“How Could a Mother...?” Matricide and Text-Mediated Relations of Family Discourse

Abstract

On September 3, 1998, Khoua Her, a 24-year-old Hmong refugee living in St. Paul, Minnesota, killed all six of her young children and attempted suicide. On the surface the worst case of matricide in United States history, a careful reading of the numerous press-generated reports reveals that for years, Her struggled against the ravages of poverty to keep her family together. Referencing the Standard North American Family (SNAF) narrative of mothering, press coverage of this horror story seeks to address the question, “How could a mother do this to her own children when the children are so innocent?” The author argues that a deep reading of the press-generated story surfaces evidence that, having exhausted all resources for keeping her family together, Her gave up. The article concludes that SNAF transforms evidence of Her’s mothering work into proof that she was a “bad mother.”