Rosemary Kennedy: The Forgotten Kennedy Tragedy

The life of Rose­mary Kennedy, the eldest sis­ter of Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy, is a trag­ic and often over­looked chap­ter in the Kennedy fam­i­ly his­to­ry. 

Rosemary’s life has been over­shad­owed by her brother’s fame and sig­nif­i­cant accom­plish­ments and the fact she was con­sid­ered the “prob­lem child” of the fam­i­ly. 

Her parent’s efforts to “fix” her ulti­mate­ly led to a trag­ic out­come and her becom­ing the family’s secret shame. 

Rosemary Kennedy’s Birth Complications

Rose­mary was the third child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy and appeared at first as a healthy baby. 

How­ev­er, as she grew old­er, it became appar­ent that she was devel­op­ing dif­fer­ent­ly than her sib­lings. She had dif­fi­cul­ty with lan­guage and was prone to out­bursts and aggres­sive behav­ior, which caused con­cern for her par­ents.

Rose­mary may have suf­fered from a birth com­pli­ca­tion known as a hypox­ic-ischemic injury, which occurs when the brain doesn’t receive enough oxy­gen dur­ing the birthing process. This injury can lead to devel­op­men­tal delays and behav­ioral issues, which may have con­tributed to Rosemary’s strug­gles.

Anoth­er the­o­ry that some experts also sup­port is that Rose­mary suf­fered from con­gen­i­tal hyper­biliru­bine­mia, a genet­ic dis­or­der that caus­es high lev­els of biliru­bin in the blood, lead­ing to jaun­dice. 

This con­di­tion can cause brain dam­age, which could have been the cause of Rosemary’s con­di­tion.

It is sug­gest­ed that Rosemary’s birth com­pli­ca­tions may have been caused by a nurse instruct­ing her moth­er, Rose Kennedy, to tight­en her legs and push her back dur­ing deliv­ery

This posi­tion, known as the “Knee-Chest” posi­tion, can increase the chances of cord com­pres­sion dur­ing deliv­ery, lead­ing to oxy­gen depri­va­tion in the baby.

Attempts to Treat Rosemary Kenndy

Rosemary’s con­di­tion was appar­ent from a young age, and her par­ents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy strug­gled to find ways to help her. 

They enrolled Rose­mary in var­i­ous schools and pro­grams. She attend­ed a spe­cial school for chil­dren with devel­op­men­tal delays, but her behav­ior con­tin­ued to be a prob­lem, and she was often expelled or asked to leave.

The Kennedy fam­i­ly also sought out help from var­i­ous doc­tors and spe­cial­ists, but their rec­om­men­da­tions were often con­flict­ing and inef­fec­tive. 

Some doc­tors sug­gest­ed that Rosemary’s con­di­tion was due to a lack of dis­ci­pline and rec­om­mend­ed strict behav­ioral ther­a­py, while oth­ers sug­gest­ed that her issues were more severe and rec­om­mend­ed insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion.

Despite these attempts to help, Rosemary’s con­di­tion wors­ened, and her father, Joseph Kennedy, believed that her issues were a reflec­tion of his own fail­ures as a par­ent. As a result, he became increas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed with her behav­ior and the lack of progress in her treat­ment. 

This led him to make the fate­ful deci­sion to arrange for her to under­go a lobot­o­my, a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that would change her life for­ev­er.

The Lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy

To “cure” her, Rosemary’s father orga­nized a lobot­o­my. This con­tro­ver­sial sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure involved cut­ting into the brain to change behav­ior. 

The lobot­o­my was per­formed in 1941 when Rose­mary was 23 years old by Dr. Wal­ter Free­man, one of the most promi­nent lobot­o­mists in the Unit­ed States at the time.

The idea behind the pro­ce­dure was that by cut­ting these con­nec­tions between the frontal lobes and the oth­er brain sec­tions, the individual’s prob­lem­at­ic behav­ior would be “cured.” 

The pro­ce­dure was often used to treat indi­vid­u­als with schiz­o­phre­nia, depres­sion, and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, despite the lack of sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence to sup­port its effec­tive­ness

Pressure on the Kennedy family

The pres­sure placed on the Kennedy fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chil­dren, to uphold a cer­tain image and rep­u­ta­tion was immense. The fam­i­ly pri­or­i­tized their rep­u­ta­tion and polit­i­cal aspi­ra­tions over the well-being of the indi­vid­ual fam­i­ly mem­bers. 

Joseph Kennedy, Rosemary’s father, had polit­i­cal aspi­ra­tions for his chil­dren, and he believed that Rosemary’s behav­ioral issues were a reflec­tion of his own fail­ures as a par­ent.

The Kennedy Fam­i­ly at Hyan­nis Port, 1931.

This pres­sure also impact­ed the oth­er Kennedy chil­dren, who were expect­ed to be suc­cess­ful and accom­plished and not show any signs of weak­ness or vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. 

John F. Kennedy suf­fered numer­ous health con­di­tions through­out his life and was under con­stant pres­sure to con­ceal them, as they were seen as detri­men­tal to his polit­i­cal career.