No silver for this mother’s betrayal…just blogging fame..
I hope free-lance writer Lisa Long enjoys her brief notoriety as a result of her blog post on The Blue Review that was re-published on the Huffington Post and Gawker, guaranteeing millions of readers. That should be worth at least a few more published articles for her, and maybe even a cable interview or two. After all, it would be a pity to deliberately and callously burden the life of her emotionally disturbed son and get nothing out of it at all.
One thing she is already getting as the result of her sensationally-titled essay “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” is harsh criticism for making such a cynical and self-serving bargain. In her post, Long relates the harrowing tale of her life with her 13-year-old son, whose erratic behavior and emotional outbursts terrify and dismay her. In the most quoted portion of the post, she proclaims his equivalence to well-known serial killers:
“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.”
Gee, thanks Mom!
It’s also time to talk about blogging family members who exploit their loved ones for 30 pieces of silver, or in Long’s case, 15 minutes of fame. A writer’s family, friends and colleagues don’t exist to provide blog-fodder, and it is inarguably unethical for anyone to publish embarrassing or private information about another individual without that person’s consent. Yes, this applies to YouTube videos as well. If you choose to surrender your own secrets and privacy for a little online attention or a small check, that’s your choice. Exposing the secrets and private life of anyone else without their permission is ethically indefensible—unfair, disrespectful, irresponsible, cruel, reckless, uncaring and wrong. And doing this to your child? Horrible. Doing this to your mentally ill child? Despicable beyond redemption.
Yet this is exactly what Long did to her 13-year-old son “Michael,” relating harrowing episodes where he frightened and threatened her. She got even with him though: she has made certain that even if her son improves and recovers sufficiently to try to build a life for himself, any potential employer, business partner, teacher, date, lover, spouse, lender, or friend will have access to a post on the internet in which his own mother compares him to the deranged murderers of about a hundred victims.
On Slate, Hanna Rosin makes the point precisely, noting that this is old stuff for Long, who in previous blog posts has criticized her more normal children. The blogger gets no credit for appending a fake name, “Michael,” to her son, for her name is on her essay for all to see, she has included photographs, and, of course, anyone who knows her or the family will immediately also recognize who “Michael” really is. The rationalization that the massacre in Newtown was so momentous that it compels undermining the already fragile future of her own son to promote meaningful dialogue about mental illness doesn’t withstand a second of scrutiny. This was the perfect set of circumstances in which to sign a blog post “Anonymous”—not to protect the writer from the consequences of her own words, but to protect her son, who would, and now will, suffer because of them.
That kind and responsible action would have meant that Liza Long would have forfeited her best chance at fame, however, so instead, her troubled son has been embarrassed, exploited and branded as a monster for all time.
Was Long subconsciously punishing her son for the burden of caring for him? Could she have conceivably been unaware that her essay would haunt him for the rest of her life? Or did she simply not care? Was her primary goal public education, or personal advancement? Did no one suggest to her that the responsible and kind course would be to shield the identity of her family and son, and that her public policy goals could be achieved just as effectively without exploiting them?
If there is a monster at the center of ” I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” it isn’t Lisa Long’s son.
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Pointer: Althouse
Sources: Blue Review, Huffington Post, Slate
Graphic: Rakel Posse
Ethics Alarms 
1. I know ‘Through the Looking Glass”, ’tis brilliant. I just hadn’t heard that reference used that way before, and I am a bit confused now. Re “Humpty-Dumptyism”, what word was used to mean something other than what it really meant?
2. ‘Deserving of contempt or scorn; vile.’ This seems a very strong word to use about the behaviour of someone whose plight you have expressed sympathy with, when you believe that plight has lead them to behave unethically. Again, as an ethics student, training to advise others when they have ethical dilemmas, I am keen to understand the use of language in critique.
3. You just admired Rachel for the restraint of her rhetoric in the discussion of the ethics of this issue. Again, I am confused, are you saying your rhetoric is usually very restrained, but not in this case?
1. ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
Hence “Humpty-Dumpty-ism”!
2. I think calling one’s own son a potential mass murderer in a context where he can be identified and in a permanent medium is ‘Deserving of contempt or scorn; vile.’ Absolutely. I don’t understand any one who wouldn’t. Sympathy? I feel sympathy for insane or abused people who do terrible things, because their life path led them to where the ended up, and in many cases they had little choice. Their actions may still be vile.
3. No, I mean my unrestrained rhetoric makes my toughest rhetoric here seem like Sesame Street. You don’t want to read or hear my unrestrained rhetoric. Trust me on this.
Ok, I think I’ve got it now. For communication to be clear, the words used should be in line with commonly agreed definitions. So, as violence in language is defined as ‘an attack made with words’, you have chosen to make this an ‘attack made with words’ on unethical behaviour. You have also chosen to do so using tough, but not unrestrained, words. Thus you have chosen not to emulate behaviour that you admire in others, such as Rachel, who prefers not to make ‘attacks made with words’ when she is making a critique of behaviour she believes to be unethical.
That’s good!
No one, I repeat, absolutely no one can begin to imagine what ms.l long is describing unless they have experienced it. you ethicists are full of hot air and would do the world a service by focusing your talent on something useful. assume she did her son an injustice, but also acknowledge that she has done a great service to many by bringing this problem to light. if Adams mother had lived to speak, she would surely be ruing the fact that she never “aired her problems” before all those innocents were lost.
Is that supposed to be an argument, Sharon? That’s a full duck, a rationalization, an excuse to shrug off bad behavior. That’s an all purpose excuse to censor legitimate criticism of anyone’s conduct, no matter what it is. I haven’t experiences what John Wilkes Booth did, Ted Bundy, or Stephen Glass, or Bernie Madoff. Or Rosie Ruiz, or Lance Armstrong, or John Edwards, or Gen.Petraeus, or Adam Lanza: to you that means we can’t figure that what they did was wrong, and if we know it, shouldn’t say so? What kind or logic is that? This is really simple: It is wrong, absolutely wrong, to use your own child in a public forum where his privacy is breached and his secrets exposed,when he is a minor and cannot give meaningful consent, for any purpose whatsoever,including greeting publicity, gaining notoriety, “trying to draw attention to an issue” or “looking for help.” Her duty is to make life better and easier for her son, not to make it more difficult. These facts, and they are facts, don’t change if I know what she was feeling when she betrayed her son or not. Did she hate him? Was she desperate? It doesn’t matter. The conduct was wrong, no matter what her motives were, or provocation was. He’s a 13-year old boy, and now he’s a 13-year-old boy who will always go through life as a person his own mother compared to mass murderers.
I am Lisa Long’s Daughter.
My mother labeled me as mentally ill when I was 12 to avoid taking on any responsibility for my issues. I was sent to mental hospitals. I was sent to a behavior modification facility. Countless doctors and lots of meds with horrible side effects. I was forced to sign a contract admitting I was mentally ill and promising to be on medication the rest of my life to get out of reform school. She wouldn’t rest until I had a diagnosis that absolved her. I yelled and screamed and acted out. I did so because I had no voice, no respect, and was not allowed to make any boundaries whatsoever. She gave me poetry that spoke of how she was a victim of my illness. She was public about her struggles. How hard it was to have me. I burned it but the words still haunt me to this day. I am an adult now with the perspective of 18 years of parenting my own child. We do need to change the conversation about mental illness in this country, but what Long ironically, and unintentionally points out, is that a big part of the conversation needs to be about the family dynamic. That parents contribute, that society contributes, and that no psychiatric professional and no prescription can heal the child of a mother with a victim complex.
Jesus Christ. Jack you are so right. that blog post was despicable in every way. anyone who cant understand why need to be eliminated from our gene pool.
You don’t have a clue because you’ve never walked in her shoes. Trying to hide or make excuses for the behavior and actions of your problem child serves no one. It is only through honest and open communication that there is hope for the many who are suffering in silence with these kids.
Astounding comment. How does publicly impugning and humiliating your own child do anything to help THAT CHILD to whom the parent has prime responsibility and loyalty? Do I really have to explain the absurd gap between “suffering in silence” and “condemning your own child, who depends on your love and support, for a cheap 15 minutes of fame”? Do you know what “betrayal” means?
Among the Ethics Alarms Top 10 dumbest comments since 2009. Congratulations.