Lezama's Claim Oversimplifies

In her interpretation of the Smith case, Lorraine A. Lezama makes the vague claim that "contemporary middle-class parenting requires an abdication of certain responsibilities which are replaced by the assumption of other responsibilities in other spheres" ("The Good Mother,' Opinion, Nov. 8, 1994).

By comparing Susan Smith's macabre efforts to escape from her life of "awful banality" to actions by women of lower socio-economic means to "join the public realm," Lezama strips Smith of any personal accountability in her children's deaths.

Lezama maintains that Smith should not be judged on the basis of her social role as mother, and that the complexities of contemporary life for women somehow explain "why she was desperately looking for a way out." Lezama makes the inductive error of tracing one tragic act to a larger political condition.

It is unconscionable to write off the deaths of two children as some misguided political gesture or a symptom of societal discontent. While Lezarna's attempt to enfranchise women is a noble one, her reluctance to condemn Smith outright is both an egregious oversight and an oversimplication of an unjust act. Julie R. Cooper '96