Review of Rabies Mom

Rabies Mom is the heart-wrenching tale of a father who, despite his consistent battle for custody of his children, had to watch his daughter Shannon die, at least in part because of the neglect of her custodial mother.

Pat Carroll met and married his wife Jeannine and had a great and passionate relationship until Jeannine, after the birth of their first baby, went from very serious post partum depression through alcohol and drug abuse and infidelity. They had six children together and as Jeannine spiraled downward, their marriage ended in divorce and Jeannine with the custody of the children.

Little Shannon was bitten by a bat while in her mother's care and as she became more and more ill, her mother finally sought medical treatment. Unfortunately, she did not tell the doctor that Shannon had been bitten by the bat, even when asked directly. By the time the real information came out, treatment regimens for rabies were too late and Shannon died.

As harrowing as the tale is, the greater injustice was the fight Pat Carroll experienced in trying to get custody of the remaining children through a family court system that nearly always gives deference to the mother, even in the face of such startlingly contrary evidence.

So many fathers I know can sympathize with the plight of Pat Carroll. Not to say that in times passed, the biases of the family court system were not well founded, but in so many recent cases, mothers have through their own choices made themselves unfit parents. Rabies Mom is in some ways a call to arms for the fathers' rights movement and for government agencies tasked to care for children.

While the prose in Rabies Mom is sometimes inflammatory and almost venomous, the passion of the author is understandable. Many lesser men would have given up the fight, but Pat Carroll was not such a father. And while one must admire his tenacity in fighting an uphill battle in the courts, one also feels great sympathy for the children in the middle. It is hard to understand how any mother could be so focused on herself that she comes to totally ignore and neglect her own offspring.

And should a possible reader be concerned about the objectivity of the book, co-author Jack McGowan is Jeannine's brother who watched with horror as his sister abandoned her responsibilities and sunk deeper and deeper into drugs, alcohol and sex, at the expense of her family.

Rabies Mom is a disturbing but powerful tale of the destruction of a family and the on-going battle of the family's father to redeem and protect his children. Any father in a similar situation should have his spine strengthened for the fight by reading Rabies Mom.