The little boy said his mom said that there was something wrong with him. That's classic psychological/verbal abuse right there. I don't think there was anything at all wrong with the children except that they had horrible parents. The mother was the worst of the worst. And the father was, a freaking wimp! It's like, be a man for God's sake! There are women who for the sake of their children find the guts to grab their kids and leave their absuive husbands. Why couldn't this father do the same thing? He didn't stand up for his children until it was way too late. At the end when he stood up and said, "arrest me, not my son"... I thought, "Oh NOW you want to be a responsible father and protect your child? Not when it would have mattered?" In my opinion, the father should have been arrested for child endangerment. He knew how the mother was, yet he went out of town for business (instead of having a job that kept him in the same city) and left the kids alone with that horrible excuse for a mother and human being? I don't think you can even call her human. Calleigh said it all, "The father wasn't the monster, the mother was."
Well, the father was a still a horrible father who was too chicken to stand up to his wife and protect those children. If he was any kind of man or any kind of father, he would have grabbed the kids and left or called the police and told them what was going on. I agree with Ryan and Natalia. It was justifiable homicide. If it were an actual case, I'm pretty sure the boy would not go to jail. Maybe he'd have to get some psychiatric help (the girl too), but not jail because he was afraid for his life. He was afraid of what his mother would do to him. And the cops were of no help when they were called. They believed the mother instead of investigating the claims further (those cops should be reprimanded IMO). If they had thoroughly investigated the girl's claims of abuse then the little boy wouldn't have felt that his only recourse for himself and his sister was to stop the mother himself. Those particular cops dropped the ball on that one. They let the mother charm them into believing the daughter was just lying because she was mad at her.
The daughter sneaking out didn't surprise me as that is typical teenage behavior. I understand parents being concerned about their kids possibly having sex (re: the mom in the flashback telling the girl "I know what you and that boy do together") and all of that, but everyone who is anyone knows that nine times out of ten if you forbid a child to do anything (especially telling them they cannot see their bf/gf), they're going to go do it anyway. That is classic kid reaction since the dawn of time. What the mother should have done instead is say, "Okay, you can see him, but only when I or your Dad is here. And when your boyfriend is here, he can be in your room, but you must leave the door open." That is the way that I was raised. And guess what? It worked. I didn't sneak off. But if you tell a kid "you can't see your bf", then they are more likely to sneak off and most likely are going to have sex (sometimes as a way of rebelling against their parents).
I'm sorry, but I have absolutely NO sympathy for a mother who pushes her daughter's face down in the dog bowl or handcuffs her to the bed (okay I kind of get locking her in her room for a time, putting bars on the windows so she can't sneak out... but the hand-cuffing is going way too freaking far IMO) or makes her small child drink lighter fluid and expects it not to hurt him. That woman did NOT deserve to be a mother IMHO. I have no sympathy ever for anyone who abuses their own children or who hurts children in general. In my opinion, she deserved to suffer as she made her children suffer. Dying was too quick for her. She deserved to suffer for years upon years upon years for the way she abused her children. But she'd have eternal suffering because there's a special place in Hell for people who abuse children, especially their own.
Having said that, I lost a few sympathy points for the daughter when she admitted that she was the one who burned the carpet and knowing how awful her mother was, she didn't speak up and admit it to her mother and instead let her baby brother be punished for something he didn't do... and that innocent little boy lost his life because of it. So yeah, sympathy points for the daughter went down somewhat on that knowledge.
As for Cody, that poor little boy was so afraid of his mother I'm surprised he didn't pee his pants in her presence. I'm not 100% sure he intended to kill her at first though. He only hit her in the back until she turned and lunged at him like some wild animal... after that it was about self-defense in my opinion. I place the blame almost solely on the father though (well, besides the mother of course). If he had stepped up to the plate like a real man and protected his children, his baby boy wouldn't be dead and his other son wouldn't have felt the need to take action himself. I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy whatsoever for that mother. And if I were on the jury for that boy, I was vote not guilty by reason of emotional and physical distress. That's exactly what it was too.
That little boy was abused not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, psychologically... Unless you've been mentally, emotionally and psychologically abused, you cannot understand what that can do to one's psyche. Trust me, I know. I've been there (from a bf). I didn't react to it the way this boy did, but I was also older and my brain was more fully developed than a child's would be. Being abused messes heavily with your psyche. A child of this boy's age, their brain has not fully developed yet. They haven't fully developed the rational part yet. They aren't fully capable of making rational decisions based on good logic. Their logic isn't fully developed yet at that age (unless they are advanced for their ages like Doogie Howser or something).
This boy was tired of being abused and tired of the fact that his other parent didn't stand up and put a stop to it. That father knew very well what was going on and he could have done something to stop it and it he did NOTHING. NOTHING! Wimpy little thing that he was. He wasn't a man and he certainly wasn't a good father. The kid even said that his father was afraid of the mother too. That's right, he was too afraid to stand up to her, afraid she'd hurt him, so instead he let his children be hurt by her. Pathetic!
The little boy's head was messed up as a result of the horrible abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother. In the flashback scene, when his sister came out there, he looked at his mom and said, "what did I do? we have to call 911." That shows remorse and that he didn't really know what he was doing. Sometimes when you're so tired of the abuse and just feeling like no one is trying to help you, protect you, one can become so consumed with rage that they sort of black-out. I don't mean black out as in pass out, I mean black out as in the anger overtakes them and it's like the person is trapped within themselves and is unconscious while the anger is in control. A child would not have as much of a capacity to understand that or control that as well as an adult might. Their brains haven't fully developed yet.
