‘What did you just call me?’ I tore into the kitchen, shaking. ‘I called you “mental”,’ replied my husband nonchalantly, barely looking up from his lunch.
At this I bunched my hand into a fist and smashed it hard on the counter. This being granite, the counter won. Nevertheless, I gave it a few more smacks for good measure. I can’t remember what I said, but I do recall it turned the air a deep blue.
I was a woman possessed – by hormones. A few months after the birth of my third child (I had three under three) days were spent changing nappies and trying to make scrambled egg with one hand; nights spent breastfeeding and scrolling through forums about baby sleep apnoea.
I never had postpartum depression, thank goodness, but at that time, I certainly had postpartum rage, most often triggered by the casual rudeness of my husband.
Normally I find this amusing; in those months it made my veins run black with bile. (Note to men: it is best not to liken your hormonal partner to the Harry Potter character Mad Eye Moody.)
Many who haven’t had children will also know the way hormones can body-snatch a woman on a monthly basis, rendering her weepy or angry or thin-of-skin.
This is what has driven the outpouring of female support for Lindsay Clancy, the American nurse who killed her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan in 2023. After strangling them with exercise bands, she slit her own wrists and attempted suicide by jumping out of a bedroom window. Now paralysed, she is confined to a wheelchair.
Lindsay Clancy, an American nurse who killed her three children, has had an outpouring of female support after she claimed to be suffering from severe postpartum psychosis
Last week, after seven days of deliberation, the jury was still unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether she was in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis, and thus not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge declared a mistrial.
Never before has a criminal trial so divided millions of people – with a line scored between the sexes. Clancy sympathisers are largely female, with most women I have talked to seeing her as a desperately sick mother whose pleas for help had not been heard. Throughout the trial, hundreds of women gathered outside court wearing pink outfits emblazoned with ‘She Needed Help’. One of them, 41-year-old Melissa Merrill, voiced what many feel: ‘She’s in her own hell. She lost all her babies.’
Meanwhile, men congregate in the camp believing her to be a cold-blooded murderess.
Tellingly, the one juror who refused to agree a verdict that Clancy was not guilty by way of insanity in the murder of her children was male.
The division is scored through my own home. My husband’s view is that Clancy should be locked up with the key thrown into the Atlantic. He is appalled I should feel differently: ‘How can you have any sympathy for her?’ It’s the question baffling many men: women are meant to be the caring sex – why do so many want a child killer treated with compassion?
It is because women know two things that men don’t. First, we know the way that hormones can alter mood and personality.
Postpartum psychosis (which Clancy’s defence argued she suffered from) is caused by a severe drop in oestrogen and progesterone after childbirth – a free-fall which can cause extreme insomnia, hallucinations and mood swings. While the vast majority of women never suffer from this, many know what it is to ride a hormonal rollercoaster. Twenty to 30 per cent will experience moderate to severe Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS); a condition which can be so serious that it’s been used in criminal defences for decades.
Women know the way that hormones can dramatically alter mood and personality, writes Clare Foges, as well as how draining looking after a small child can be – most men do not understand
Something else the average man will not know is how isolating and exhausting looking after a tiny child can be. Yes, there are brilliant hands-on dads. But typically they go back to work after a couple of weeks. Most often it’s the mother waking up eight times a night, the mother Googling colic remedies at 3am, the mother whose identity has been swallowed whole.
‘But haven’t women been having babies since the dawn of time?’ ask the know-it-all blokes. Yes, but for most of human history it took a village to raise a child. In some non-Western cultures it still does. Meanwhile, in the US and UK, you have a night in hospital then it’s over to you, Mum.
This takes its toll. Meet a group of new mums and it won’t be long before you learn that about half are struggling: with severe sleeplessness, anxiety, depression.
Most will survive without doing harm to themselves or their child, but the memory of how hard those months were lingers – and in that experience, there’s a sliver of solidarity with Clancy.
If there is one small positive to come out of this horrendously sad case, it must be that women who feel they are losing their mind will be taken more seriously; not brushed aside or told this is just the ‘baby blues’.
Sorry Pam, I’ll never go slap-free
‘Natural goddess’ Pamela Anderson, 59, looked stunning without any make-up at the Venice Film Festival
No mascara or lipstick for Pamela Anderson at the Venice Film Festival, and didn’t she look lovely?
Pam, 59, has become the ambassador for bare-faced women everywhere, saying she eschews make-up because she doesn’t want to ‘play the game’ or look like a ‘cartoon character’.
To each their own, but I’ll be wearing eyeliner until the bitter end. It’s all very well going slap free if you’re a natural goddess, but not if, like me, you have the bone structure of a boiled egg.
Pillock of the week award goes to…
Hollywood hypocrite Andrew Garfield, who is worth an estimated £12million and stars in new film The Uprising, recently called the super-rich ‘soul sick’
Andrew Garfield, who says billionaires should be ‘scared s***less’ of his new film depicting the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England. The actor, worth an estimated £12million, also said the super-rich are ‘soul sick’.
He was speaking about people like billionaire investor Chris Rokos, who is leaving the UK for Greece. But last year Rokos paid £330million in tax, enough to employ 10,000 nurses.
It’s taxpaying billionaires like Rokos who have done more for the poor than any Hollywood hypocrite.
Mothers carry about 71 per cent of a household’s mental load, says a new study. Yep. Mum hasn’t just gone to Iceland. She’s ordered nappies, bought birthday presents, remembered school fancy dress day. Today, I was in trouble for forgetting to put a pound under my daughter’s pillow in exchange for a tooth. But last time I checked, I don’t have wings. Who designated me the tooth fairy?
Spot the Gallaghers’ copycat kids!
From left to right, Lennon, Donovan, Anais, Molly, Sonny and Gene Gallagher at the premiere of the new Oasis documentary, Don’t Look Back in Anger
Seeing the Gallagher sons at the premiere of the new Oasis film, I did a double take. Rock star sunglasses, helmet of hair… Have their dads been cloned?
They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – this lot are still growing on it.
Michelle Keegan shared a snap of daughter Palma with a wooden sign saying ‘18 months’. First, influencers gave us gender reveals and Christmas Eve boxes – now it’s half birthdays, too. Please no!
