Whose Motherhood Receives our Compassion?

If you’ve followed the news lately, you know you can’t escape the extensive coverage of the Lindsey Clancy case.

It is a horrific tragedy. Reports describe a mother who experienced severe perinatal mood disorder symptoms & did not receive the care she needed before taking the life of her three children and attempting to die by suicide. The case has prompted much needed conversations around maternal mental health, postpartum psychosis, gaps in treatment, and the urgent need to better support parents in the perinatal period.

Those conversations are necessary and long overdue.

But I also can’t stop thinking about another mother.

Erin Merdy.

In 2022, Erin Merdy drowned her three children and reports indicate that she also attempted to die by suicide. News articles have stated that she had been struggling with postpartum mood disorder symptoms and received psychiatric care before the tragedy. In May 2026, she was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty.

Lindsey Clancy is a white mother who was living in the suburbs of Massachusetts. Erin Merdy is a black mother who was living in Brooklyn. Both women reportedly experienced perinatal mood disorder symptoms and sought psychiatric care during their postpartum periods. Both mothers' conditions went without proper treatment, leading to the worst possible outcome. Both have experienced an unimaginable loss.

One difference is impossible to ignore: the responses (or lack thereof).

Lindsey Clancy has been the subject of extensive reporting about her mental health, the care she received, the warning signs, her treatment history, her journals, and the systems that may have failed her. There seems to be a genuine effort to understand what happened. Many comments contain messages of empathy, support, and compassion for her.

By contrast, much less public attention has been devoted to understanding Erin Merdy’s story. Beyond reports that she had some psychiatric treatment, likely experienced a perinatal mood disorder, and may have been facing housing instability we know comparatively little about the circumstances surrounding her mental health and crisis. News articles have indicated that she initially pled not guilty while later pleading guilty.

When one mother fits our image of a woman we can empathize with, we search for explanations. We ask what warning signs were missed. We question if systems have failed her. We look for the “why,” not just at the facts.

When another mother doesn’t fit that image, do we ask the same questions with the same urgency? Do we ask any questions? Do we look at her?

I will not pretend to be an expert in criminal law or forensics. I recognize these cases involve complex legal and clinical questions. There are facts that differ, nuances that matter, and details that no one may ever fully know. I’ll admit that I really don’t know how postpartum psychosis applies to the law and each of these cases. But I don’t think that we asked the same questions for Erin that we did for Lindsey. Society did not grieve her children the same way.

If we’re committed to improving maternal mental healthcare, our compassion and empathy must extend to all mothers.

We absolutely need to continue advocating for better screening, research, treatment, and support for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. We need to discuss how systems can better support parents, particularly in the perinatal period.

We also need to more questions:

Whose suffering are we willing to understand? And whose suffering do we dismiss? Which mothers do we judge before we even ask questions?

Until we’re willing to extend the same curiosity and compassion to every mother experiencing a mental health crisis, our conversations about maternal mental health will remain incomplete.