Mothers and Daughters, in this case.

I've been away for a while due to a move so have not been posting but have been reading as I've had internet access intermittently through the moves, finally got settled in. And this case has just blown me away, like a blizzard. I seriously have so much to say, it's too overwhelming, but want to vent on what I see as the central issue to this case- this is nothing new, I've seen it said here in my lurking, and I want to make it clear this is to discuss family dynamics and their impact on this case- not to BLAME anyone, or to EXCUSE any wrongdoings/crimes, or to point the finger at parenting/grandparenting. It just strikes me that in this generation there seems to be a huge cultural breakdown among families, especially mothers and daughters (and grandmothers). Does this make sense? It just seems this generation sees a lot of families that have poor dynamics that get out of control when a grandchild comes into the picture and I am thinking that will have a lot to do with this case if and when the truth comes out, if Casey ever admits what she's done truthfully and Cindy admits her own actions as well. I do NOT believe Cindy was in on what happened to Caylee, and I do believe that there is something with Casey (personality disorder?)

But jeez. Some of this hits home enough that I get a feel that both Cindy and Casey fueled these events. It doesn't make it understandable to me at all that Caylee would come to physical harm. But all I can think is how unhealthy the relationships were here, how poor Caylee was innocent in it, and how if the problems had been acknowledged or dealt with in the first place this would not have happened and that fact lies on Casey, Cindy, and everyone else who witnessed anything or was a party to it. NOT to place blame, just having a discussion.

This post will end up too long if I elaborate all here but in a nutshell it seems--
1. CA and KC had a toxic relationship.
2. KC - "it's all about me" seemed to resent her mother yet at the same time, want to be coddled and doted on
3. KC seems not to have wanted to have Caylee- it's said she wanted to let someone adopt her, but Cindy had a big role in that not happening.
4. Then when KC kept Caylee, she wanted to have a partying and irresponsible lifestyle- and CA overstepped some boundaries in the way she treated KC and took over Caylee which fueled more resentment from KC.

Etc. I am not blaming as there is no excuse for what ultimately happened. However, 2 grown adults, KC and Cindy--what's going on there, Cindy would criticise KC in front of Caylee no doubt and undermine her feelings as a parent which had to make things worse, any way you look at it, I speak from experience- there is something WAY wrong when a grandmother and mother are bickering and putting their hands on each other and fighting in front of, and over, a child. It was just a toxic relationship with overstepping of boundaries on one side, and a mother on the other end who lied and had such bad and irresponsible behavior that she didn't need to be a caretaker to a child anyway, look what happened! I have no doubt the fighting between KC and Cindy had an effect here. I want to clarify, I don't blame Cindy, I'd want to choke KC too! But all I am thinking is that the both of them for shame, it's just NOT appropriate to have this going on around a poor, defenseless, innocent, IMPRESSIONABLE child.

I hope what I'm saying makes sense. This generation just seems to have a lot of young ladies who have kids and then end up not half raising them on their own, and so many grandparents stepping in and doing a lot of what seems to be raising their grandkids AND still raising/supervising their own 20-something adult kids too. This has got to be confusing to a child, who has a mother in her life but also has a grandmother who takes on a lot of the roles a mother would have beyond the boundary of being a grandparent, where the child witnesses the dynamic between the grandparent and their parent. Lines blur, conflict occurs......

And the bottom line is- in my opinion- poor Caylee would have been better off out of this situation, maybe in an open adoption situation where Cindy could have been in her life in a role and KC as well but there would not have been all that conflict and KC would not have been trying to party so much and burdened down by a child she wasn't taking the best care of.

Any comments? And oh yeah--not to mention Caylee growing up not knowing her father and with her father not knowing about her? With no chance to know another set of grandparents and a father figure? I'm not judging but I think poor Caylee, the ONE whose side I am on in all of this, had a tough set of cirumstances, God rest her soul. I hope this post is not seen as controversial, I am just venting my feelings about this case because it seems to me this all had a LOT to do with what ended up happening, as I think KC might have harmed Caylee out of resentment for Cindy which is not Cindy's fault but there were some issues on that end as well- the bottom line is that KC has to be mentally ill or sociopathic to have had ANY motive in hurting Caylee OR to cover up an accidental death and dump her. A normal person would not hurt someone....and would call for help if an accident happened. Again without blame, I honestly don't think anyone in this family's shown what I consider to be normal reactions here........however I do feel a lot of compassion and empathy for GA and CA and LA for having lost Caylee. KC not so much because I think it was her fault or maybe even planned. I would probably still even feel for KC if she seemed devastated or regretful that her baby is dead, but she shows nothing.

I think you have some excellent points.

I also remember Cindy going on about Klee's personality - a baby picture - she'd look right at you and you better do right or she'd know - or some such - giving me the impression that as the child started to talk she might have been telling on her mom.

However, from my experience grandparents having to raise grandkids is nothing new under the sun. My own husband was raised by his great grandma b/c neither his mom or his grandmom were very responsible. Oh, there were a lot of kids I knew where grandma was the one that watched them or kept mom straight enough to do it.

Grandparents have been vital for a long time - but perhaps especially so since divorce and single parenthood became so widespread, and that's been a while now.

Interestingly you posted this right after I was researching old old interviews with GA and CA. In those interviews, the As do not deny that KC has "issues". Also, I noted that CA admitted to having "depression". She also talked about herself constantly. The first interview with Greta really showed this. A friend of mine and I were wondering if KC suffered from some kind of detachment issues from CA since CA has issues of control and being self-absorbed herself. Sometimes kids with detachment can evolve into sociopaths.

Like many of us today, I just want to make sense of it all and try to prevent this from ever happening to another child. My fear is that we are raising up kids who can't take care of themselves, let alone their children. Like you, I know many grandparents who are raising their grandchildren and most of their parents aren't around at all. I even know a couple who are raising their GREAT-grandchild! We need to wake people up and do something about it...more teenage girls are having babies than ever before. It is truly frightening and I am deeply concerned about the children.

Warning...this is going to be a long post lol!

I wonder if it's really just this generation, or has it been this way all along? When i was about 9yo, I saw an episode of Quincy (the show about the ME) about a young boy who was being hit by his father. That was the first time I heard the words "child abuse," and I relalized I was an abused child...by my mother.

My mom wasn't single, but my dad traveled a lot, and she resented being home with my younger brother and I. We went to live with my mother's parents after my brother was born due to my mom's post-partem depression. During this stay, my mother taped my mouth shut because I wouldn't stop crying. My grandmother came to my rescue.

My grandparents then moved to our city, two doors down, and essentially helped raise my brother and i. Everyone thought my mom and my grandmother were best friends, but I can see them being very much like Cindy and Casey. I was the Caylee torn between them. Shortly after seeing that TV show, I showed my grandmother the bruises, and my mom rarely hit me after that. In fact, I think she was a bit afraid of me! So I'm assuming my grandmother really tore into my mom.

When I was in my 20s, my mom moved 1000 miles away due to my dad's relocation. She told me it was her chance to finally be free from under her mother. I was in my late teens, in college, and stayed behind. Shortly after that, my grandparents health started going down hill, and I took care of my grandmother for 15 years in some way or another. I was much closer to her than I was to my own mother. I was the only one present when she passed away.

Now, a few years later, I'm in my 40s, and I can see how the two main female role models in my life were rivals as well as mother and daughter. Don't get me wrong, I love them both.

I spent 5 years in therapy before I had my daughter We live 1000 miles away from my mother. Things are a lot different in this generation. My mom has mellowed quite a bit (though I never left my daughter alone with her), but still has to have her drama.

It's sad how my mother and her mother needed to love each other, and also needed to resent each other.

This generation has a lot of single moms. But in the past, families lived geographically closer to each other, so it was easier for moms and daughters to keep interfering with each other.

I wonder how many Caylees were "accident" victims over the past decades, before we had advanced forensics.

Anyway, the mother/daughter dynamic can be pretty powerful.

Because of my past, I've spent the past 14 years enjoying my daughter. I've done my best to stop and be in the moment with her. I'm homeschooling for a couple of years. I look at that video of Caylee reading the book, and it is so much like a video I have of my own daughter at that age, pointing out the alphabet. Breaks my heart.

This post is simply recentism and biased against this generation. Every generation has it's fair share of sick killers. Fillicide (killing of one's own children) has been at a constant rate in the US for the past 50 years.
This case has just simply been widely publicized.

Every week a parent kills his own child. (Not including abortion.)

It's not this generation, it's not young people, it's not kids who party or like to drink, young mothers or promiscuous girls. It is Casey Anthony (if she did it).

There are thousands of drinking, promiscuous young mothers that don't do this, please keep that in mind.

The only reason I say this is because I want people to avoid blaming one person's actions on their generation. There are messed up people in every generation, in every country, in every place on earth. Rates do vary but my point is that the case should be treated like an individual case.

There are some exceptional young mothers. Even teens. No, I dont think it's a good thing or smart to have kids when you're young, but it doesn't guarantee the child will be abused or have a bad childhood. Having a kid at a young age doesn't make you kill your kids. It makes it harder to get into college and get a career.

What made Casey Anthony kill Caylee is inside of her. I think even if she had Caylee at an older age, there would be the same chance of this happening.


EDIT - I do not believe that a child is confused by a grandparent and a parent raising them. Before the modern era, this was common place, and before industrialization and cities, it was almost necessary.

I can understand the desire to look at the dynamics between KC & CA in the hope that by better understanding it other mother's can make positive changes within their own mother/daughter relationships, thus history cannot/will not repeat itself, but I have to agree with Egoslayer's post (above) in addition to the fact that there are ALOT of other factor's at play here that need to be taken into account. Just like certain conditions have to occur and occur at the precise time in order to bring about the "perfect storm", this can be the case as well in relationship to the perpertrator of a child's murder.
IMO, you can't simply look at CA & KCA's mother/daughter dynamics without including the dynamics between KC & GA or KC & LA as well as the "A" family dynamics as a whole with their extended family member's, (grandparent's, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc...) the community, (church, school system, etc...) was it an "us against them" mentality?, were others outside of their immediate family viewed as suspicious or untrustworthy?
It's tempting to do this because we don't want this to happen again, let alone ever happen within our own families! Working on making all relationships within a family "healthy" is always a good thing but to simply pick out one interactive relationship within the whole mix would be imo, misguided & a mistake. JMHO

I agree with the 'perfect storm' statement. Lots of factors influenced Casey to do what she did. I don't think any one factor was more important than the other.

Great Post & excellant points........All of you.

I have a hard time Understanding a lot of what Casey has done but the more I see & hear from Cindy the easier it is for me. It's not easy being angry at the grandmother of a murdered child but somehow anger is exactly what I feel towards Cindy. I hate to judge anyone & God knows my family has it's share of our own problems but it seems obvious to me that something was dangerously wrong in that household. Casey didn't turn into what she is overnight. She had the audacity to do what she did because somebody has been enabling her for years.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this thread. You guys make some great points





My own personal opinion

To address Hermiones post regarding the current generation of young women who seem to hand off the raising of the young ones to the grandparents - thats nothing new, in fact it happened a LOT in my mothers generation, and I am closer to 50. My mother had very little to do with my upbringing (Thank goodness - and I dont mean that to sound awful because I did love her very much when I was a child, but its just a FACT that my mother would have made me totally psychotic had I been raised by her all the way along) and her marriage was an extremely dysfunctional one and I only have to look at my half siblings to see the effects of what our early family life has done to them (Alcoholism, amongst other things) Our mother was an incredibly complex woman, and she had a lot of the same character traits that KC exhibits, but the saving grace for me was that my grandmother was NOT like CinA, and I think that my grandmother realised that my mother would have easily sacrificed me for her lifestyle and for many years I was taken over to her place every free moment (weekends, School holidays) when I did not have to be at home to go to school. The man my mother was married to was SUPPOSEDLY my father (in actuality he wasnt and I was the result of my mother and someone else) but mum rewrote the script to sound more palettable, insisted to all and sundry that I WAS his child (even though it was no longer possible because he had a vasectomy 8 years before I was born, and when he talked to me on his deathbed he told me that his sperm count had been long dead when he was tested after mum told him she was pregnant) she made him take responsibility for me anyway by signing himself as my biological father and for years he had this simmering resentment towards me and his rage spilled over in some very nasty ways. He was traumatised by the war and what he had been through, and my mother was just not the right person for him to be married to - she was - like KC - the eternal party girl, a real social butterfly, and she obviously had no qualms about infidelity.
She was a drinker - not every day, but when she did it, she took it to excess, she had drug addictions, the whole gamut of things and MORE than KC if I am honest!
I think it is a MIRACLE that none of us kids in my family of upbringing did end up coming to serious grief, but some of the stuff that happened at home was bad enough let me tell you. Once again, things were not discussed, and even if things were hinted at or looked like they were being exposed, they got quickly brushed over again.
Life back then was a mesh of silence (for our family anyway, and I know there were lots of other families just as tightly wound in a mesh of silence), and btw who knows that CinA wasnt bought up in a highly dysfunctional manner?
I grew mistrustful of my siblings, as we all were of one another I think.
I think that a lot of it was kept more tightly under wraps, scandalous behaviour DID happen, even then, but it was hushed up and damage control was tighter than it is now. People around you were not so eager to point and say "You are doing wrong" to the parents of the house. When my grandmother was living with us, I remember (I mustve been about age 4) her and my mother having a HUGE fight and my mother told her she had to leave, simply because my grandmother had told her she was a fool, after having been separated from him for 2 years, to go back to the person I had to call Dad, because she felt it would endanger me.
Nana did leave the family home and moved to the other side of town, and her place became my refuge. I did not work out til I was about 14 that actually, my mother just didnt want me around because it stifled her social life.
Information did not disseminate so thoroughly back then, or with the speed that it can these days and there was not the awareness that laid bare that sort of behaviour as unacceptable.
I hear what you are saying (unless I have misunderstood your post but I dont think I have) and I am NOT saying that you dont raise valid issues and points, but I have to say a lot of the same things were actually happening 40 and 50 years ago, but were more effectively kept under wraps.
Much and all as I DO NOT empathise with KC at all, I very much get the feeling that she is shop damaged goods, and until the time comes when her life implodes in on her (and in some *advertiser censored**ed up, bizarre way, even though she is sitting in a prison cell thinking "what now?" I still dont think she has had that epiphany moment of self realisation when she knows in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that she needs counselling, and lots of it, before she can move on another inch with her life.
Scarily maybe she never does have that moment. My mother never did, and she still told a lot of the same lies and was in denial and refused to talk about things, till she went to the grave. Sad, and a waste, BUT the one thing I had was my grandmother, thank god. (She died in 1986, and Nana, I still love you and will always miss you *advertiser censored*)

Just as a comment about Mothers and Daughters, well My mother is dead (cry) but I have a MIL, Im lucky to get once a week *babysitting* for a few hrs.
In Australia its not common to hand off the baby to the grandparents.
Well maybe thats because I mix in the *older mum* circle LOL
Maybe young kids do hand them over to their parents?

I do know that donkeys years ago life was a lot different where the whole family was involved, there was always family functions and family readily willing to help..
These days everyone is to damn busy WORKING To BUY EVERYTHING !!!
Everyone is too busy going here going there

Whatever happened to family ?

Interesting posts. As an adendum to mine above, my gma was not like Cindy, though she could be headstrong. So she was my saving grace.

As for my mom...she's almost 70, and everything is still about her, her, and her. My dad was seriously ill last year and she mostly talked about how his illness was hurting HER. My bro and I wanted to slap her silly, but, of course, didn't.

My mom has said she really has never been happy, and doesn't have very many happy memories of motherhood. I used to take it personally...thought it was about me. But I've come to realize that really IS about her. And how sad for her.

And I'm very thankful that as the result of one of her rages, I didn't end up rotting in the woods somewhere. Or that my mom didn't decide to do away with me to spite her mother.

I think that's why this case has hit me so hard. KC reminds me of my mother, not so much in her partying ways, but in her self-absorbtion. But as someone above pointed out, there are many selfish mom's who don't go this far.

I'll shut up now, since i think i've posted similarly in several threads. I'm starting to lose my mind lol!

The biggest thing for me is that the men in Cindy, Casey, and Caylee's life are all marginal, stick figures. None of them seem to have any respect for the husband-father role. Whether this is because the men are weak, or perceived to be weak, or are not good providers, or in Caylee's dad's case, just not in evidence, I don't know. The casual cruelty of the way the women (and Lee, too,)denigrated George on Father's Day has always bothered me. Casey seems to have been determined to snare someone to take care of her, but seems contemptuous of them at the same time. I suppose having a dominant female figure would skew your world view of male/female relationships but the disregard for men in general, using them like puppets, seems constant. Why would you deny your daughter the right of having a father unless you felt that their input was meaningless? Also, Casey seems so worried about disappointing her mother, but totally ignored her father. What does this say about the example that Cindy showed her?

I have a mother who is borderline. I was 18 when my first daughter was born. I didn't kill her. Poor Caylee was indeed born into the perfect storm.

IMO, some women are mothers and some are not.......no matter what the age. My DH asked me if I regretted not dating around and having all my children before I was 21.
I said 'NEVER' I loved him, them and loved being a mother. Yes, my school/ childhood friends partied, did drugs, had abortions, children adopted out, divorces. I was very content raising my children, baking cakes and being with other young moms. It is just the person, not the age etc. I still know 60 year old's that think they are 20. My friends say, I raised my kids, I won't raise my grandchildren, some have never even babysat. My DH and I love the grandchildren over. They have never had a nanny.
All the family take turns to raise our young ones..........it takes a village to raise a child, IMO

passionflower said:

IMO, some women are mothers and some are not.......no matter what the age. My DH asked me if I regretted not dating around and having all my children before I was 21.
I said 'NEVER' I loved him, them and loved being a mother. Yes, my school/ childhood friends partied, did drugs, had abortions, children adopted out, divorces. I was very content raising my children, baking cakes and being with other young moms. It is just the person, not the age etc. I still know 60 year old's that think they are 20. My friends say, I raised my kids, I won't raise my grandchildren, some have never even babysat. My DH and I love the grandchildren over. They have never had a nanny.
All the family take turns to raise our young ones..........it takes a village to raise a child, IMO

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I fully agree about loving being a young mother. Despite the comments, the looks, the difficulties, being a mother is more fun than the partying, the drugs, the late nights. (I'm 23 with my fourth child due in May, and 2 of mine are special needs.)
I do have a hard time understanding families where everyone helps to raise a child. In our family, it's me, my fiancee and the kids, that's it, there's no one else. My family has not helped me at all, except for one sister that occassionally babysits for important events (funerals, court, job interviews). That's it. I think some people need a village to raise a child, and some people just realize that this was their choice and they step up and do it. My daughter is 5 and has never spent a day away from home. Never, neither have the boys.
What I'm getting at is whether or not, CA forced casey to keep Caylee, or whether casey was ready to be a mother, it's irrelevant. casey is an adult, was an adult when Caylee was born and was an adult when Caylee died. This responsibility was hers and hers alone. She was not a scared child, she was not a victim of anything.
casey was extremely lucky to have a family that would have not only supported her, but would have taken complete responsibility for Caylee if only casey could decide what she wanted to do. She never found a balace between being casey and being someone's mother. It's heartbreaking, but she will never have a defense for what she did, especially not one based on her age or relationship with her own mother.
casey had a responsibility, she didn't want it, she got rid of it. Period. It would have happened ergardless of her age.

KC is young, I can't imagine having a baby at her age, when none of my friends had a baby either. So here she is, stuck in that tiny one floor house that is decorated in her mom's style, even KC's bedroom. Where are the posters of boys on her walls, her cds and collections of stuff people her age have? It just seems very odd, they whole thing. Who lives like that? What did she do during the day? Sit on that uncomfortable-looking furniture? Where were the toys Caylee played with? My kids have laundry baskets full of toys or toyboxes in every room our the house. The whole situation is just odd.

lastchance said:

The biggest thing for me is that the men in Cindy, Casey, and Caylee's life are all marginal, stick figures. None of them seem to have any respect for the husband-father role. Whether this is because the men are weak, or perceived to be weak, or are not good providers, or in Caylee's dad's case, just not in evidence, I don't know. The casual cruelty of the way the women (and Lee, too,)denigrated George on Father's Day has always bothered me. Casey seems to have been determined to snare someone to take care of her, but seems contemptuous of them at the same time. I suppose having a dominant female figure would skew your world view of male/female relationships but the disregard for men in general, using them like puppets, seems constant. Why would you deny your daughter the right of having a father unless you felt that their input was meaningless? Also, Casey seems so worried about disappointing her mother, but totally ignored her father. What does this say about the example that Cindy showed her?

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Very interesting observation lastchance, it really made me go hmmm. Is it possible that the seductiveness that CA displays toward men plays into this as well? I'm wondering also if CA may have "shared" some unhealthy views about men with KC thruout her upbringing, maybe during those mother & daughter bonding sessions, the ones that led to CA to get the impression that her and KC were like "best friends", comments such as "men are only good for one thing KC, sex and money".
I've always personally felt that the whole lying thing (sorry - at a loss for a better term) with CA & KC began along time ago with KC's observations of her mother lying to GA. CA, when questioned about it by KC as a young child, explained it to her & justified it by saying something like; sometimes it's better that he (GA) doesn't know all of the details or men aren't smart enough to understand the truth.
As KC got older perhaps she realized that her mother's lying actually worked to her advantage when she asked for something and CA said "don't worry, I'll handle your father" and KC saw that "handling her father" meant CA leaving alot of the details out, which is just another way of lying.
What CA didn't count on was that the very thing she taught her daughter best would be used toward her as well. But I wonder if it almost became a sport so to say (perhaps unknowingly w/ CA) with KC competing against her mother. Did CA brag to KC when she successfully "pulled the wool over GA's eyes" with CA & KC high fiving as CA says, "see KC, I'm good, don't ever doubt your mother".
Maybe KC didn't only want to be just like her mother, maybe she wanted to out-do her mother? Sadly, if true, it's the only thing that she ever exceled upon in her life. Just thinking outloud.

Mom2three said:

KC is young, I can't imagine having a baby at her age, when none of my friends had a baby either. So here she is, stuck in that tiny one floor house that is decorated in her mom's style, even KC's bedroom. Where are the posters of boys on her walls, her cds and collections of stuff people her age have? It just seems very odd, they whole thing. Who lives like that? What did she do during the day? Sit on that uncomfortable-looking furniture? Where were the toys Caylee played with? My kids have laundry baskets full of toys or toyboxes in every room our the house. The whole situation is just odd.

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Welcome Mom2three! I have not once cried for KC over the past 5+ months, not once! On the other hand I have cried many many tears for Caylee. Maybe I'm just tired, maybe this case is just getting to me, I don't know? But I read your post and for the first time I cried for KC. I need to process this but in the meantime thank you and welcome.

Mom2three said:

KC is young, I can't imagine having a baby at her age, when none of my friends had a baby either. So here she is, stuck in that tiny one floor house that is decorated in her mom's style, even KC's bedroom. Where are the posters of boys on her walls, her cds and collections of stuff people her age have? It just seems very odd, they whole thing. Who lives like that? What did she do during the day? Sit on that uncomfortable-looking furniture? Where were the toys Caylee played with? My kids have laundry baskets full of toys or toyboxes in every room our the house. The whole situation is just odd.

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I don't think Casey is all that young to have a child. At 18, a person can join the military and be sent to war.
I just have to say, she was not "stuck" anywhere, she chose that lifestyle. She could have gone to work, earned a paycheck, and moved into her own place. She chose to continue to live with mommy and daddy and lie about having a job. This is known as consequences of your actions.
Lanie

I must agree that all posts on this thread (great thread by the way) are excellent and thank you for sharing your stories. I think based on what I have read that dysfunctional is more common than non-dysfunction in today's family. I agree that historically is was far more common to pass your child onto someone or to have the "village" approach. It was far more common because families remained in the same home or location for generations. Today we are splintered, even inside our own homes. The demand for both parents to work to survive has strained the home even more. I fully agree that the lack of strong men in the family structure has accelerated this problem.