Critics Pile on 'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother' Blogger

Liza Long created quite a stir with her blog post comparing her troubled son to Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza and other notorious mass shooters. It quickly went viral, and Long has been praised for her honesty—but a number of critics are calling her out for baring her son's problems so publicly, and some are even questioning her own fitness as a mother:

• On her own blog, Sarah Kendzior takes a look at Long's previous blog entries and finds some discrepancies: Long had previously described her purportedly Lanza-like son as a normal kid who nonetheless infuriated her with his Obama-loving views; she also accused her ex-husband of having the boy sent to a juvenile correction facility after he failed to do his chores. In one post, she describes wanting to "throttle" her kids or call her son's parole officer and "let the state take care of you." After taking heat herself, Kendzior insisted in a second blog post that the context is important—and that the bottom line is, "A child does not deserve to have his mother embark on a media tour promoting him as a future mass murderer."

• "No, You Are Not Adam Lanza's Mother," reads the headline on a Disability and Representation blog by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg, who is aghast at the idea that any mother would compare her own child "to mass murderers. In public. Under her own name. On the Internet. For the world to see." She's similarly appalled at those praising Long, wondering if they've forgotten about the effect this will have on her son. "It’s as though they’ve written him off. He’s just a talking point. A springboard for discussion. An avatar of people’s worst fears. But not a child struggling."
• Another reaction posted by the blogger at thegirlwhowasthursday accuses Long of reinforcing mental illness stigma by tying such illnesses to mass murders. "By reducing 'mental illness' to 'outward behavior' the article dehumanizes the mentally ill and completely glosses over the inner mental life and experiences of those with mental illness."
• Kendzior and Long today released a joint statement, saying they didn't anticipate their posts would go viral and calling for unity: “We are not interested in being part of a ‘mommy war’. We are interested in opening a serious conversation on what can be done for families in need."

(More Adam Lanza stories.)