Rosemary Kennedy - Lobotomised for Being Different | Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- This video is one of the saddest stories of the 20th Century.
Rosemary Kennedy, the younger sister of John F Kennedy was born with a mild intellectual disability in 1918.
Although she was happy, personable and vivacious, she could not keep up with her eight high achieving siblings. She was sent to a dozen different schools and traipsed around every doctor and psychologist in New England in the hope of a cure.
She had a brief period of happiness at a Montessori school in London, while her father was Ambassador to the UK, but the war cut this short. When she returned home she went into a decline and her father had her lobotomised at the age of 23, and she had no contact with her family for the next 20 years.
This video explores the shocking views about intellectual disability held by many societies in the 1930s and 40s and the limited treatments available for mental disorders at that time. The details of her lobotomy are presented with a new analysis of some of her behaviour by a neuropsychiatrist with experience of complex mental disorders.
I will also explain why Dr Walter Freeman, who was involved in Rosemary’s lobotomy and who went on to perform 4000 other surgeries, has been described as the most scorned doctor besides Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
Discovering more for yourself
Kate Clifford Larson’s biography of Rosemary is detailed and authoritative, but more than that, it captures the tragedy of Rosemary’s life, the daughter who just wanted to please her impossible father. Jack El-Hai’s account of Walter Freeman, the Lobotomist, is a fascinating read as well for anyone wanting to know more about one of the darkest chapters in medical history. These and others are available through my Amazon Store. www.amazon.com...
Academic References:
Barr, M. W., & Whitney, E. A. (1930). Preventive Medicine and Mental Deficiency. New England Journal of Medicine, 203(18), 872-876.
Brown, F. W. (1930). Eugenic Sterilization in the United States Its Present Status. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 149(3), 22-35.
Caruso, J. P., & Sheehan, J. P. (2017). Psychosurgery, ethics, and media: a history of Walter Freeman and the lobotomy. Neurosurgical focus, 43(3), E6.
Editorial (1941) Frontal Lobotomy. Journal of American Medical Association, 117(7), 534-5.
El-Hai, J. (2005). The lobotomist: a maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of mental illness. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley.
Freeman, W. (1941). Neurosurgical Treatment of Certain Abnormal Mental States: Panel Discussion at Cleveland Session. Journal of American Medical Association, 117(7), 517-527.
Freeman, W., & Watts, J. W. (1942). Prefrontal lobotomy: the surgical relief of mental pain. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 18(12), 794.
Kessler, R. (1996). The sins of the father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the dynasty he founded. St. Martin's Press.
Mainieri, G., Loddo, G., & Provini, F. (2021). Disorders of arousal: A chronobiological perspective. Clocks & Sleep, 3(1), 53-65.
Nevsimalova, S., Prihodova, I., Kemlink, D., & Skibova, J. (2013). Childhood parasomnia-a disorder of sleep maturation? European Journal of Paediatric Neurology, 17(6), 615-619.
Nikolić, D., Marinković, M., Međo, B., & Jovanović, K. (2016). Absence epilepsy-electroclinical features and current advances. Paediatrics Today, 12(1), 131-8.
Copyright Disclaimer
The primary purpose of this video is educational. I have tried to use material in the public domain or with Creative Commons Non-attribution licences wherever possible. Where attribution is required, I have listed this below. I believe that any copyright material used falls under the remit of Fair Use, but if any content owners would like to dispute this, I will not hesitate to immediately remove that content. It is not my intention to infringe on content ownership in any way. If you happen to find your art or images in the video, please let me know and I will be glad to credit you.
Images
Wikimedia Commons
Wellcome Collection
Science Museum
John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Public Domain or used on Fair Use basis for education purpose
Music
George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue. Performed by the United States Marine Band with conductor and pianist Bramwell Tovey. Public domain via Wikimedia commons.
George Gershwin piano transcription of "The Man I Love", performed by Constantin Stephan. CC4.0 via Wikimedia commons.
Gustav Holst - The Planets - Mars, the bringer of war. Performed by Skidmore College Orchestra.
Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 5 Adagietto. Peabody Symphony Orchestra. CC1.0 via Wikimedia commons.
Jules Massenet - "Méditation" from Thaïs performed by Bomsori Kim and Pallavi Mahidhara. CC3.0 via Wikimedia commons.
Video produced by Professor Graeme Yorston and Tom Yorston.
Honestly, I believe the story about Rosemary's birth absolutely could be true. My second son is 36 years old, and I had my babies very quickly. When I got to the hospital, he was already in the birth canal and his head could be seen, yet the nurses absolutely refused to let me push and I was told it was because the doctor wasn't there yet. It was a horrific experience, very painful for me and worrisome for my baby. Thankfully my son only had some minor learning disabilities, graduated from high school and is a wonderful man, husband and father. But because of my experience I can tell you that at one time nurses were told to not allow the baby to come until the doctor was there. Absolutely ridiculous, but yes true.
Thanks Dawn, I've heard similar stories from several people now in the US, so yes, sadly it may well have been true!
That’s very nice about your son. It’s is shame what happened to Rosemary.
My mother was a Obi nurse that worked at night and she delivered plenty of babies waiting for doctors to arrive so it's pretty horrific having somebody cross their legs or push the baby back in
@@21550spurs Must be. Did you see it?
My children were born in and around 2010 and I have friends who are still saying they experienced less drastic versions of this.
As someone who had helped care for her before her death, she was ridiculously sweet and was probably bipolar if not autistic. Her father's decision to have her lobotomized was disgusting, and the fact he also forced the family to stay away from her is disgraceful. Joe was an absolute monster.
Thank you for sharing that.
Agreed. I am just learning about the Kennedy family. I had always been taught that they were the good guys. I'm rather disgusted to find out what the patriarch was actually like. A friggin Nazi basically.
The description of her has me in tears. My son's diagnoses are dyspraxia, adhd and autism. I'd bet money on jer having all three (her handwriting is common in dyspraxics, and autistics have a tendency to certain other diagnoses, too.) The only thing that would have kept my son from a lobotomy back then would have been his very high intelligence (and his parents, of course). Joe's monsterous ways are legendary.
i have a feeling that she had autism and probably some learning disabilities. having such a competitive family probably led her to develop an anxiety disorder and depression. it’s sad that her own brother called disabled people an abomination, and her dad seeing her as making her family look bad.
@@TargetedIndividuallivesmatter this is why you cannot just trust what was taught to you in public school. the rich and powerful dictate which parts of history are recorded and which parts are left out. you have to do your own research and question what was taught to you and why.
Her parents were ashamed of her because of a condition she could not help. She was a beautiful young woman. What her father did to her was nothing short of child abuse.
Maybe, just maybe, he was genuinely trying to help - but given his reputation generally it seems unlikely.
@@professorgraemeyorston I believe he had good intentions, but still you don’t do that.
@@Koopalingfan good intentions. He intended to get rid of herr. He was warned of severely bad outcomes.!! She wasn't even severely handicapped!!!!!
I think as a mother I agree with the speaker. Once baby starts to come you can't hardly stop it.
@@patchr5491 that’s Right you could only do that if your a Cat 🐈⬛
My mom n law had 9 siblings. 2nd to the last one was born with Downs. Upon Bill’s birth, the OB doc told the dad to not look and that the baby would be sent to special needs hospital for his entire life. (Back in 1942). The dad who is my husband’s maternal grandfather responded to the OB Doc, “No, he will come with us and like the rest learn how to work on the farm”.
That was the best form of education and therapy Uncle Bill could have received after he could not attend elementary school after first grade. Bill helped his brothers in plowing, planting corn, delivering calfs, fed the pigs and ate alot of boloney. At his funeral visitation, the line went outside the funeral home and around the block.
We miss him and he was a BIG help on the farm.
What a lovely story, thanks for sharing.
I knew a family with 9 kids. the one Steve was very sweet and helped on the farm for many years. He always tried so hard and did his very best to try to do a good job. He helped his parents too as they aged. I think he went on to live with his sister's family later.
@@veronicabaker9898 he sounds like a blessing, Thank You for sharing.
That was a blessing to be kept, loved, and raised on a farm where he could be loved for who he was.
Back when I was a kid there was a man in the neighborhood who had a son who was born with Downs. He was a widower and on disability himself. His son would mow lawns all summer long and was very proud of his job. He was paid of course, and it gave him a sense of accomplishment. I still remember him with great fondness.
A nurse tried to do that to my grandmother (9 children) while in labor. She kicked her off, became hostile, and delivered her own baby. Do not underestimate how poorly women in labor are treated. Obgyn care is and always has been unfeeling and barbaric.
Here we have it.
There ARE mad people in every profession, always have been.
My mother had a d&c without anything for pain. I couldn't barely handle a small biopsy with pain meds.
Wrong
Smells like granny told you a whopper. It’s impossible to hold a baby inside a uterus. If you ever had a baby you would know that. Your granny was telling tall tales. 🙄
@@seeglinesI can absolutely see a woman at that time doing the bidding of a walk-on-water doctor.
I've always thought the most shocking part of this tragic story is a father hiding a daughter away from her family after a surgery gone wrong - when she needed her mother and sibilings the most. "She received no visits or contacts whatsoever from her family until her father died..".. this is so cruel to sound worse than a horror movie.
I agree, trying a new therapy is perhaps understandable, but hiding her away when it went wrong is unforgiveable.
@@professorgraemeyorston Exactly. The behavior of her parents after her surgery indeed casts a dark shadow on what their intentions were in subjecting her to such a drastic procedure.
😢
💔
I haven’t heard this before, and now wish I hadn’t.
She was the prettiest of all the sisters. Her life was runed by her ruthless father. He's the one that should have had the Lobotomy.
I hope ,the M F suffered in his last moments of a stroke. Just deserts…
It was the nurse who forced Rose to hold Rose Mary in the birth canal. Total ROACH.
@@user-zy3zd3sx2d Yes. At the root of this tragedy is an incompetent or fearful nurse who clearly did not understand the mechanics of labor and birth, and the vulnerability of the child in those moments.
Definately a evil man.
Then we wonder how the world became so hostile.
I think we started all fu*ked up
@@TREVASLARK That poor girl didn't stand a chance at life from her beginning or throughout life. The incompetent nurse and arrogance did this.
The entire story is heartbreaking, she deserved so much better. Joe Jr’s comment about Hitler’s sterilization being “a great thing” especially shook me. Absolutely horrible.
He's just a typical Democrat Marxist.
👍🏻 you’re correct
Correct, on both counts.
We can see why RFK Jr. Is such a mess
Yes I agree with you .
I’ve always found this one of the most appalling examples of abandonment, barbarism and narcissism of the 20th Century. RIP Rosemary 😭💕
I agree.
Perfect summary.
You think the result is what the family wished ? They wanted her to be healthy and happy. Medical knowledge was not close to what it is now..
@@rudymontana4515 I think "dear daddy" ie. Joe senior got exactly what he wanted - her out of his way and out of the public eye. Her siblings didn't even know where she was.
"They wanted her to be healthy and happy." He wanted her to be "normal" which was unobtainable due to her birth circumstances.
I agree medical knowledge was not close to what it is now, and we still muck things up when it comes to mental health.
It's horrific, Caroline. It made me feel physically ill
She had many symptoms of being autistic. Delayed development, social struggles, meltdowns, pacing. What a heartbreaking story.
Tragic.
I kept thinking, it sounds like she is autistic. This story is so heartbreaking.
I was thinking that too autism, maybe epilepsy and learning disability
I was thinking the same thing and some children with autism also have seizures. I was just reading about that today. My daughter and granddaughter are autistic.
Exactly my thought. How sad. I wouldn’t dream of letting a dr shove knives into my child’s head.
Unbelievable how cruel they were to Rosemary, not just with the lobotomy, taking her out of the one place she was happy and kept moving around. She was emotionally abused.
Well, the NAZIS were marching in!
For all we know physically too! ❤
I’m thinking molestation by that uncle who she kicked and showed anger towards.
@@epoulos108 hard to tell. It's very possible that she was molested by her uncle. Still, the way she was treated by her family is horrible.
Joe Kennedy, sr. was an evil, ruthless sob .... I would proffer to you that he was a full blown psychopath ....
Her story is such a heartbreaking example of how society is disabling. She had multiple periods of her life where she thrived and was able to contribute to society in an environment that supported her and focused on her strengths, but the progress was lost when she was moved away.
It is such a sad story, if only she had been left to build her confidence in the Montessori school.
Look at Helen Keller. She thrived because she had so much support. Of course she worked hard herself.
Her whole story is tragic, but it's even more sad knowing that her own parents kept it a secret where she was for 20 years from even her own siblings who loved her and wanted to visit her.
It's hard to understand why they did that.
kennedys are evil@@professorgraemeyorston
Cause they were absolutely dreadful and evil people. @@professorgraemeyorston
A woman getting abused, probably tortured and then killed is/was a secret? Just thinking and act like that?
Probably because they didn't want their other children to know how they allowed Rosemary to be butchered for the sake of the parent's egos.
It was bad enough they destroyed her with the lobotomy...but to hide her away from siblings and never even visit her again, is despicable.
Joe K was a monster.
he was a monster in many ways
So they made her a vegetable. living, breathing but not able function or control body functions and not able to think or talk. They castrated her brain.
While I don't condone it, it was common place in those days. I know from first hand experience with multiple people (who were not wealthy).
my step father worked at the kennedy compound frequently doing oddball maintenance and construction. he told me the entire family was a bunch of asshats except rose the mother.
Sick people
YES!!!!!! It happened to me. My OBGYN couldn't get to me on time either. The nurse told me to cross my legs and not to push. 3 times, my daughter's head was pushed back. Eventually my fiancé went to grab a doctor scrubbing up. My daughter was delivered and was in distressed. She was put on oxygen and her tummey was pumped because she swallowed merconium. So yesssss, it does happen and yesssss my daughter was diagnosed with ADHD and borderline remedial. So this is not a lie.😡
I stand corrected - still shocked that it was carried out though.
Incredible. Please tell me this wasn’t in the last 30 years.
Don’t be shocked, sir.. this is the US medical system.
The patient comes last, especially women and especially women having babies.
It’s such shit
Sad!😢😮
😢😢😢
I’m no religious person, but as an Autistic woman, I would say if there’s anyone deserving of becoming a Saint, it would be Rosemary Kennedy. Patron Saint of victims of medical and psychiatric abuse, the disabled, and neurodivergent. I feel a connection to her, as a survivor of psychiatric abuse/malpractice, and I can’t imagine I’m alone in that.
Good suggestion.
Nope...not alone
Me too. You're not alone.
Well said, totally agree
Lobotomy is a death sentence. How dare anyone do this to any living being ABSOLUTELY HEARTBREAKING
Interesting that professor didn’t mention that lobotomies were backed by the American medical association at the time.
Idk about death sentence. She died in 2005
if what she had after the "operation" u call it a life then, yeah, lobotomy is not a death sentence @@kadenkohl782
@@kadenkohl782she may not have died in the typical sense, but she lost who she was completely. Kind of the same thing.
Doctors kill and cripple thousands of people every day😢 cry about it
You were surprised a nurse would do this. Yet many years later - 1943 - a nurse in a hospital in NJ, USA tried to hold me in by pushing on my head because the doctor thought he had time to go eat his lunch. Fortunately for me, she was unsuccessful and was forced to deliver me. Thankfully no harm was done to me. But my mom was certainly not happy. Having had 3 of my own I cannot imagine having someone try to stop a delivery at that stage.
Similar to the delivery of my daughter in 1987. The doctor refused to allow her to be born in the labour room even though her head was crowning. No they had to force my legs together and me into a wheelchair and wheel me to a delivery room quite a ways down the hall. I remember when the head was crowning and my husband ran out into the hallway to find someone. Felt so alone and vulnerable. It is not like you can just get up and walk out! So much amnionic fluid leaking - they had to follow with a mop and bucket. This was after several hours of being on a drip to cause the contractions due to it being a breech birth (and baby had been turned inside my uterus under ultrasound). It felt like a battering ram. Ridiculous. Lost a lot of blood. Glad there are birthing rooms now where you can stay from labour to delivery. My baby seemed to be okay and is considered gifted learner. But the trauma caused post partum depression in me and it was several years before I had the courage to give birth again. After that I gave birth at home with a midwife. I wonder how much post partum depression is actually PTSD?
@sandycampbell1866 I'm so sorry you went through that. PTSD makes sense after traumatic birthing. Sending you big hugs!!!
wow this is unbelievable (even back then). thank you for sharing. Peace
That nurse is more evil than the character "Nurse Ratchet" from One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
My third delivery was traumatic. Had to have an emergency hysterectomy and coded three times on the table. I haven't been the same since. I believe that I absolutely do have PTSD.
When I was 9 months pregnant, I joked around with my OBGYN. I was getting a routine exam and said that I just wanted to have my daughter already because I was tired of being pregnant. She got some kind of hook and broke my water, gave me something called Pitocin(?) to induce labor and said "Today would be perfect because my shift just started". This actually happened to me only 19 years ago.
I'll never forget after that the doctor and the nurses stuck me on a bed flat on my back and I couldn't breathe because I needed to be elevated a little. I kept trying to sit up so I could be on an incline and two nurses sat on me and held me down flat on my back the whole time I was pushing. It felt like I was being suffocated and I was panicking.
It frightens me to know how many doctors do things like this just because it is more convenient for them. She induced my labor just because it was a good day for her schedule. I really believe after hearing this that the nurse did stick Rosemary's head back in the birth canal.
Were you alone during this?
My mother was induced with my youngest brother in 1981 so the nurses and doctors could watch Charles and Diana’s wedding 🤦🏻♀️
@Peoplepease Hopefully you're never in a horrible situation and the people around you decide to blaim you.
Yes they Induced the pregnant women (in Queensland Punlic hospitals) and broke the uterus membrane with an instrument, administered pethidine etc. Nursing staff obeyed the head nurse/matron, none asked for your permission. Zero consent form 40 plus years ago.
Things changed a lot from the early 1990s. The expectant mother was no longer treated like a piece of meat. My third child born in 1991, excellent conduct by midwives. Polite and patient, not pushy or too authoritative. In 1991 I thought there was still a chance for the world. Shame about the way things are going now.
No I don't believe ant nurse would be that stupid as to demand for woman to keep her legs together or begin to push the baby back into the womb. Total insanity. Kennedys looked for a simple explanation to shift the blame on someone other than themselves, to stop any insinuation or speculation about a hereditary condition.
It wouldnt surprise me that someone was abusing her behind closed doors, which would explain her "unexplainable" rages and attacks on people, especially her "random" attack on her grandfather.
I also think she may have been sexually abused at some point by someone.
@@NancyDavis-Foss-ok7to A newly released book indicated it was her father Joe 🤫😩
It drives me nuts that women aren't allowed to feel rage or depression. It doesn't have to be fixed, it's a natural emotion that has many uses for survival. Why are we only valued if we are docile?
@@oliveoil7642people write books of lies to make money.
💯 🎯
Two of my Irish great aunts, who were nurses, worked for the Kennedy’s, looking after Rosemary. They used to get her to do simple embroidery - my mother has a two pieces of cross stitching that Rosemary sewed.
What a lovely memento.
That's amazing
How beautiful of a loving memory for her to keep it. Thanks for sharing. Robert F Kennedy Jr is running for president as independent. I can see now, how being driven is part of his inheritance.
Even as recently as 7 years ago, after a traumatic brain injury, in a deadly car accident, the doctor insisted I was treated as a psychiatric patient. Instead of treating me for the swelling in my brain. Seizures, which I have now too, are not well known to doctors; much less people in general.
Liar
@@AsherJade03 My mother is 102. Two of her aunts were nurses who worked for wealthy clients to support a sister who was in a home after suffering from brain damage from influenza (the 1918-1919 pandemic) and also to save money to set up a nursing home. My mother told me quite a few times that her aunts worked for the Kennedy family looking after Rosemary and she’s shown me the two pieces of cross-stitching. I’m only repeating what my mother has told me. If that makes me a liar in your eyes…..
I met Rose at St Coletta's during the late 1980s when I volunteered as a guide for a blind man in Special Olympics swimming events. St. Coletta's had an olympic size pool and hosted the local Special Olympics swimming events. Had you only seen the pre-lobotomy photos of her, you'd never have recognized her. She wasn't very conversational with me, seemed a kind person. The worst part of the Rosemary's story is that while the Kennedy family did do a lot with Special Olympics, they viewed the very people taking care of her as second class citizens. Her father took a beautiful young woman and ruined her entire life and the saddest part of her story . . . the part that can still evoke tears from me . . . is that she was treated more like a peer ans loved in that institution than by her own damned family (I met a number of them during a couple fundraisers.) Shame on that clan!
Hypocrisy - of the Kennedys - treating caretakers like second class citizens but making a show of charitable events.
Im😮😅
The Kennedys were always grifters & criminals.
The Kennedys were never as they seemed. Many secrets & many lies. Their arrogance has finally destroyed their mystique. We see them for who they truly are.
My great grandma was giving birth to her first child, a baby girl. The doctor wasn’t there yet and the nurse held her legs together so the baby couldn’t come. The doctor showed up an hour later hungover. The baby ended up passing away before she was even born. That would’ve been a lawsuit today.
She would have been safer giving birth completely alone in that case.
😱
I find the presenter's opinion on this not being likely to be very off putting. You're trying to explain history but won't do the simple research it takes to know this was common practice.
Poor dear baby and mum 😢 .. when a Dr wasn't needed and it was all about the dollar.. the nurse should feel great shame too. Killing the precious baby. So sorry for your Grandma how heart breaking.❤😢
@@davidcoley8500*offputting, one word
Listening to your program, and when you got to the Birth of Rosemary, it hit a nerve, because when I was trying to be born the Dr. was at another hospital doing a birth, so the nurse pushed my head back in and crossed my mothers leg and wrapped her in a blanket. When the Dr. came in the room, asked who did this and fired her on the spot. I was lucky that no brain injury happened, I just had a ridge across my eyes which went away after a couple of days, and left me with a dip in the middle of my skull. Until I saw this video I never knew just how lucky I was. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, it's good to hear that some people recognise safe practice.
oh wow, your story is shocking that a nurse could/would do something so wrong. & stupid. I am so glad you are okay, but GEE WHIZ
Omg😮
For her to suffer from lack of oxygen at birth and to be treated in such a manner is absolutely heartbreaking.
It's such a sad story.
I'm in agreement with the narrator being skeptical of this narrative. Granted, medical professionals did a lot of stupid and terrible things then as they do now, but having a mother close her legs and stuffing the baby back in doesn't work like that. Once that delivery begins, it IS going to happen, and no woman would physically be able to just hold it in like having to go to the bathroom.
I have a close friend of mine who's son has permanent brain damage from oxygen deprivation from a botched delivery by Air Force medical staff. His wife was eclamptic, and the doctor refused to induce, and their son suffered for it. He far surpassed their predicted life expectancy and is still with us today, but he is in a wheelchair, has no speech, and is severely physically and mentally disabled and requires 24/7 care and monitoring. That was obviously not the case with rosemary. I think she was just born with mental deficiencies, and just like the narrator suspects; they conjured that story to escape embarrassment of not having perfect genes.
People often don't even know that in America in the early 20th century the medical community was highly into eugenics theories and attempts to breed "perfect people" to the point of aborting potential deficient babies and running genetics testing to suggest compatible parents in couples. Those who should and should not breed, etc.
@@BarnDoor-won5ve I did not read the author as "the narrative was wrong",but rather as "it is unbelievable any medical professional would have done anything like that."
The nuns at the Catholic hospital my mother was born at tried to hold my grandmother’s legs together when she was giving birth during a snow storm. The doctor wasn’t present yet. I believe some of this type of activity is true for Rosemarys birth.
That said, my grandmother went wild, kicked the nuns away (they were laying on her legs) and delivered her baby on her own.
Maybe Mrs Kennedy was less inclined to make a fuss. Any way you look at it, these stories are horrifying.
I believe this happened to my mother in the mid-40's (tho I don't think she ever knew it as she was given "twilight sleep" for the birth of all her children). Her 3rd baby was born outwardly beautiful and perfect but by age 4 mos. was dx'd as "floppy", was blind and deaf. Mom was advised to put her in a home (she had 2 other young children) and the baby died at 18 mos., unable to do more than take a bottle and lie in her crib. It haunted my mom all her life.
I’ve read the biography he cited early in the video. What he utterly fails to mention is that:
1) Laboring women were absolutely told not to push, because the doctor didn’t get his fee if the baby was born before the doctor arrived.
2) Rosemary was a young woman, with all that entails. Her parents were potentially embarrassed because she wasn’t a “nice,” modest girl, but acted on her impulsive attraction to young men. Joe Jr’s friends likely found her “nice” because she was attractive and probably a bit more forward than her peers. Being strict Catholics, the idea of her getting “in trouble,” or even the whisper of her behaving improperly, would have been mortifying to her parents. Doubly so given Joe Sr’s political ambitions for Joe Jr, which were then transferred to JFK when Joe Jr was killed in combat in WWII.
If you have any further doubts, think again about the lengths JFK went to, to keep his own chronic illness hidden. Any sign of weakness, illness, or moral failure was locked up or hidden away, until long after Joe Sr’s death.
Your comments are spot on.
You cannot wilfully push a baby out nor can you hold it in. It comes out due to the fetal ejection reflex which is absolutely involuntary. The uterus not the kind of muscle you can control.
@@ritz6982 Of course you can push, have you ever given birth? You just do it with your abdominal muscles, not uterus itself.
@@ritz6982you’re a man, aren’t you?
@@ritz6982the uterus isn’t, but the birth canal is quite literally a muscle
I have a friend who had the nurses hold her legs closed until the doctor got there resulting in serious brain damage to her son. That was in the late 70's. It happened to women more then you could possibly imagine due to the monstrous egos of some OB's.
Thats dreadful
@@Tawadeb It is indeed dreadful but it is in fact true.
I would imagine this was seriously painful. Couldnt it kill you?
Yes, I agree. While the narrator doesn't feel a nurse would do this, I think she would, especially if the doctor insisted (as they often do) that HE be there for the delivery. Doctors can have very big egos, and nurses may be intimidated by them.
My sister in approx '77 in Iowa the babies died.
As recently as 1995 they told me to hold my daughter in because my EX husband ran out to get dinner and he wasn’t responding to paging announcements. He was eating pizza and thought he could cram it down and then come back. I knew that caused cerebral palsy so no way I listened. Thank Goodness. She’s fine now and is 28 years old.
Proud of you for listening to your body and mother's instincts! 👍🙏💪
You certainly wouldn't be able to eat, I don't know what he was thinking he was so important for.
As someone with autism, a lot of her “outbursts” (meltdowns) after England may have been from realizing how much better she could’ve and should’ve been treated, as she was allowed to go at her own pace. i don’t know anything about her, just that i have had similar experiences, and i would also be incredibly bitter and depressed if i was ripped from a better life where i was understood and loved for who i was.
I was not expecting to see you here. And I agree.
It is possible, but struggling with change also occurs in mild learning disability.
when you have a social climbing family like the Kennedy's there are certain behaviors that are required and others that are ostracizing. Society was honestly so barbaric and ignorant of things..
They could have been a symptom of emotional dysregulation from brain damage caused by seizures, too
Yeah, I can't imagine what that must have been like for her!
Poor Rosemary. 😔 I have similar symptoms. I have mental and neurological illness, and autism. Rosemary didn't choose to be sick, she just was. The way she was treated was disgusting.
I agree.
I have autism and my school was in an old sanatorium with an isolation chamber, schokroom and jars fulled with human brains.
@@Waxcoat What? What time frame are you talking of?
@Waxcoat , you are not funny. How immature of you. Grow up and quit acting macho. 😒 You are a bully. Mental and neurological illnesses are nothing to make fun of. And I refuse to respond to any more of your crap. I don't fight online. I will pray for you.
@@professorgraemeyorston , it was senseless. Poor Rosemary 😔
In the 50’s my aunt lost a baby during a birth story identical to Rosemary’s birth. She never fully got over it, actually. She said that, right after losing the baby, she felt an incredible urge to steal other women’s babies. Surely a form of postpartum depression or something. She went on to have 3 healthy babies after, thankfully.
I worked with an older nurse in a small town. She told me that was customary to hold the baby in the birth canal, until the doctor arrived. That was at the order of the doctors. What a tragic story.
It seems this was a common practice - terrible!
@@professorgraemeyorston It's believable that this practice took place. We have to remember the time-frame surrounding her birth. Not everyone back then would have been versed in the impacts of every procedure. Even in the mid-70s, when I was born prematurely, I was just stuck in a plastic box with two large holes in it (no gloves attached to them and no ventilation or other tubing/wiring, no fluorescent anything) and my parents were told to start planning my funeral. Why? We were in a small hospital out in the middle of nowhere. Here in the United States, not all hospitals are equal, and not all hospital staff are equal to their counterparts in other hospitals. That's just as true now as it had to have been back in the early 1900s.
@@professorgraemeyorston I never heard of it, nothing short of criminal. Why midwife are for then?
Me and my brother were born at home with a midwife. My brother needed pushing from people on top of my mom belly, and I came out in a hurry, I've been told.
That's one reason l dislike doctors!!
11:07 That's depressing. She found a role that she liked, was capable of performing, and gave her a sense of purpose. She would've also been "out of sight", since her parents were that bothered by her mere existence. But no, her dad just had to drag her back, then destroy what little sense of self and happiness she had left.
Seems they were more concerned in case anyone might notice something was different about Rosemary; thus, instead of allowing her to blossom in society, & the family trying their best to simply work around that, they instead made Rosemary try to "fit in" with the family's hectic, competitive lifestyle-- & to try & keep up as best she could. Even when it was clearly asking too much of her.
it’s really heartbreaking
I've often wondered whether Rosemary was molested as a youngster. I don't really expect anyone to say they knew that Joe Snr might be in a position to shed some light on that.
Most fathers would encourage the mother/rest of the family to visit their less fortunate sibling.
The fact that Joe Snr wanted to completely sever all communications does cast a lot of doubt on him regarding his own involvement and interactions with this daughter, who might publicly accuse him of something that he would rather she wouldn't be able to remember.
Monster Joe Snr.
😢 we
Incest is very common in the old Irish families.
The storytelling here drove home a painful point. While Rosemary may have struggled in many ways, the one thing she had in her early life was that she was a vibrant, communicative and expressive young woman, whose ability to communicate all of that was literally severed by a callous cut of a knife, from which she would never recover and for the rest of her life be largely trapped inside her own mind and body, and then shut away for many years. I can't imagine how much happier she became once she was reunited with her family.
Was wondering if that so called "doctor" who- performed- the -- who criminally assaulted Rosemary -- was ever made to pay for those crimes. But i guess we already can pretty much surmise the answer to that.
It is true that the nurses were instructed to hold the baby back by any means until the doctor would arrive. It happened to me, but I was already warned by the county nurse whom I worked for that this was the reason why there were so many mentally challenged children in our county. I believed her
So many people have said the same thing, it doesn't say much for medical ethics.
I suspect this kind of thing has happened to me, more than once. Most recently my urethra was blocked and no-one tried to catheterize me for 11 hours, while they waited for the urologist to show up. First time may have been when I was born. My mother only said that her labor took a long time and pushing me out had become a traumatic experience, helped along by morphine or demerol (which may only slow things down). I was born during a blizzard in NYC, when physicians would have had a hard time getting to the hospital where I was born. My mother showed up at the hospital on the afternoon or evening of 1948 Dec 31 when labor started, but I was not born until 11:00 am on Jan 01. I have some mild neurological abnormalities including severe headaches and atypical facial pain that I remember having as early as age 8 and persisting until now.
It is very true - it happened to my cousin in the seventies. The nurse forced my aunt to delay the birth for 10 minutes and my cousin was born with crossed eyes and has an IQ under 80 😢
@@OhK746 _How_ did the nurse force your aunt to delay giving birth for 10 minutes? I'm not asking because I don't believe you. I'm asking because if I know how the nurse did that, I would have a better chance of fighting back should a health care worker want to force me to do something that I don't want to do, not to mention force one of my grandchildren to delay giving birth. I feel so fortunate that my wife gave birth to my son at home, with a nurse-midwife, and with me, and not with an MD.
Sorry for your suffering. I believe your story. My mother worked for a doctor in the late 1940s. She said, whenever the doctor entered a room, the women working there were required to stand up to display respect for his superior status.
This happened to my mother in 1947. She went into labor in a Catholic hospital. The doctor was golfing and the hospital policy was to tie the legs of the mother together until the doctor could be brought back to the hospital. When he got to the hospital my sister was born and lived 7 minutes after the birth. The hospital said she died of officiation because her ambilical cord wrapped around her neck.
Truly shocking!
Oh my God I am so sorry
My grandmother was a nurse at St. Coletta and Alverno dormitories in the late 60's early 70's. She had helped with Rosemary's healthcare needs on several occasions. She claimed to have had interactions with Rose Kennedy and said that Rosemary's lobotomy and subsequent "disappearance" was Joe's way of making sure that she couldn't bring embarrassment or shame to the family. Joe was a real piece of work with a one track mind and ruled the family with an iron fist. My grandmother said that Rose would visit Rosemary fairly often, albeit out of the public eye. I don't know how much my grandmother really knew or interacted, but based on some of the things she had said, I find it hard for her to have made them up. Especially, that there have been several things that have come to light in the last 30 years that would not have been known by anyone except those who had firsthand knowledge.
Thank you, I hope Rose did visit her daughter, that would have been something.
I DO think so, and her brothers loved her in spite of all this.
It's so pathetic that her parents did not accept her as she is, which to me, is the only things she longed for throughout her miserable life, RIP
It is pathetic how judgmental people are when you are not like them. Very scary and cruel!
@@janinegrey6937 so reminds me of Diana's death/murder as well in the UK
if rich people do that - heaven help people without money.
It was a different time. One did not speak of such things.:(
Then again, there is the case of the daughter of Dale Evans and Roy Rogers. The daughter had Downs Syndrome; Dale wrote a book about her daughter.
The legacy of Dale and Roy -- the one for children who are otherly abled -- still lives on. Still based in Apple Valley, California, where Dale and Roy lived.
My husband's grandmother had not one, but two separate lobotomies in 1942. My mother-in-law said that her mother had the procedures at the urging of her sister who thought she had a bad temper (even though my mother-in-law never remembered her having a temper). After the lobotomies my husband's grandmother was institutionalized for the rest of her life. My mother-in-law never had her mother near her from the age of ten. What a tragedy! Disgraceful what doctors did to their patients in the name of medical progress.
Still happening
What they’re still doing today
As the mother of two high-functioning autistic children, one who has severely dyslexia, adhd, and outbursts, this is most likely what she had. My son is smart, so intelligent, and well-spoken and kind. He will advance with no problem but much support. My daughter has already graduated college. Rosemary was most likely the same as my son and those were her diagnoses. What made it ten TIMES worse was her family’s expectation of her, their non-acceptance of who she was as a human, and the willingness to write her off. Most importantly though, they CONSTANTLY moved her! You cannot give children, especially THESE children a lack of stability. It is terrible for them and makes such a bad situation worse. I realize she was a horrible product of her time, but worse, she was a product of her family. I will say as a mention. She was stunningly, absolutely stunningly beautiful. The other Kennedy girls literally had NOTHING on her.
Very true.
I'm autistic and this story makes me so angry and sad, joe was a evil father. I thank god there are parents like you that actually love their kids unconditionally much respect
I enjoyed this revealing documentary almost as much as I did your comments on such a misunderstood condition. The human brain. I do believe she was so robbed of her beauty. The only Kennedy in my opinion, who was truly honest. I have learned so much. Thank you.
Agreed. Thank you ❤
I had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck three times when I was born at 8.4 lbs of a 5 ft 2 in mother 😅 I had a great IQ but terrible dyslexia, ADHD, outbursts, and meltdowns. At grade three I was tested and my principal called my mom in for a conference. Mr Cannon explained my intelligence and my learning disability to my mom. He gave her a long list of activities outside of school which could help me. She implemented all of them! 😊 I made all “A”’s and “B”s in school and earned a place in college. 😅I dropped out in my Sr Year.😢 But got some counseling and went back to school at the new JC in our town. There I was directed to go into Nursing. And I embarked on a lovely 50 year career in Nursing! 😊❤ ❤❤❤❤❤
This was the saddest story I’ve heard in a long time. The doctor was a monster and should have gone to prison. Her parents failed her miserably. So busy trying to put on a fake front they sacrificed their own daughter for sake of appearance. Poor Rose.
And the family is very similar until this day😢
The father was a monster also.
Seems they cursed their own family line.
I totally agree with you.
Maybe, it came down to "expectations." Just listening to this story, I kept thinking it was possible the parents expected her to be high functioning but her progress appeared slow. If she wasn't born to a family which fashioned their lives similar to royalty, her chances of her being accepted regardless of differences not understood, she would have eventually reached her full potential without rejection.
The problem with high expectations is once the child is deemed a "failure" for not living up to the perception of the expectations, failure will become the new expectation -- a label one cannot escape -- it'll follow the child for life, as it did for Rosemary.
When the commentator revealed she actually had the capacity to understand complex math, explains more than any other theory. She may have never been slow, just extremely intelligent taking time to absorb more information than anyone could perceive.
My brother was born in 1958. The nurses treated my mother's delivery the same as Rose Kennedy's delivery of Rosemary because my mother's OBGYN was not available at the time. My mother was told to cross her legs and the nurses tried to prevent the birth taking place before the doctor arrived. My brother was born with brain damage from having his head beat against the birth canal for hours. He died 3 days later. So, yes, it most likely is true about Rose Kennedy's delivery because it was still being done 40 years later. The doctor was God and the nurses would be fired. No one sued the doctor back then.
Sadd
I’m so sorry for you and your family, I hope your mom recovered from that and didn’t blame herself
I guess knowing myself the way I do I'd have told them where to go and went ahead with giving birth. My Great Grandmother had a drunken Dr. Show up to her house to help with the birth and used forceps crushing the baby's skull.😢😢😢
Doctors still don't have a goddamn clue what they're doing to this day.
The same happened to my Mom with my sister, but thank the Lord there was no damage.
The mother telling the public that she focused all her care on rosemary but kept her a secret and never wrote about her in her letters is so messed up… her family didn’t give a damn about her :(
That's how it seems.
As a neurodivergent woman, many of these traits sound like they could align with autism and that makes me terribly sad. “Daydreaming” could also possibly have been a result of inattentive ADHD. We know now that ASD & ADHD do often co-occur. Even today, there is still little awareness about how both disorders present in women & AFAB individuals. She and so many others deserved so much better. Thank you for highlighting her story.
She did indeed.
Almost sounds like maladaptive daydreaming
and/or she could have been having absence seizures (petit mal)
My paternal uncle Barry was born with Down’s Syndrome around 1949. Seemingly exactly like Joe Kennedy, my grandfather was ashamed of him and made my grandmother put him out of sight in his crib whenever company arrived. Soon after, my dad who was a few years older than Barry, remembers that they all got in the family car one day and drove Barry to an institution. And my dad never saw his baby brother again. Dad lived in fear of “doing something wrong like Barry obviously had” and finding himself dropped off at an institution, too. Decades later he tried to track down any record of Barry and found nothing. There was one single picture of the two brothers together, my Dad a smiling big brother holding young toddler Barry on his lap, Barry very clearly having the Down’s syndrome facial features, and staring at his own hands. It’s so unbelievably sad. As a mother now I can’t help wondering why my grandmother put up with it, why she submitted to that nonsense. She was an incredibly loving woman who doted on my dad til her dying day, and she should have had six kids. My grandfather refused to try for more after his poor son, Barry, was born.
Those were times when any birth defect was considered tragic. And later, thalidomide babies were sometimes not even being shown to their mothers and just “taken away”. Hopefully all these medical people who played God had to face God in time and account for their evils.
God isnt real, and if he is, he willingly created the evil monsters we speak of. So, in my logical mind, god is either to blame, or not real. Worshippong such an entity is a sign of weakness..."i will submit as long as I am spared". If i were to meet god at the gates of heaven. Id tell him to choke and die and that i woild rather spend eternity in hell than praise such a narcissistic being.
@@AaronHenduIn your darkest moments you turn to him, don’t you. He’s with you, always, loving you at a level you cannot even comprehend.
Praise be to Satan
Women then didn't have the same options that we do now. Love to you and your family.
You've never read the Bible in the beginning. Genesis will tell you that man himself, Adam and Eve didn't obey God. He told them what would happen if they partook of the sin. He gave them a freewill to choose which way they would go. Eve listened to the devil and then Adam and that's why there are monsters in the world of human beings. God gave them a life free of these things. They chose to listen to the devil. Don't listen to the devil. He's the one you can blame for this. Just read it and read it until you can believe what really happened. Jesus gave his life for you. You see, he was the second Adam that people can be born again through the Spirit. Adam's flesh took him over. Jesus had to come to this earth to be born and feel the things we feel and die so any person who will accept him will be born again through the Spirit. Your Spirit can be reborn. Then read Matthew, Mark, Luke and john and learn this. You don't want to go to hell!!! You don't know all about this, but you can learn if you will search it and seek the face of God. I promise you there is life in Jesus, and he made us to overcome the obstacles in life as he overcame them. Sin came in through one time of disobeying God, but they had been warned not to partake of sin. The flesh of old man Adam is enmity to the new man Jesus. There's a never-ending war between them because the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. If you will try to learn this and accept Jesus into your heart, your Spirit, you will never be the same because Jesus is life and life everlasting!! He will give you that life!!
My son was born in 1975. Nurses told me (don't push, Doctor isn't here yet). I continued to push. They administered somthing that knocked me out. My son was healthy. We went home together on the 3rd day. He is smart, funny, and the joy and pride of my life. I have always resented and regretted not being conscious during his birth.
I have certainly learned something about US obstetric practice from all the similar comments. Thank you.
It's all about making it easy for the professionals, even the fact that a woman has to lay down prostated on her back, for the doctor's ease and convenience. 😡
Those Dr’s snd every one of them that practiced evil practices is why more and more people are turning against Dr’s. They aren’t to be trusted with our lives. I can’t imagine the nightmare so many women and lots of people for different reasons went through. It’s terribly didturbing.
I think one of her over sexualized family members was trying to and did silence her. This is horrific. They erased her brain. Evil evil evil. She lived the longest in that condition too
I will never forgive the poor standard of care I was given at Adelaide Childrens Hospital in Rose Park, in May, 1974. Nearly 50 yrs later, I still am deeply affected and was a trauma I will take to my grave.
I'm truly sorry for the lack of proper care and trauma you endured, but am awed by your ability to survive! Wishing you continued healing. 🙏🕊️
I pray for you. You are strong! 🙏♥️
This is such a sad story - Rosemary seemed like a lovely person. You told this story in a very heart-felt, compelling manner.
Thank you Thomas, in all that I've read about her she comes across as a delightful young woman who just wanted to make her parents proud of her.
Got to say, that was a very well put together documentary, provoking a lot of deep thinking and thoughtful consideration in your empathetic viewers, as is evident through the comment section here. Liked and subbed.
As someone who absolutely would have been lobotomized in the early/mid 20th century, Rosemary’s story has always intrigued, horrified, and saddened me.
I literally think how grateful I am all the time bc I absolutely would have been lobotomized if I were alive back then :P it’s so messed up
They didn't say that in this video, but actually the lobotomies sometimes DID work, and cause improvements. They almost would have had too in order for them to go on as many years, and for them to do as many as they did. I believe it is still done, though much rarer now. It sounds like its kind of like vaccines. If your one of the few who gets a terrible life changing reaction to a vaccine, or know of someone personally who has, you naturally are against vaccines! But they seem to do good for the majority.
My father built her a home in Maitland, FL in the early 1980 with early disability features like ramps, accessible kitchen and bathrooms. This was way ahead of it time for residential construction. I worked for my dad in high school mostly cleaning up after the subcontractors. No one knew who the property was for, except my family. This was to protect her from a prying press that was always willing to expose her and her family.
I grew up next to the town where she spent the rest of her life in Wisconsin. If anyone mentioned a “secret Kennedy sister” at St. Colletta’s it was treated as an urban legend because it seemed so implausible and disheartening for school-aged children.
Interesting. The whole story is hard to believe.
As a psychologist and behavior analyst, I feel that the disintegration of her behavior and emotional functioning over time was largely due to the constant changes in her placement over her lifetime as well as poor medical management. She needed good medical care due to seizures, the consistency of her educational and therapeutic environment, as well as a purpose-filled life, since she was relatively high functioning. Since she lacked these, her condition deteriorated and then she got the blame. The result was her parent’s decision to get her a lobotomy to solve the problems they created. So sad.
I agree.
Some in the death camp system marketed as management? Poor management?
Yours is the best comment here. Ditto from retired special education teacher.
Alberta, Canada
Awful , how horrible and very sad.
The truly sad part is that we are now surrounded by 'parents' like this, they are the norm.
They routinely excuse their own behaviors, alleviate all guilt and shame, and take no responsibility for the outcome of their children.
How horribly sad. Both of her parents were hard hearted, due to their pride. I knew she had been lobotomized, but I had no idea what had been done to her before that. As an RN who takes care of people with developmental disabilities and related conditions for 25 years, this brought tears to my eyes. Thank God JFK sought to improve conditions for people with IDD.
Thank God indeed!
Rose Kennedy was not hard hearted, but just incredibly stupid! And, Joe Kennedy had Rosemary lobotomized before telling her mother about it.
We are far from helping or medical treating our disabled, mentally ill. We should be ashamed that in the USA this is how our most vulnerable population is regarded. You really don't understand until you go through mental illness or cognitive disability in your own family, with someone you love. It's a true horror show. Stop sending pallets of money to other countries to hurt and kill others. We need to take care of our most vulnerable here and home and then help the world 🙏
@@sgriff3774 Its much the same here in the U.K. Susan. If a country or humanity is judged by how we care for the weakest amongst us. We have few reasons to be satisfied with ourselves.
I think the family was ashamed because it was the norm to institutionalize the children who have special needs.
I cant imagine the pain Rosemary went through. Her family shuffling her around from place to place. Mental health was very inhumane and cruel.
It was indeed.
It is still inhumane and cruel.
It's not much better today. Nowadays they just pump people full of drugs that knock them out and leave them zombiefied - stupid, unable to think or do the simplest things. Chemical lobotomies really! And I've heard so many stories of people in mental facilities getting abused. Not that this is surprising - who would believe them???
All that money, but shamefully inhumane treatment rather than love and support.
WAS? It still is.
This broke my heart. There are still people out there with beautiful souls that are being ostracized by society just by not being understood. All I can do is ask myself how to change the way things are.. nobody deserves to suffer in any way Rosemary suffered.
I agree, which is why I am trying to do something to challenge preconceptions through my channel.
I'm a 58 year old man and your presentation brought me to tears with an emotion I don't know what to do with other than lose myself in painting with my watercolors for awhile.
❤❤
Perhaps you will create a masterpiece in watercolors while you find yourself sympathizing with the torture Rosemary must have endured.
Did you also paint when Trump won in 2016?
I pray and give it to God…but also love watercolors too. God bless.
This is what happens to a world without Christianity.
I’m an RN, and I know this is horrific and hard to believe in this day and age. However, they did things differently back in the not so distant past. I worked with a woman who had a disabled son, who died young. She told me that when she was in labor, the doctor was late, and the nurses held her legs together. She said she could feel her baby’s head banging against her pelvis.
They didn’t have fetal monitors or routinely do ultrasounds then like they do now either. A lot of babies strangled on their umbilical cord as it was around the neck and got tighter with each contraction.
So glad I practiced nursing in a much more enlightened time.
Today’s medical practice is still archaic and a top leading cause of death. Yet every era, the ‘science’ is decided to be settled. Yet people are insane enough to push for ‘mandatory ‘ practices.
How horrific!!
Reading these replies, I can see now that I was lucky to have practiced with more knowledgeable and caring individuals. In a hospital that kept up with the times. I’m so sorry for anyone who suffered the fools who committed these uncaring, selfish acts.
It is also important to question practices today that might not be good for patients.
So horrific! I'm beyond thankful for modern healthcare. My water broke 3 weeks early and during active labor, I noticed the nurse and my partner were nervous. They put an oxygen mask on me and didn't tell me till later what was going on because they wanted to keep me calm. When my son crowned, the Dr told me what was going on and asked permission to use forceps. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my son's neck 3 times! His heartbeat was dropping on each contraction. The Dr said it does happen, but 2 times around is rarer, and 3 times very rare! Thank God, my son was born perfectly healthy. Without modern medical monitoring and knowledge, I'm not sure it would've gone so well.
Poor Rosemary, she went through so much torture and anguish, rest in peace sweet lady 🙏❤️
What a nightmare! How can her parents have done this to her? Having such a horrible procedure done on her, then hiding away the evidence. This is truly disgusting. They took her life away from her. The "doctor" who performed the procedure was a monster. I hope he got his.
Ignorance and false pride and a misplaced attempt to over protect in some cases. My father's first cousin suffered the effects of menningitus. He was at about ten years old. He was never sent to school by his father. He was such a sweet guy and clever in his own way and kind. Bless their souls. They are whole and happy now.
Rosemary was the prettiest sister! She had a beautiful smile and looked so full of life. She was probably so frustrated because of how she was treated.😢
Beauty is a radiance that originates from within and comes from inner security and strong character.
I think she had a beautiful spirit as well despite not being "normal" like those around her wanted her to be.
@@user56gghtfyeah
Yeah
Agree 100%
Right?! I’d act the same way if I was treated how she was. 😢
I was born in 1968 and a nurse at the hospital in Pennsylvania where i was born tried to but her hand on my head to try to wait for the doctor who hadn't made it into the ER yet. Luckily my mother knew this was a bad idea and "kicked her out of the way". And I've heard similar accounts of this happening with inexperienced nurses. But regardless of what condition she had a lobotomy is horrible and should never happen.
Well done to your mother!
This horror of a birth story sounds exactly like my sister in laws mother. When her mom was delivering the baby, the nurse literally held her legs together for over an hour waiting for the doctor to get there. The baby was born with mental and physical disabilites which are consistent with oxygen deprivation. She couldnt walk but for a couple of steps so she is in a wheelchair. Her speech is slow, she has tantrums and cant dress or care for herself. She has lived a long life and is deeply loved. She is in her 70's now and back then, nurses indeed did hold back the births until the doctor arrived, clearly not all of them but it did happen.
Oh my God, what shit is this?
How 😢😢😢. Nowadays the babies coming whether the doctor is there or not. Nurses take care of everything!
I think the narrator is naive if he believes this doesn’t happen. My mother, a nurse, reported a doctor for doing the same thing. The doctor had promised the patient an epidural, but by the time he reached the hospital the baby was ready to be born. Instead of delivering the baby he gave the woman a saddle block and held the baby until it took affect. The baby died. The Doctor was drunk. These disgusting things do indeed happen.
How could her mother and father allow that to happen to their Beautiful daughter. Shame on them..😢
@@sheonaphee91 they saw her as an embarrassment rather than a beautiful girl they brought into this world. I can't understand how any parent could view their child as an embarrassment
I’ve heard that holding a baby back until the doctor arrives happened more than you know. Just 18 years ago when I was with my daughter when she was in labor, they were trying to make her hold off until the doctor arrived & I told them it was time & she couldn’t. A midwife delivered her baby instead of the doctor where I watched her pull in the cord afterwards. I told her to wait until my daughter had a contraction to push. A week later my daughter hemorrhaged & when I asked the doctor if it was caused by her pulling on the cord, he said yes. A lot can happen & if there is no one to stop things from happening, then you are at their mercy.
I took emergency childbirth training when I was a firefighter/first responder. We were taught that we are NOT allowed to intervene if there is a complication (like, perform a cesarean, or reach in to unwind the cord) but rather to get mom on all fours to attempt to delay birth until the paramedics arrive... As a mother, I looked at the instructor and said, "you can't stop delivery, are you insane? It's not a process that can be controlled, I know!" Several others there who'd experienced childbirth (including fathers who were present as their children were being born) agreed, and also agreed that we should be learning how to assess and deal with complications instead, rather than saying, "don't push!"
I knew a friend in 1966 that something similar happened! It was a nurse who made her “keep her legs tightly closed” when it was inconvenient without the doctor’s presence! No untoward effects happened but this was unconscionable!! I was a labor and delivery nurse 20 years later and delivered 3 babies myself when the doctor couldn’t get there in time! This story is so very sad!!
Celebrate!! You are a heroine!
Thank you for doing what you knew to be right for both the baby and mother. You were a blessing to mothers and babies. Thank you!🥰
Wow this is so shocking my sister was delivered by the nurses and the sister at our hospital in 1965 because the doctor had gone to a meeting or home for lunch and there was no stopping the delivery because he wasn't there
@@tinawestergaard2130 Thank God for the nurses and the sister!
This is heartbreaking, I can’t imagine a labotomy with just a local anaesthetic. It’s torture ❤
The brain has no sensory nerve endings, but the bone at the top of the eye certainly does!
I can’t see ANY reason for a lobotomy EVER how sick!!
@professorgraemeyorston you know, my neuro surgeon told me that before my first brain surgery and told me there wouldn't be a lot of pain involved. I'm going in for my 3rd brain surgery on the 7th and I don't know who TF tells doctors that, but they need to quit. I gave birth to my 5 children completely unmedicated and natural. I don't shy away from pain. In fact, I kinda like it 😅 and childbirth is NOTHING compared to the pain involved with it.
@@proudmilitarybrat76 You should maybe speak up about this to the docs. There are sedation methods that can be turned up or down, so they could wake you once they are inside the brain. That's the part that doesn't hurt (or shouldn't; ymmv I suppose). They need you awake so they can make sure they aren't cutting into something important. Your case is not something you should have to suffer through. We have very good pain control drugs these days.
@@incognitotorpedo42 yep. We have very good pain medication these days and we're in the middle of a drug epidemic. Although I have never had a drug addiction problem, been treated for an addiction of any sort, or tested positive for anything illegal, after my last surgery in 2019 I was sent home after 72 hours without pain medication because "brain surgery doesn't hurt". I smoke weed now. 😅
I BELIEVE SHE WAS MEDICALLY HARMED TO KEEP QUIET.....SHE KNEW WHAT THE FAMILY WAS DOING 😡😡🤬
It was a pity that Rosemary was among a family that was so highly competative, even on holiday. Imagine how confused she must have felt.
God Bless you, Rosemary and thank you, Professor Yorston for your kind and sensitive video.
It was because of Rosemary and because of that “competitiveness” that some good came out of it.
Rosemary’s sister Eunice started a camp in the 1960’s for those with “intellectual disabilities”, it evolved into what we call The Special Olympics today.
What a horrible story. This poor woman suffered so much. My 3 year old grandson died after a anoxic brain injury. He was the light of my life. He had the best medical care. We loved him more than life itself and he is forever in our hearts. . 💝💕
may he rest in peace
So sorry
Ok
This happened to my husband's great aunt, Ruth.
No one knew about Ruth until she passed away. Then the family was told.
Too late for anyone to know her. Ruth was never visited by her family that knew where she was.
The rest of the family never knew or was given the chance to know her.
It was said to my husband that Ruth lost the ability to speak or to communicate in any way. Basically, she was in a vegetative state.
😢😪😢
Thank for sharing such a terrible story.
Also, what I have read and what is apparently well known is that when Rosemary finally saw her mother after all the years she was away, the first thing she did was attack her. I believe she remembered fully being abandoned. Even in her lobotomized state. I mean, while wouldn’t?
Interesting, I hadn't heard that before.
I read that the first thing her mother worried about was that she was fat.
My mother also experienced this horrific practice of holding a laboring mother’s legs tightly together until the delivering MD arrived. It seemed nurses were more afraid of an angry doctor (who might not collect payment) than of hurting patients.
I can believe that the nurses delayed her deliver. I was born in 1959 and the nurses crossed my mother’s legs to delay my delivery. They did this because the doctor was attending a New Year’s party and they were trying to give him time to get there for the delivery. Luckily it didn’t seem to cause me any harm.
You were fortunate.
The Drs would get mad if they missed the delivery as their pay could be withheld.
Must have been an angel at your mom's side!
9:36 @@delmariecrandall9229
11:54
The birth story of rose is exactly what the nurse did to my uncle and he was starved of oxygen as well, he's on the autism spectrum now and cannot live on his own. He was born in 1956.
God that's awful. Does he have caregivers, etc.?
Sick.
There was also the Thalidomide epidemic in the 50's and 60's; remember that medical fiasco for mothers and babies?
This story has broken my heart.
My grandmother had a similar experience the baby did not survive.
I am heartbroken by this story. I had no idea of Rosemary's life or the utter cruelty and disregard for her as a human being. She seemed like a lovely young lady who wished to be treated equally by her parents but missed out on all the blessings her siblings were given. How sad for this beautiful child to have to endure the ignorance and pride of her parents and so-called professionals. 💔
So hard to think about. My son had essentially all her symptoms except the intellectual shortcomings as a little. In today’s language he is “on the spectrum, severe ADHD.” But now, at 15 with none of Rosemary’s social and family hardships, he is happy, flourishing and such a good kid. I think you could make an argument that they murdered her- killing her brain and paying someone else to deal with what was left. She could have had a good life.
She could have have a fantastic life, but not the one that Joe wanted her to have!
ADHD is NOT caused by birth trauma and or oxygen deprivation.
@@laara1426 They don't know what causes ADHD. Anything is possible.
@LK-en8cu And you are a mental health professional that specializes in neurodiversity? I think not.
@@laara1426in the beginning, the narrator mentioned he thinks that story might have been a lie to cover up it being linked to genetics. Can't have their perfect family looking not so perfect
I have a 22 year old sibling that had birth circumstances like this. Mom was told not to push and the nurse tried to shove him back in. He is disabled and had epileptic seizures when he was younger, which often rolled back any developmental progress he was making at the time. Our case seems to be more recent than the ones I'm seeing in the comments which leads me to believe this is likely still happening. Nurses need to be specifically trained not to do this type of shit. It needs to be impressed upon them how damaging this is. I don't think it's safe for us to assume this has changed / improved on its own, at least not enough to prevent it happening again.
Thankfully nurses are coming into a time where they are regarded as skilled clinicians in their own right, not just the person who carries out the doctor's orders. As for OB/GYNs, the ob I used to work for paid over 100k in malpractice insurance (that was HIS part) yearly. If these stories are true- they should have made them pay more than that...
Why do that?
sounds like it was grade ii dystocia (a stuck shoulder on the way out) The Hibbard technique involves pushing the baby back in, then fundal pressure is applied to rotate the babys shoulder to dislodge it
I didn’t know this, bless her soul. They should have left her in England
@@blueshibaicomon now doctors do trans operation on kids dont take medics serious they r clowns
This also happened to me. My son will be 39 years old this month. I recall to this day, the nurses in Labor and Delivery telling me not to push. It was extremely difficult to not push and at times had become excruciating. The nurses were telling me I wasn’t dilated enough, not realizing my OB/GYN hadn’t yet come to the hospital. Apparently they were waiting for my OB/GYN to arrive to proceed. It wasn’t until years later when my son told me he suspected something wasn’t quite right, mentally. He was diagnosed with Asbergers years ago, as an adult. When he was a young boy, my former husband and I were told he was “shy”, never realizing it could be something neurological. Sadly, this has resulted in my son’s divorce due to his lack of communication skills. 😢😢
Didn't know traumatic birth resulted in Asperger's That's awful what happened to your son. I'm sorry that happened. Those nurses should have delivered him straight away. To hell with the doctor if he got pissed and didn't get paid.
@@videoluvver1Thank you so much for your empathy. Much appreciated. 🙏
❤❤
@@DemelzaBoing ❤️🙏
@@judym216 ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Rosemary was taken by her father UKNOWN TO ROSE out of state for a lobotomy. His reasoning was that he believed Rosemary would harm others in the family. As she had aged, Rosemary saw that she was different. She saw her siblings having lives she couldn't. Rose Kennedy was livid and heartbroken.
Now there is the truth. Lady from Massachusetts.
What terrible things were done to patients before the advent of modern psychiatric medications! 💊 😅
The antidepressants and mood stabilizers we have today are very helpful. 😊
@@ThanaBrunges-mx7jiYes instead of exercising a healthy diet and therapy?
I found the story of Rosemary Kennedy interesting and sad. Unfortunately for her, she was unable to stay in Britain where she was happiest. Thank you for telling this story.
One wonders what kind of life she would have led if she had been allowed to stay.
I think at that time her parents thought that could be a cure they did their best as they thought
@professorgraemeyorston She was the daughter of the US Ambassador. Not a British citizen. It was WW2. British children were being sent to the US and Canada to keep them out of harms way. She would not have been allowed to stay nor would her family have left her there!
As for her Father or siblings being ashamed of her that is not the case. Easy to speculate when all the players are dead and unable to defend themselves.
She went to social events with her sisters and brothers. It's well documented. They were not ashamed of her. They watched out for her.
Sadly her condition worsened. Violent episodes and wandering the streets at night would make any Father seek help. What parent wants their daughter being used and abused? You think he was selfish to be afraid for her? How many schools did you name? They tried and she was removed from them. It was sad and I'm sure heartbreaking. After years of struggles he took a chance. It might have helped.
Almost 80 years ago. There are incredible medical advance no one could have dreamed of..It has always seemed to me that he did not agree to try the lobotomy until other avenues were exhausted. It might have worked.
Even today there is no "cure" for mental illness. Nothing is promised. Nothing is guaranteed. We have not come very far. We only know lobotomy is a failure because some people tried it.
As far as suggesting Mrs. Kennedy did not spend much time with her due to her lack of notes. Rose Kennedy was going to leave NO mention of anything disparaging about her children.Im sure.Mr. Kennedy never recovered from what happened.I had always heard it was solely his decision, made without her knowledge.
Your article is very interesting. No need to cast stones. It was a different time.
This is so sad, I do remember my mother telling me about Rosemary and what her father had done to her. My mother had epilepsy and had such empathy for Rosemary. She was a beautiful woman and wanted to be able to do what her siblings did. She never had any say about where she was to live, I think her father and mother were ashamed of her. I'm glad her siblings brought her back to the family. Thank you for sharing this story
Kennedy Sr was too busy with his many mistresses to actually care about one daughter. In his eyes, the lobotomy may have been a success since Rosemary no longer lashed out or caused further embarrassment to the family. He wanted her docile and under control. He got that and some. By placing her in an institution, she was exactly where he wanted her - locked up and out of the way. This man had no scruples or morals. His poor wife didn’t even know until after it had been done. That alone shows how much he cared or wanted her input. Everything was about appearances.
That's my sense of him too, there really is very little out there that paints him in even a remotely positive light.
That old man is in his eternity now. Wonder where That is!!
They sound like a narcissistic family.
@@blossom1643 in one of innumerable Kennedy family biographies I've read, the author wrote of the old man's being driven crazy by the frequently eerie sounds made by the Cape Cod winds which frequently battered the house.
A parent can abuse the child so badly emotionally in the formative years that a child can actually become mute. People should really read up about how narcissistic abuse can absolutely destroy a child and that’s what I think happened in this case.
A college friend volunteered at Ste. Colletta's in the early 1970's. Her interactions with this unfortunate woman were limited, but she said that Rosemary loved banging on the piano for long periods and that, other than gently trying to distract her, the staff let her do whatever she wanted.
I am a home care nurse. I care mostly for pediatric patients with cerebral palsy occurring during childbirth. Many because of delayed C-section or delayed birth. When I was giving birth to my third child the doctor was at the office and had to be called. The doctor knew I was very close and this was my third child which is often a quick delivery. The nurse told me don’t push, hold on. She said they could deliver the baby but that it was a lot of “legal issues and documentation they didn’t like to deal with”, half-joking. The doctor literally sat down and with one push I delivered. Years down the road, more aware, I see the results of these situations where the baby sits in the birth canal, possibly without oxygen.
If that baby is coming push and let the nurse deliver rather than birth a child who suffers the consequences of a doctor too busy to be there. All the staff to care for them and you are there. The doctor does very little. They can assess after the birth. It’s a danger to you and the baby.
In the United States labor and delivery deaths are on the rise for both mother and child. Far greater than any other so called “first world country”. There are many reasons and this is just one.
Help! I got stuck taking care of my invalid gramma. She went to therapy at a home for 2 months, came out worse.
How can US doctors and nurses STILL not recognize the dangers of forcing a baby to stay in the birth canal??? I am shocked to see all these horror stories in the comments, some who gave birth fairly recently!! Do medical staff in any other countries tell mothers to cross their legs while the nurse holds the baby in??
@@thereisnosanctuary6184I am not sure how I can help with that. I do my best to care for my patients.
@@Adelicows I am very curious as well. Like I said as a young mother I didn’t know any better but as a nurse now I know it is truly unethical but a standard practice in America.
So this still goes on now, that women get told not to push and that babies get pushed back into the birth canal? Oh good grief!
Thank you. As an RN, I found this immensely interesting. To me, the family found her "slowness" embarrassing and kept her hidden away because they felt she would get in the way of their political achievements.
Well they are democrates
@gwenthennis5893 ...I don't even think about what political party folks are in. I live in Toronto Canada 🇨🇦
Or sneak off and get pregnant! The last straw.
@@lindamae100thats how ppl in America decide if a story is good or bad! If this was a Rep presidents daughter this same person would’ve made excuses for the parents! USA is VERY VERY sick nowadays!!! So sick I’m literally thinking of begging another country for asylum!! When ppl can’t agree that this is a tragic story PERIOD regardless of political party there’s a big problem! Ppl also don’t think about how very differently things like learning disabilities depression seizures etc were looked at & treated back then! Point is this has ZERO to do with politics….it’s a human story but nowadays there is always someone willing to make it political!!
@LynetteA68 very different from Canadian politics. Thank goodness
So sad, she seemed just perfectly lovely and capable of having a great life in the right setting, how devastating to take it all away from her
My mother used to clean rich people's houses, before that banks, and we once cleaned every building of Southbury Training School in CT, cleaned up after construction crews like, fixed up each building. My mom got a couple grand a pop, and we (just her and us kids) were able to do them in a day.
Wild thing was, this was the early 90s, and still there were mentally ill, highly sedated or like, lobotomized people who would be sitting in one spot outside, rocking back and forth at 7am... Then, when we were heading out at 7pm, they'd still be sitting, rocking, alone in the same spot.
Also, so many wandered into the buildings as we were there, just unsupervised, wandering into potentially dangerous areas with zero supervision
As a young kid, I often accompanied my mother to Napa State Hospital (Imola) where she was a psychiatric nurse. At that time, her assignment was caring for lobotomized people who were living in one of the doctor's mansions, which had been turned into a ward.
I remember getting ice cream and other small items they could ask for. Most were very sweet, but overall, they were the walking dead. No emotion, no joy or unhappiness, just existence. This was about sixty years ago. Many of these folks had been lobotomized during a time when psychotropic drugs such as thorazine and other anti-psychotic drugs were not yet available, and shock treatment had already been tried.
This is not to say that all of these patients had suffered from schizophrenia. Some had been chronically anxious or depressed, perhaps violent with behavioral seizures. There was no way to know who or what these people had been at one time.
It was a very melancholy and sad place. I've never forgotten these tragic individuals.
I have seen a few people who were lobotomised but mercifully few.
I think the reason Rosemary became suddenly more upset and had more frequent meltdowns had a lot to do with the change in environment. She very much enjoyed the Assumption school in England, where she gained confidence and a sense of capability. There are references in her mother's papers to a belief that Rosemary would never really contribute anything to her family or society, and her father often let her know when he was displeased with her. I am fairly certain that she would have felt all of this very deeply. When she came back to the states and to her family, she was pushed right back into a competitive environment where she never seemed to win, under the constant scrutiny of a mother who did not believe in her (and who was endlessly critical of her appearance) and a father who had no problem with telling her everything she was doing wrong. The stress and feeling of confinement when she could see her younger siblings gaining more independence had to be intensely frustrating.
I agree, I think she would have been much happier if she had stayed in England, and old Joe was wrong about the British not being able to stand up to the German war machine!
I think she was dealing with hormones and puberty and like most teenage girls, she dealt with moodiness that comes along with menstruation. She couldn't express what she was dealing with, so she had outbursts of frustration.
@@professorgraemeyorstonexactly what I said. I didn't like the Kennedy's, always seemed too big headed. They were cheats, liars and this on top... well.
I believe she had CPTSD from the trauma of the treatment given to her by her parents and family. She was totally misdiagnosed and the result was the cruelty, her father bestowed on her. I absolutely believe they were afraid that she would tell people about what was going on in that family and they did this to silence her. She was uncontrollable in their eyes.
@@thirstonhowellthebird PTSD as a diagnosis didn't exist back then. CPTSD is a fairly recent diagnosis. It's somewhat unfair to say that they were misdiagnosing her when the condition that she might have been diagnosed with in today's world didn't even exist yet.
It happened!! My mother worked at a Catholic hospital as a CNA ... She told us how the nuns would hold legs together until the doctor got there. He'd be mad if not. Mom was sad when talking about it cause she knew it was wrong.
I had a nurse try to tell me to hold my son in when ready to deliver because the doctor was busy with another birth. I have read of this happening to other women and babies dying. I refused to hold my child in and the nurse went screaming for the doctor. This was in 1976.
Your nurse was an idiot. I was a labor and delivery nurse for 40 years and delivered several babies myself. Pushing is a normal reflex when the head is crowning and it’s impossible to stop a woman who needs to push. Sometimes doctors missed a delivery if they didn’t hurry when called to come. The babies I delivered were fine.
It's insane I really can’t believe they used to do this it’s scary. They had to push me in a bit but I was trying to choke myself on the umbilical cord at birth so that’s a bit different, I was a tad wee blue but I think I’m okayish.
GOOD FOR YOU!!!
My aunt who was a nurse in the 40's and 50's told me about how the doctors would require the nurses to hold the baby from birth until they got there so the doctor could get credit.
Shocking!
Ego.
And get paid…
Malpractice! 😢
This and the case of Frances Farmer when I was a kid made me terrified of the psychiatric butchering system and I knew they were absolutely untrustworthy, something they’ve proved again and again. The psychiatric industry likes to claim it is *scientific* but it’s absolutely NOT a science, it’s a mechanism for ‘normalisation’ and the demonisation of anyone ‘different’.
This beautiful individual was butchered by a system that at its heart *loathes and punishes* individuals for being different or neurodivergent, even today- *pharmacological* lobotomies are the flavour de jeure now, much less confronting than dicing someone’s brain.
I would disagree (in spite of Joe Kennedy Jr's approval of Hitler's program of murdering people with disabilities). In the first half of the 20th century there were certainly widespread beliefs that "defectives" were a blight on society and also bred more "defectives"; many people also believed that children with disabiilties were proof of evil or immoral behavior in their parents (and in particular the assumption venereal diseases like syphilis were probably behind it). Most of the people who were and are drawn to psychology and psychiatry, care about their patients, and often they are people who have experienced mental illness in their loved ones. But there are always those who are also driven by ego and financial greed. With so little available in medical treatments (phenobarbitol is no longer used to treat epilepsy, but was commonly given to children with seizures through the 1990s until it was finally agreed to be useless for seizures and detrimental in terms of learning) so much of what was done in the past seems barbaric to us now, but that's true for many if not most medical conditions. Henrietta Lacks (whose ovarian cancer resulted in the first successful human tissue cultures) had radium rods shoved up her vagina and remain there for days (maybe it was weeks), suffering horrible radiation injuries. That was in the 1950s. In the 1970s cancer was often diagnosed through exploratory surgery--opening up the entire abdomen to see what was inside, because we didn't have the imaging we have now (it was common to hear "they opened her up and there was cancer everywhere" and that is how my uncle's pancreatic cancer was found in 1973.
People with severe chronic mental illness may absolutely need psych meds, but those never cure the illness, they only make their lives less catastrophic, especially for people with schizophrenia or severe bipolar disease, but at the cost of sedating effects and mental dulling (one reason why they stop taking them).
This is horrific and as a Clinician I'm appalled by this story and what happened to her.
Im 60 and every day I learn another crumb about human nature & our society at large. What I am learning every single day leaves me breathless with sadness & outrage
People that have traumatic brain injuries have a lot of rage and can get really infuriated extremely easily. No wonder she was full of anger, they messed with her brain 🤦🏼♀️
Yes, and there are many people with undiagnosed TBI (or concussions) that cause uncontrollable anger. It can be a root cause of domestic violence.
My mother-in-law endured this birth procedure in 1947, because the doctor was delayed. My sister in-law grew up with very similar mental deficiencies. She is a very sweet person.
So many people have said the same thing - I clearly underestimated how common such dangerous practice was.
@@professorgraemeyorston What is your research into birthing procedures in the 1960s and 1970s in hospitals in Britain? It was common practice to induce women to fit in around the benefit of the Doctors ie women were not induced on a Friday.
@@professorgraemeyorstonmy partner's mother said she was given twilight and tied down for both births in the mid seventies. According to Wikipedia that practice was done by the fifties. South GA US
My mother gave birth to me during the New York blackout in 1965. The doctor was delayed and therefore the nurses were present for my birth. When the doctor arrived 2 hours after I was born, he announced, "I'm here!" My mother replied, "You're late, the baby's already been born and I'm not paying you!" That story still cracks me up.
@@MarkSentMe LOL YOU MADE ME LAUGH, I LOVE THIS! R-E-V-E-N-G-E!!!
What an incredibly sad story. As someone who has suffered depression and anxiety from when i was a child, it's atill difficult to explain it to others and have them understand but my heart goes out to anyone who suffered from these conditions back then. Poor girl.
It seems the silent underbelly of society decades ago actually didn't acknowledge the sanctity of the newborns and children altogether. They were expected and goaded into behaving in ways that would be approved culturally. I was born in '41, grew up an only child and have had to acknowledge some kind of emotional deficit since a breakdown in the late '70s. There was no real reciprocity in the family, very quiet, intimidating. The harshness and cruelty of Rosemary's generation are still sores in many of us, seems daily new awareness of it arises, very sad and confusing.
What a heartbreaking story. I wish she could have stayed at the Montessori school.😢
I think she would have had a long and happy life is she had.
Thank you for focusing on her dignity. This was a real person. Few actions are more cruel than those which strip a person of that dignity.