I’m watching the Lindsay Clancy trial the same way I have watched family court cases for years: wary of how quickly women can be put in a box before all the facts are known.
As a divorce coach, journalist who has exposed failures in family court and mother who has been through the system, I have seen how quickly a label can become more powerful than the facts.
A woman who is afraid can be called “unstable.” A mother trying to protect her children from abuse is accused of “alienating” them from the other parent. A wife finally responding to years of domestic abuse is called “high-conflict.” One reaction or one bad moment can begin to form a narrative about her that’s hard to shake.
Millions of American women have experienced family court proceedings and millions know a mother who has. That may help explain why they’re glued to their televisions watching the Clancy case and it’s stirring up recognition, trauma and rage online–and in person. Women who have felt failed by family court–in Massachusetts and beyond–recognize the danger of a system making judgments without fully understanding what came before.
“Watching this trial has made me deeply sad,” a family court mom called “Heather” said. “We’re told to protect our children, and yet, not protect too much. Ask for help, and don’t struggle so much that people question your fitness as a mother.”
“This trial has been incredibly triggering,” said Claire, who is also using a pseudonym after losing custody of her children. “Because I know what it feels like to be reduced to labels like crazy or unfit while context is ignored and the evidence seems to be twisted to support a predetermined conclusion.”
At first, Lindsay Clancy fit an easy and horrifying narrative: a mother who killed her three children, which she said she did. But as the court has heard about the severity of her postpartum mental health crisis–including the signs, her medications and doctors that failed her–the simple villain story became harder to sustain.
That distinction matters. Context does not erase what happened. But it can fundamentally change how we understand it–and whether the woman at the center of it was a calculating murderer or a profoundly ill mother.
I want to be clear. Lindsay Clancy does not need to be made a monster for her children’s deaths to be tragic. Nor does she need to be made a saint for us to question whether severe mental illness changes her criminal responsibility.
“To hear women prosecutors describe Lindsay Clancy as controlling and manipulative and attempt to paint her as a family annihilator was shocking. Lindsay Clancy does not fit the profile,” said Laura Richards, a criminologist who points to research showing that family annihilation is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men. “For me it again highlights how the system is stacked against women when we are at our most vulnerable and trying to desperately get help.”
Massachusetts has taken important steps toward family court reform–including a new 2024 law expanding the definition of domestic abuse to include coercive control–but fierce debates continue over whether courts adequately understand abuse and trauma.
“The Clancy trial has exposed something many women who have gone through family court recognize deeply—the experience of having their words, behavior, reactions and state of mind examined by others and used to draw conclusions about them,” said Margie Palladino, executive director of the Mass Family Advocacy Coalition. “Trauma can affect how a person thinks, reacts, remembers, communicates and presents herself. That is why a trauma-informed lens is so important throughout our legal system.”
Attorney and researcher Suzanne Zaccour said women are often stereotyped in her study on gendered use of mental-health labels in custody disputes. “Judges are suspicious about who is making the domestic abuse allegations. Often the woman might appear ‘crazy’ because she has suffered the impact of trauma and to them that makes her less credible,” Zaccour said.
Professor Joan Meier of George Washington University Law School has documented how often women are discounted in family court. Her study showed that only 41 percent of women are believed when they report abuse in custody cases; in 26% of those cases, they lost custody.
Heather knows that pattern. Like Claire, she lost custody of her child.
She said what resonates most about the Clancy case is what happens when a woman says something is wrong and isn’t believed. “I spoke about abuse that my young child and I were experiencing, and instead of that being fully investigated and understood, I was blamed and dismissed,” Heather said.
Heather sees a parallel with Lindsay Clancy.
“What resonates for me is the pattern of women speaking about distress or harm,” she said, “not being fully heard, and then being judged by how they respond when everything falls apart.”
Amy Polacko is a divorce coach, journalist and co-author of FRAMED: Women in the Family Court Underworld. Learn more about her work here: www.freedomwarrior.info