Batgirl #8

[aeka]

After a nice chat with Dinah in the last issue, Barbara decides to confront one of her major issues....and it's not the *story that shall not be named*










I'm not sure I understand what the message here is. Did Barbara's mum think she was already a bad parent prior to James Jr killing the cat? Or did she think it was her fault that James Jr was a sociopath? Also how exactly is leaving your daughter with a son you know is a killing sociopath supposed to "save" her?

Sure, I could buy into Barbara's mum not being in her right mind, but if she was worried about her daughter's safety, surely she would have taken her daughter with her? Also, why exactly did she feel like she herself was a danger to her own daughter? For that matter why did she think she was a bad parent?

I'm back to square one.

Comments

[gamerguy]

It's a big risk for her. It's terribly difficult to actually diagnose someone as a sociopath because so many of them are adept at faking emotional responses for long periods of time. Basically, you have to catch them red-handed or have them convicted on a preponderance of evidence and make the 'diagnosis' later. And, really, there is no 'help' for them: there is just monitoring, or incarceration.

Mom takes in James for evaluation, James acts perfectly normal for the duration, her fears get attributed to the stress of being a cop's wife and hearing about the terrible, terrible people he deals with every day... then she's tipped her hand to James and he does something else, even worse.

[sistermagpie]

Abandoning her child to live with James is a bigger risk for her. It doesn't seem like the story's setting up the mother's position being impossible. It's saying she was having a breakdown so the kid could easily control her.

[mrstatham]

Except the kid's already established as having zero emotion over the matter, and doctors, from my experience, would always be more inclined to listen to the parents when it comes to matters like these. I mean, unless the kid is a fucking genius, there'd be traces and evidence all over the place that he killed the cat.