This book examines contemporary media stories about women who kill their children. By analyzing media texts, motherhood blogs, and journalistic interviews, the book seeks to understand better maternal violence and the factors that lead women to harm their children. The central thesis of this book is that media practices have changed dramatically during the past 50 years, as has society s views on "appropriate" feminine behavior, yet definitions of characteristics of good mothers remain largely defined by 1950s sit coms, Victorian ideals, and Christian theology.

The book contends that in...