losses in her life. No, what does Patsy miss? She misses dressing her daughter up like a doll and watching her be judged by other adult men and women for profit. That should not be a real mother's most precious memories of her dead child.
