GW's Mother Showed Him His Miscarried Sibling in a Jar???

[nolabear]

This is wrong on so many levels I can't even wrap my head around it, and I hear about the damaging stuff people's parents do to them every day. As one commenter noted.'WHO DOES THIS???"

From Huffington Post:

Former president George W. Bush explained recently that a formative event in his staunch pro-life stance came when his mother, Barbara Bush, showed him the remains of a human fetus in a jar when he was a teenager, the result of an earlier miscarriage by the elder Bush.

"There's no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life", he told NBC's Matt Lauer.

Bush then reads from his upcoming book "Decision Points:"

"I never expected to see the remains of the , which she had saved in a jar to bring to the hospital." the 43rd President of the United States read. "There was a human life, a little brother or sister."

As The Daily Telegraph points out, however, the view that was implanted in the future president's mind with the display, is not one that she herself holds:

Barbara Bush, who became First Lady when her husband George Bush Snr was elected president in 1988, favours abortion rights. She once said: "I hate abortions, but just could not make that choice for someone else."
According to Bush, he didn't recount the story primarily to explain the genesis of his anti-abortion views, but rather "to show how my mom and I developed a relationship."

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. I thought Barbara and Pappy Bush were both pro-choice? n/t

[JI7]

2. so why is he so happy to go to war where a bunch of innocent kids die so easily ?

[jmowreader]

3. Wouldn't that kinda...y'know, turn you into a psychopath or something?

Now, what stage of Bush's development was this?

In which order did these things happen to King George the 43rd:

making homemade hand grenades from live frogs and firecrackers
seeing the pickled remains of his miscarried baby brother
being forced to lay in a casket at Skull & Bones Headquarters and masturbate while regaling his elders and betters with tales of sexual misconduct

?

[nolabear]

4. And there's also this,which I already knew about...

"Barbara Bush is described by her closest intimates as prone to "withering stares" and "sharply crystalline" retorts. She is also extremely tough. When he was seven, Bush's younger sister, Robin, died of leukaemia and several independent witnesses say he was very upset by this loss. Barbara claims its effect was exaggerated but nobody could accuse her of overreacting: the day after the funeral, she and her husband were on the golf course."

From a book written years ago called "Bush on the Couch". I'm not a fan of psychoanalysis in absentia but...damn.

[Jamastiene]

16. My mother raised me like that.

I wasn't allowed to cry or take time to mourn anything or anyone. My mother said not being in control of my emotions was a sign of weakness and to control myself. I was punished in ways that would make Joan Crawford blush. People often wonder why I am not emotional...I was conditioned that way growing up.

The way I coped was that I just learned to hide any emotions from my mother and show them when she wasn't around. I was able to function better that way than trying to kill my emotions altogether. It's a wonder I didn't end up as hardhearted as Bush.

[northernlights]

37. I'm so sorry, Jamastiene

when I first started in therapy, my therapist used to cry in my sessions. It took years of therapy with her and another therapist before I was able to express my feelings in front of witnesses. Even now, I fear punishment and humiliation to express any need or negative feeling...:hug:

[knowbody0]

5. believe it or not

the very same thing happened to me. My mum miscarried and put the fetus in a jar to take to the doctor. it's creeping me out tonight, 50 years later.

[nolabear]

6. Well, I can believe someone would take it to a doctor, but

show it to your teenaged son? I can imagine that would make an impression, yes.

[Historic NY]

7. Wait...they kept a miscarried baby in a jar? ......

:wtf:

[DesertFlower]

8. probably to bring it to the doctor.

what would you do with it?

[TwilightGardener]

10. Probably wrap it in a towel or blanket--and not show my kids.

[DesertFlower]

12. i've never had a miscarriage so

i don't know what i'd do. i would not show it to the kids.

[ejpoeta]

28. how far along was she? i had a miscarriage at 14 weeks but it was just a glob

and it didn't look like a person. just a lot of blood in the bathtub. the idea i would let my kid see that, even if they were teen! uggh.

[Turborama]

11. It begs another question. How much earlier was "earlier"? n/t

[Meldread]

9. Wow. That's really fucked up.

It explains a lot. I can't imagine how traumatizing that would be to a kid - to anyone, really - including adults.

"Here is your brother / sister that died in a miscarriage. See? I saved them in this jar! Go ahead and look!"

That's taking you into Norman Bates territory right there.

[KittyWampus]

30. It's actually kind of creepy and yet weirdly Victorian. They had Wunderkammers to house

their collection of natural curiosities.

[Clyde39]

13. It took "this" in order for his mother and him to develop a relationship?

It's such a private and personal story and that he had no qualms about sharing it is strange.

[Angry Dragon]

14. A Father that traveled often, a mother that seems cold

I perhaps can better understand why George drank and used drugs
to escape a cold and hostile home life

[Desertrose]

15. Twisted....

that's the best thing I can come up with...really really twisted family.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

17. When Bush's younger sister was diagnosed with cancer,

they took her out East for treatment. After she died they donated her body to science. This is a very unusual choice after
the death of a small child. Years later when Bush Sr. ran for office they placed a marker at a local cemetery.

[orleans]

20. in the book "bush on the couch"

he wasn't told that robin died--i think he found out when he spent the night at a friend's house. also, the parents went golfing (i think the same day that she died--or the day after? i forget exactly but it was bizarre as hell!)

[EmeraldCityGrl]

25. We may have read the same book, but yes the circumstances

for telling GW were unusual. Bereaved parents are entitled to whatever ways that get them through, just from working with many parents
I found these out of the norm. So, the pickled fetus in a jar does not surprise me.

[Bluebear]

18. Why should she worry her beautiful mind about keeping a fetus in a jar?

Wow.

[Shallah Kali]

19. rick santorum did something similar

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61804-2005Apr17?language=printer

In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

"That's my little guy," Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father's hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.

He and Karen brought Gabriel's body home so their children could "absorb and understand that they had a brother," Santorum says. "We wanted them to see that he was real," not an abstraction, he says. Not a "fetus," either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described -- "a 20-week-old fetus" -- on a hospital form. They changed the form to read "20-week-old baby."

[Ramulux]

23. Holy shit

Thats way more fucked up than what happened to Bush. Santorum is one sick fuck.

[KittyWampus]

31. This is one thing I won't attack Santorum for. These days we push death far away and deny it

to a great extent. Again, looking back 100 years, the Victorians kept their dead in the parlor where the body was propped up in a chair and portrait photos taken.

[closeupready]

33. I've never ever heard that before.

Do you have a cite?

[KittyWampus]

38. Google: Victorian Post Mortem Photography. With Queen Victoria in mourning over Albert it became

almost a cult.

Mourning jewelry that included incredibly beautiful plaited hair from the deceased.

[Ramulux]

41. Are you joking?

I cant tell if you are being sarcastic or not. There is a huge, huge difference between acknowledging death in the family and having a fucked up intimate family moment with a dead fetus that will most likely traumatize your young children for life. That is some sick shit, that literally makes me think Santorum could be some sort of crazed serial killer. This is some John Wayne Gacy shit here.

[renate]

24. I don't know... his grief seems genuine, and everyone deals with loss in different ways

I think this is a really sad story, actually. Personally, I wouldn't put my kids through that experience, but he knows his kids better than I do, and I haven't been through his experience. Maybe he felt that they needed to say goodbye too.

[AnArmyVeteran]

32. That's really the only human moment I've heard about him.

[nolabear]

35. This has a healthier sound to it than what happened to Bush.

I agree that people grieve how they grieve, and I have no right to dictate what one does in the throes of grief. But actions also have impact, and celebrating the existence of a stillborn (even so early) by saying he's real and part of the family, though not exactly what I'd do, and showing him to little children (even though I hope they were very careful about how they did it) is different from showing your teenaged son your miscarried fetus. I think that I might be all the more horrified by this given other bizarre ways that the Bushes dealt with death and trauma.

[Raine]

21. I could almost feel sorry for chimp

*almost* ... except he's done too much damage to the country for me to have any sympathy left for him.

[orleans]

22. i'll say they "developed a relationship"

he's probably wanted to kill her for years and can't bring himself to do it--so he opted for killing this country as well as hundreds of thousands of other people.
good for him.
monster!

[Mimosa]

40. Orleans, I think you're onto something!

I can't believe any woman would keep a fetus in a jar and show it to her son. ICK. Creepy.

Those Bushies are sick.

I won't read the book. Interesting that W has to share the horrors though.

[treestar]

26. That is so screwed up

That family is a psychological mess.

[Scuba]

27. "to show how my mom and I developed a relationship" Heartwarming.

[Nihil]

29. Huh great ... and the wrong one got to be President!

:hide:

[GigiMommy]

34. I lost a baby girl.

She was our first. She was born prematurely and only lived 5 days. Our hearts ached but I always felt that she left me a gift; of being MORE empathetic towards others. Whenever I meet or hear of those who've lost loved ones, I can understand. It's a pain that I wouldn't wish on anyone. We buried our daughter and two years later had another beautiful baby girl. She knows that she had a sister. Each year, I get a grave blanket and we go and visit her. Sadly, my husband died one year and a week ago today. Now he's buried across from our daughter. I know everyone grieves in their own way but I don't understand the Bush family. I couldn't keep my beloved daughter in a jar. I just couldn't.

[LynneSin]

36. Santorums did the same thing to their kids

It's sick I tells ya

[hayu_lol]

39. The Bush fetus is probably a registered Repugnant...

and votes often in Texas.