Anyone who really cares for those kids and has time and heart to spare for caring for them, would do better to not wait to take possession of them, (which by the way sounds a bit like a vulture to me) but should give something to help them right now without expecting or demanding anything in return except maybe gratitude or recognition. IF it is really about those poor children. The judgment on the mother’s questionable judgment and ethics is irrelevant to what is truly best for her children. The best thing for the kids IMO should always be to keep kids with their real family unless they are truly unwanted or there is irreconciliable unfitness. You can’t take away someone’s kids as a moral judgment. There is a reason adopted kids usually grow up to at least fantasize about finding their real family which is that treating kids as things that can just be moved around and replanted here or there is very harmful to a kid’s developing sense of identity. Kids should only be taken away from their real biological family when they are not wanted or when it’s in the kids’ best interests. This woman has bad judgment, but the kids are still better off with her. It is true that she is going to need support, as she obviously does not have the maturity (let alone the money) to raise kids unassisted. I also feel it’s very important that this does not set some new standard of what is ok. The mother’s behavior is not OK. The point is, that’s a separate issue. It is a tragedy that should not have been allowed to exist, but now that it is here, the fact is - they are a family now, and one should not be casual about breaking up other peoples’ families. If the woman warrants punishment, then punish her, but don’t pretend that’s what’s best for the kids. What is best for the kids is an outpouring of charity similar to what other multiple birth moms have enjoyed receiving!

I understand there are significant differences between domestic violence vs. honor killings: 1. when: at a specific point in a cycle of loss of self-control or premeditated and planned rationally. 2. who: honor killings are often done by multiple family members. Husbands, fathers, brothers, even cousins may be assisted by mothers, aunts, and sisters (who may hold down the body or help with a kidnapping). The entire family may rise against the woman or girl. In ordinary domestic violence, the victim is usually a wife, sometimes a husband. Parents sometimes murder children. In honor killings, the victim is pretty much always either a wife or a teenage daughter, and the cause is because she’s trying to break away from a toxic culture. 3. why it happened: “I lost control”, “I was just so angry” - the probable “cure” for domestic violence would involve getting all the future perpetrators into cognitive behavioral therapy (“anger management” type skill training) early in the ‘cycle of abuse’. It happens because they came from an abusive background themselves and it’s all they know. DV perpetrators will usually show remorse, say they didn’t mean for things to get so out of control, often expressing some sense of the violence having occurred as a result of trying to restore or maintain an attachment that we see (but they do not necessarily see) as unhealthy. Honor killings are done to restore honor to a family that uses rhetoric of having been “shamed” and views the honor killing as making things “better”. 4. how the community treats the perpetrators: domestic violence murderers are shunned and ostricized. But in communities where honor killings are practiced, the murderers are defended. To refuse to do an honor killing is cowardly. 5. how the community treats the victims: most domestic violence victims can run for help without expecting the entire neighborhood to side with the murderous family. Honor killing victims must hide from the whole community (meaning demographic, not necessarily geographic, community, at least in New York) since ultimately honor killing is about upholding community norms.