Honey, I killed the kids
I’m not a mean person.
But when those kids started into their screaming and acting up, I nearly went out of my mind.
Momma never taught me how to be a mother, even after I started popping babies out the way she popped pills.
My husband wasn’t any help, working for a boss that worked him twice as hard as he got paid for. And when he came home, he didn’t want to hear the kids and blamed me for not keeping them quiet.
Maybe I hit them a little too hard. So when my oldest went to school, a teacher noticed and called the city welfare people to have them talk with me.
I loved my kids – as much as any parent can. So when the welfare people told me I should calm down and talk more before I started wailing, I figured I could do that.
I figured maybe I could do for them what my momma never did for me and teach them how to be good parents, if and when I finally sorted it all out.
The welfare people also said we had too small a place for so many little ones and that I should tell my husband that we needed a bigger place.
I told him all right.
That’s when he started wailing on me, saying I didn’t have any confidence in him, and was always pushing him to make things better when he couldn’t.
When he finished beating me, he stormed out to go get drunk.
His ruckus set the kids off again, and all that welfare worker talk flew right out of my head.
I beat on the kids until they stopped screaming. Crying and whimpering wasn’t so bad since the neighbors couldn’t hear it.
Then, I told my oldest brat that she was in charge, and I got out of the house. Outside walking around downtown, I could think better.
Maybe I could call the welfare people and tell them I can’t handle the kids and they ought to come and take them.
But that only made me ashamed.
I hated those snobby welfare people who were always looking down their noses at me.
And when I get home, my oldest brat couldn’t control the others any better than I could. So I beat her first, and then the others.
And just when I’m finished, my drunken husband comes home and beats on me.
By that time I figured nobody was on my side and that I would have to work it all out for myself.
I knew I needed to get rid of the kids. That if I didn’t have the kids the welfare people and their sort would leave me alone.
So I called a cab and had him drive me and the kids to docks.
I figured I would leave them there.
But when we got there, I realized the kids would only tell where they had come from and the welfare people would come down on me even harder for abandoning them.
I felt so alone out there in the middle of nowhere, just me and four kids I didn’t want.
Then I saw the water.
And I realized that nobody could see or hear us.
The kids screamed for a while. But since I never talk them how to swim, that soon stopped.
Sure, I feel sad I did it, but I’m not sorry.