It's pretty incredible.
If people saw me in my home I guess they'd think I'm a serial killer based on how people are reacting to some cherry-picked videos on here.
We have to remember a few things:
1. She is holding the camera and trying to film a situation or narrative or whatever. It's her "show" so she's directing. I do the very same thing in videos. "Move there. Come here. Smile!"
2. We literally have the benefit of viewing this family from only one lens. Why? Because the murderer deleted his Facebook a week before the slaughter. He would be likely to post his own videos from his own phone. But that's gone. So we don't know what it looks like when he's on the other end of the camera or when he's running the show. We are getting only one picture. Dissecting this poor dead woman and her family from only one view and cherry-picked videos people are posting in an effort to show she's a monster of some sort.
3. Some people don't parent or treat children with kid gloves. They know kids that age cry a lot. They cry when they want something or don't want something or think something is scary or get mad. So some people don't make a big deal about kids getting upset for a second and try to teach them to be a bit tougher. It's not my style but it's not abuse.
Reminds me of a dear friend of mine. Actually is similar to Shanann in personality. She and her mom. Lots of joking and ribbing. She sort of downplays it when her kids cry or act upset over little things. But the minute they're truly hurt or upset, she's the one they run to. Her husband is a very quiet, stoic person. She is half Italian and outgoing and seems to run the house. But it's not true. He actually does.
It also reminds me of me versus my ex. Scenario? I hear yelling and whining as my ex is roughhousing. "Put him down! He doesn't like it! He's upset!"
"Oh he loves it."
"Damn it put him down!" (It really annoys me).
"If he's upset why isn't he trying to get away? And why does he keep coming back when I put him down?"
(Totally true).
I don't like squirting anyone in the face with anything. I worry about their eyes. And a child can get the idea that a bottle that sprays is a toy to use on another kid's face, not understanding that that's windex or whatever.
That beings said, anyone analzying any good parent for long enough can find things to criticize. And damn it, they do.
It's amazing how harsh people can be about other people's parenting. The Sanctimommies out there just freaking out over every last thing people do with their kids that's shown on tv or online. Just losing their minds over "My God!! You're holding the baby wrong, using the baby sling wrong, using the car seat wrong, you should have done this or that or the other!"
It's endlessly eyerolling to me. We have become a generation of sanctimonious judges of others due in part to the ability to monitor people's parenting on the internet and partly because we are the hysterical "safety" generation and exposing children to the tiniest bit of danger of discomfort is now a cardinal sin.
And it's creating a bunch of kids who don't know the limits of their own bodies or how to problem solve or socialize without their parents' constant supervision and interference and it's creating a bunch of adults who think it's acceptable to pick someone to death over the tiniest flaws they see in photos or videos posted online.
One thing I will say though is that yes, how she interacts in these few, cherry picked videos with her schlub of a husband lurking around in them, may be indicative of a relationship-dynamic that he grew to resent, loathe and eventually to hate her over.
But not because she was a nasty woman, or controlling or mean-spiritited or because he was cowed or abused or a victim or anything else that I've been seeing on here.
Nope. It's because IMO the intensely strong reaction on here and elsewhere, to a woman who is pretty normal, just not a submissive, shrinking violet (reminds me a bit of Leah Remini's character in her tv show. I guess she's a psychopath), tells me that a woman who doesn't adhere to certain societal expectations about gender - that a woman doesn't give directions or instructions to a man, that a woman can't make jokes at a man's expense about winninng or she's a monstrous, emasculating shrew, that a woman can't be in control, decisive and a leader in her relationship with her man or other men, that a normal woman is always exceedingly maternal, soft spoken, submissive, sweet, supportive and yielding- women who don't adhere to those "norms" are soundly punished by society.
I feel Shanann is being punished here for daring to step outside those norms. She's a shrew. She pushed him to murder. She may even have murdered the kids herself.
But what's important is that those norms clearly exist. And if educated, informed people here react to them harshly, what about a man who may not be as educated? What about a man from a traditional family or area? One who is more quiet and introverted? Might he quietly seethe at his woman daring to make decisions or give commands or make an impression or get attention?
I never forget someone on here posted a video SW took of her thrive people dancing. She was giggling and laughing and in the background her husband stood quietly, standing sideways, but his head turned, just silently watching his exuberant wife.
The poster explained that it reminded her so much of her ex husband. Who was a secretly abusive creep. He would watch her like that and I guess count the ways her behavior dislpleased him. He was jealous of her and he punished her later for it.
Well maybe CW wasn't secretly abusive. Maybe he never vocally expressed any displeasure toward her at all. But he clearly punished her in the end anyway. He took away almost everything that mattered to her. He took away her babies her precious children, and he took away her life, the very breath from her body.
She dared to step outside of societal gender norms. People deem that emasculating. IMO far from it but it makes a point. If that's how some normal people view her behavior, what about a person with a secret defect of character?
So in the end, after this long rambling post, in a way I agree with many who say this dynamic might explain some things.
It does. For me it explains that women who dare to veer from certain gender norms are still punished by society. They're deemed not to be good mothers. Bad wives. Wives who pushed their hapless men to violence.
The incredibly strong negative reaction to these cherry picked videos by some who seem to be turning the tables here and deeming the victim to be the abuser and the murderer to be the victim, tells me that the reaction to this strong, decisive woman could be much more deadly on the part of a defective monster who quietly seethed at all she dared to be, and all he never was.
Shanann Watts
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