This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is Pillow Talk with Ali Michelle on the FCB Podcast Network. Welcome back to another episode of Pillow Talk with Ali Michelle. I am your host, Ali Michelle. And we are going to dive into the most talked about and debated topic in the entire world right now. The Lindsay Clancy case. And I didn't want to really speak until the trial was really done done. I know we're still waiting on the jury. But I feel now is a good time to put my thoughts in here. Um... I... So I think we're entering into the world of Looney Tunes. Because children matter most. Yeah. That's where I'm starting. Not with politics. Not with Lindsay Clancy. Not with Epstein. Not with women's health care. With children. Because children are arguably the most vulnerable people in our society. They depend on adults for their food, their homes, their health care, their transportation, their education, their protection. They can't just pack a bag and leave when something isn't right. They can't just always recognize abuse. They don't necessarily have the words to explain what's happening to them. And sometimes that very person they're supposed to run to for protection is the person they need protection from. So when I say protect the children, I don't mean protect the children when it's politically convenient. I don't mean protect the children when their story is trending. I don't mean protect the children when the person accused of hurting them is somebody you already dislike. I mean protect the children. Period. And I think we need to get a few things straight because I've been watching conversations online lately and I've been thinking, what are we doing? Before I get into anything else, I want to make my position on women's health care extremely clear. I believe women's health care needs major improvement. And I'm not saying that for dramatic effect. Pregnancy, childbirth, hormones, postpartum care, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis. There is so much happening physically and mentally to a woman during pregnancy and after giving birth. And in my opinion, my opinion, we are still behind when it comes to understanding it, researching it, and properly treating women through it. Women deserve to be listened to. When a woman says something isn't right, that shouldn't automatically be brushed off as, oh, you're just tired. Oh, that's normal after having a baby. Your hormones are crazy. No. Investigate it. Ask questions. Follow up. Give women resources. Educate husbands and partners about warning signs. Educate families. Make sure women know where to go when something feels wrong. And when we're talking about something as serious as postpartum psychosis... We should absolutely be asking whether our medical system is identifying these situations early enough and whether mothers are receiving the treatment they actually need. I don't think advocating for any of that should be controversial. But here's where people are losing me. Recognizing failures in women's health care does not mean celebrating every woman who may have been failed by that system. Those are two completely different conversations. And apparently, in Looney Tunes land, we're no longer capable of holding two thoughts in our heads at the same time. And that's what brings me to Lindsay Clancy. I don't want this entire episode to be about her because that's actually part of my point. This shouldn't be about Lindsay Clancy fan club. Three children died. Cora, Dawson, and Callan. Whatever ultimately happens legally... whatever evidence is presented about Lindsay's medical condition, medications or medical treatment, those children existed. So whatever the jury decides today, I'm recording this the day the jury is, you know, going back and forth and deliberating. Those kids mattered and their deaths matter. The defense isn't arguing about some mystery person came into the home and killed these children. The dispute centers around Lindsay's mental state and whether she was criminally responsible for what she did. And I think we should examine that. If there were failures in her treatment, talk about it, as they did. If doctors missed warning signs, figure out why. If there are lessons that could prevent another tragedy, learn from them. If postpartum mental illness needs reform, then reform it. But what I cannot understand is the transformation from We need to understand what happened here, too. Let's turn this woman into an icon. Those aren't the same thing. I've watched this almost fandom-like mentality develop around this case, and that's where I say Looney Tunes. You can have compassion for somebody suffering from severe mental illness without celebrating what happened. You can believe a person was failed medically while not acknowledging the devastation that resulted you can advocate for mothers while grieving their children why are we pretending those things are mutually exclusive they're not and I think we're losing something incredibly important when the adult at the center of the tragedy becomes a celebrity and the children become supporting characters in their own story and then women going online and and humiliating and exploiting their children and saying, for Lindsay, we are Lindsay. No, you're not. Grow up, essentially. And there's another part of this that I keep coming back to. Children look to their parents for safety. Think about a little kid when they're scared. Where do they run? Mom? Dad? Grandma? Whoever their safe person is. Children don't understand our adult problems. They don't understand depression. They don't understand financial stress. They don't understand relationship problems. They don't understand internet drama. They just understand, this person keeps me safe. That's an enormous responsibility. Adults are supposed to be children's protection. We should never become their source of terror. And when that does happen... The child's suffering cannot become secondary because we're more interested in analyzing or identifying with the adult. Now let's just talk about the internet. Because this goes way beyond one criminal case. And this part really pisses me off. I've been seeing videos online involving mothers and their children that genuinely make me ask, where is everybody? Women humiliating their children online. Parents exploiting incredibly private moments for views. Adults saying disturbing things directed at their children. Some girl was walking past a wood chipper and said, do you ever just think that, you know, you may slip and the baby might just get chopped up in the wood chipper? Like, are you kidding me? And some lady was splashing water at her baby's face, laughing about it while somebody was recording it. It's not funny. You're disgusting. And sometimes thousands of thoughts are watching. Kids being turned into props for content, commenting on it, sharing it, laughing. And I'm sitting here thinking, didn't everybody just tell me we were protecting children? Because I thought we agreed on this. A child doesn't stop deserving dignity because their mother has a TikTok account. A child doesn't lose their right to privacy because embarrassing them gets views. And being someone's parent doesn't mean you own their humiliation. There are obviously different levels here. Something being inappropriate isn't automatically criminal. Something being disgusting isn't automatically illegal, but we should still be willing to say that's wrong. And when something does cross into abuse, threats, or criminal conduct, then yes, authorities should take it seriously. regarding of whether it happened online or behind closed doors. And then there's Epstein. This is where the inconsistency really gets me. How much we have heard about Jeffrey Epstein. How many people have demanded answers. How many people have said, justice for the victims, protect children, hold powerful people accountable. And you know what? Good. We should demand justice for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. We should care about what happened to those girls. But here's my question. Why would Protect the Children stop there? Why would we care deeply about the exploitation of one child and then laugh while another child is humiliated online? Why would we demand accountability when the accused person is somebody we despise? but suddenly become uncomfortable talking about accountability when the adult is somebody we identify with? That's where I have the problem. Because protecting children should not be selective. You don't get to say, protect these children, protect these victims, care about these kids, But these other children, well, their situation doesn't fit into the conversation I want to have. No. All children. That's the standard. We have to stop thinking in extremes. And I think this is part of a much bigger problem with the Internet. Everything has become teams. Everything. If I say women's health care needs improvement, somebody assumes I'm defending everything a woman does. If I say three children were killed and deserve to be centered, In the conversation, somebody assumes, I don't believe postpartum mental illness is real. What? How did we get here? Those ideas do not contradict each other. Listen to these statements. Women's health care needs improvement. True. Postpartum mental illness can be extremely serious. True. Women experiencing psychiatric emergencies deserve medical treatment. True. Children deserve protection. True. Adults can harm children. True. Victims deserve compassion. True. Mental illness can be relevant when determining someone's criminal responsibility. True. And we don't need to turn somebody into a celebrity in order to discuss failures in the system that treated them. Also true. See how easy that was? We didn't have to pick a team. Compassion isn't celebration. And maybe this is the distinction I want to leave this episode with people understanding. Compassion and celebration are not the same thing. I can look at somebody who experienced a severe mental health crisis and say, that is horrifying. We need to understand how this happened. We need to know whether there were opportunities to intervene. That's compassion. I can say, I don't want another woman to experience that. That's compassion. I can say, we need better postpartum care. That's advocacy. None of that requires making someone an icon. And none of it requires forgetting the victims. We have developed this weird internet culture where sometimes supporting a cause means we feel obligated to idolize the person attached to it. We don't. You want Lindsay Clancy's case to create awareness about postpartum mental health? Okay, then advocate for postpartum mental health. Talk about screening. Talk about psychiatric resources. Talk about medications. Talk about warning signs. Talk about access to treatment. Talk about what hospitals can do differently. Talk about what families should do now. It should do what should know. Talk about the doctors should know. There are a million productive conversations that could come from this tragedy, but celebrating the adult at the center of it does not have to be one of them. The children cannot become an afterthought because ultimately this is what bothers me about all of these examples. The children somehow become secondary. We're talking about the adult. We're debating politics. We're fighting in comment sections. We're picking teams. We're making TikToks. We're creating hashtags. We're turning court cases into entertainment. And meanwhile, what about the kids? The Epstein victims were children who deserved protection. Children being exploited or humiliated online deserve protection. Children living in abusive homes deserve protection. And Cora, Dawson, and Callen deserved protection. It shouldn't matter who the adult is. Man, woman, rich, poor, famous, unknown. Someone you sympathize with. Someone you can't stand. The standard should not move. This is where I land. I want better health care for women, absolutely. I want pregnancy and postpartum mental health taken more seriously. I want research. I want more doctors to listen. I want women to feel comfortable saying, you know, something is wrong with me and I need help without feeling shame or without fear of their children getting taken away. I want families to know about warning signs they're looking for. I want women who are experiencing serious psychiatric symptoms to receive help before somebody gets hurt. And simultaneously, I want children protected and I want adults held accountable when they abuse or exploit children. I want people to stop using their children as internet content when the content comes at the expense of the children's dignity or safety. I want justice for victims regardless of whether their story is politically convenient. And I refuse to participate in turning tragedies involving dead children into fandoms surrounding the adults involved. Those positions aren't contradictory. They're actually incredibly consistent. Protect vulnerable people. Improve the system that failed them. Take mental illness seriously. Take women's health seriously. Take victims seriously. And above all else, remember that children depend on us as adults in the room. Maybe that's the part we've forgotten. Because the internet can argue about Lindsay Clancy. It can argue about Epstein. It can argue about women's health care. It can argue about parenting and social media. But children shouldn't have to win an internet popularity contest before we decide they're worth protecting. Protecting the children should not be a trend. It shouldn't be a political slogan. It shouldn't depend on who hurt them. It should be the bare minimum. Because once we start making icons out of adults while the children involved become an afterthought, We have officially entered Looney Tunes. And somewhere along the way, we've completely lost the plot. And that's what I have for you today. Thank you for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe to the podcast if you have not already. Please follow me on my socials. TikTok at Allie underscore Michelle. And then my Instagram at Allie underscore Michelle one two. That is Allie with two I's. A-L-I-I underscore Michelle. A-L-I-I underscore Michelle twelve. And I will talk to you guys on the next one.
