So, I was considering how someone whom doesn't clearly see the world in a proper way would see about parenting. The story I am building is about a father who kills other parents if he feels that they are threatening his child, usually the voices in the head drives this home. He is known to suffer from delusions and hallucinations, described as paranoid and suspicious of others. Most of his kills are either to protect his child or to survive like an animal in the wild, often times he'll take baby food, and diapers even toys sometimes for his child. But where I am trying to get at is, how his delusions manifest as parenting? How would his delusions affect and manifest a parenting style of primal protection?
He sounds like some people I knew when I was coaching youth soccer. You don't say how old the child is, but if he's taking baby food and diapers, that suggests the child is very young. I mention this because when a child is an infant, although he is at his most vulnerable, he would rarely appear to be in the kind of danger that would provoke violent action, unless possibly a stroller was inadvertently bumped in public or something. I would think the opportunities for perceived threats would occur as the child grows older, becomes of school age. Then, I would think that his delusions would manifest themselves by trying to make sure the child got the best of everything, was protected in school (so, paranoia about bullies would be off the charts); he would demand the best grades from teachers and would chafe at any demands made by teachers on his child. At the same time, the demands that HE made on his own child would likely be off the charts. I would expect him to seek to insulate the child from anyone outside - no friends, no normal activities (other than anything tightly controlled by him, and again, with horrific demands placed on the child). Interesting idea.
It's part of his schizophrenic paranoia. I only ever am able to explain it in excerpts "The voices inside were reverb in the catacombs a labyrinth of his mind. To him most of the time they would whisper inaudibly, but he could feel the words. His mind never seizing a constant eb and flow of voices. They spoke and told him to not trust the woman, they made him see that she was watching Eden. They said not to trust. There was a blur inside the fine line that he couldn't find in the lost ripples in the back of his mind, the line between reality and fantasy. He would be ever so vigilant to make sure she wouldn't harm Eden becuase that's what they told him to do."
It is an interesting idea. Why voices? Why not unreliable narrator , even first person, use dialogue maybe as a counter to his thoughts. Much insanity in junior sports coacing I used to be 'assistant assistant' rugby coach; fraught touchline dynamics, motley crowd of Dads, the bullet-head psycho head trainer and her husband - the 'team achieve.' Never written about it
