For all those calling her a terrible mother

the fact that she stuck around and allowed her loving daughter to be exposed to such malignance and cruelty and danger was the worst part of her parenting, not the best.

Even Eva knew she was a bad mother lol, that's why she stuck around for the aftermath, she felt she deserved the backlash as much as Kevin.

Of course she didn't leave the drain cleaner out, that was Kevin who did that to Celia. Eva also caught Kevin hurting Celia before and taunting her in a very disturbing way yet she left him alone with her. She was an extremely neglectful mother. Doesn't mean she didn't love Celia or wasn't "used" to Kevin. She was by all accounts, a very bad mother.

Franklin, you're spot on. He was oblivious to it all but that's because Eva wasn't a strong enough or caring enough mother to get Kevin some real help or caring. When he was a colicy baby, why didn't she get a nanny for the night time so she could get some sleep, surely they could afford it. She held Kevin away from her instead of closer, this is what set off a chain reaction of disconnection with them. It was sort of like a what came first the chicken or the egg with them two, then I realized, it was her actions that set his actions in motion. Most sociopaths derive from poor parenting and we all witnessed Eva be an extremely poor parent to Kevin early on and then break his arm. His father was just someone who would rather ignore it and pretend it never happened so he could go off to work, make a lot of money and pretend they lived a happy life.

Eva and Celia, well let's face it, Eva was a working woman out of the house by then. She had her own business, she wrote a book and was a pretty big deal as an author. Everything she wanted when Kevin was a baby but didn't have and blamed him for being born. Remember her comment "mommy has to wake up to you everyday when she'd rather wake up in France!" (or something like that). You never heard her say that to Celia. She was fulfilled in her life by the time Celia came along. She no longer had to be the caretaker for Kevin, she had Kevin to watch Celia (or torture her) and she went off to be around adults and do her thing, which was not be a mother.

Franklin didn't show favoritism in the movie towards either child, he just couldn't believe Kevin was the one who did it with the drain cleaner, but when Eva convinced him it was he was ready to send Kevin away and that's when Kevin put his plan in motion to kill the students.

Eva was a horrible mother, Kevin developed into a sociopath, in the end he let her live to be there for him and she was. She was brave and stayed for him and he became a scared little child after what he did when he was going up to the big house. They learned to love one another not just be "used" to one another.....unfortunately at the cost of other children's lives. This is what I got from the movie.

Joon: "you're out of your tree" Sam: "it's not my tree"

She WAS a terrible mother. That doesn't mean that she couldn't be a good mother. She didn't want to be pregnant with Kevin, that was clear during her pregnancy. She wasn't ready to be a mother. She never connected with Kevin, he felt it, and never connected with her or anybody. I believe the mom and Kevin had a mental illness connection, Kevin's issues were more extreme. By the time the daughter came around she was more ready to be a nurturing mother. It came a little more natural this time around. It also helped that there apparently wasn't a mental issue with the little girl. Kevin wasn't a demon because his mom sucked at parenting (though that played a part) he inherited her mental illness x10.

She was an absolutely horrendous mother. Just because you treat your second child like an angel doesn't forgive the horrendous way you treated the first child.

She had clear psychological problems and that made her a terrible mother. The father was an oblivious fool who should have noticed the psychological problems of both the mother and the child