"No one can really come up with any stories about his life that don't make him sound like a total dick so they cut the testimonial part short" killed me.
I enjoyed this article a lot too. Another funny line:
"The summer before I turned 13, my father got pretty gnarly brain cancer and told me and my sister to fuck off, though he used the Christian phrasing. And then he survived brain cancer and lived another 19 years. So that was awkward."
And a poignant one:
"I was in utero when my mother left my father. Her one great moment of bravery was defying the Baptist church and walking out on her abusive husband with a two-year-old and a half-done bun in the oven. I think she relied so heavily on her backbone in that moment that she was never able to stand up for herself again."
No one owes an abusive person anything. Helping them to continue evil games isn't beneficial to anyone. Family should be held to at least the same standard as friends. As far as I'm concerned, anyone playing the family card gets minus three on the dice roll.
Rationally I'd have to agree, but emotionally is a whole other ballpark. You have to be able to have peace with yourself, to have done at least that which you yourself think is the absolute minimum to be a "good person" and look yourself in the eye when you stand in front of the mirror. It doesn't matter what the other person did; you have to find peace both with your own actions and with what has been done to you, which is very much a personal dilemma and balancing act.
Life is hard; she probably did the best she could when dealt a less than enviable hand early in life.
Not my usual reading material, but a good read nevertheless.
A friend of mine, now over 50, still struggles with his mother's rejection throughout his childhood. He and his siblings have confirmed stories of malice (bleeding after being beaten by his mother with a whip, euthanising a much loved pet out of spite, etc).
Despite enduring years of torment, he still seeks his mother's affection. She died a long time ago and he never came to terms with the loss or the lack of love or the malice his mother frequently demonstrated.
It leaves me with a feeling of deep sadness when I see how cruel some parents are to their own children. It also leaves me even sadder when excuses are made for some of these abusers (she must have suffered depression, poor woman).
Some needs are so deeply wired into us – like the need to be loved, especially by our parents – that no matter how hard we rationalise and fight our emotions, we will always want to fill that gap one way or another. It is especially heartbreaking in the case of abuse or otherwise failed parenting, because the one person who had to love and protect you unconditionally, didn't. Overcoming the "why" in that question is probably a lifelong struggle with(in) oneself.
Having said that, as someone who is both an atheist, and someone who has had family members killed by another person, I have had both the time, and the rare circumstance to think about this a lot.
I've become aware of the fact that we need to forgive, despite whatever has wronged us. This is the only possible way to prevent the cycle of hate breeding hate.
I know it sounds like a defeatist point of view, but it's actually a multi-generational view. It's also a view of acceptance, and one that holds that no matter what has been done to you, you will hold true to the tenet of forgiveness.
Possibly the most important thing for humans of the modern age to realize is that life deals you a random hand. Any actions that perpetuate this unfairness to the next generation or beyond are wrong, despite how right they may feel.
This is probably the only path that conscious evolution can take that doesn't continue the current cycle of hatred breeding hatred.
Sorry to sound like a hippy, but it took me over a decade to arrive at this conclusion after a whole lot of nasty stuff happening. Hopefully you will never need to go through that process, and will take my viewpoint as a valid piece of anecdata.
TL;DR: despite what other people do to you, it's in the best interests of humanity if you show forgiveness, but do all you can that it never happens to another person.
I've read a wikipedia article about gaming theories and robots that play games, and there was a fact: forgiving programs win. But overforgiving lose. Forgive randomly about 5-10%, that's enough to not enter 'hate cycle'. All others must be prosecuted.
As a generally calm person I think it is enough to just freeze your hate and forget about it until [maybe never happening] moment, when you'll bring revenge while losing nothing. Forgiveness is for you to go through it, not to let them go.
Yes, this is where the other shoe drops. We somehow need to trust that the "rules" our society has agreed on for punishment of breaking societal norms are adequate to prevent people from breaking the rules more than once.
We then enter into the realms of how to deal with perpetrators. Isolation vs. rehabilitation vs. eradication.
I prefer rehabilitation over isolation, and both over eradication.
This is one of the roles of government, and thus we enter a whole new world of discussion.
Forgiveness also allows you to let go of the hurt. If you hold on to the anger it feels like you're still being wronged but if you can find a way to forgive ( easier said than done ) it ends the matter.
People don't often deserve to be forgiven but the victim deserves to move on and through some weird irony of human psychology that often requires forgiving someone who has no right to be forgiven.
"There was also the reckoning that comes around that age when you realize two things: one, your parents are just people, and nobody is a saint and nobody is a sinner and everybody is somewhere in between."
Wow, reading this hurts me because it makes me feel so privileged in life for having the family I had. That phrase is a terrible rationalization of her situation.
Volunteering with kids that are drugs addicts or have other addictions, troublemakers that will enter a bank or shops to rob you always find a dysfunctional family: the father alcoholic, the mother with several lovers,or with psicological problems, beating the children because they hate them and never desire to have them, the kid alone all day.
You become a parent for them because they desperately need it. Some times the only thing they need is a reference in life.
I agree a parent that does not take care of his children should not expect to be taken care of as adult, but in European countries there are laws that force you to do it, a heavy burden.
That's from some searching on "Europe children taking care of parents law" and "Germany children taking care of parents law". I didn't try other variants for other countries.
> What exactly was my responsibility as a daughter? Is anyone so terrible that they deserve to die alone? And what would it say about me if I were willing to let that happen?
Maybe I just don't get it. The answers to these questions are obvious and straight-forward. I wouldn't think twice about my responsibility to a person who molested me, beat my mom, and then "fucked off", let alone spend 4,000 words bloviating about it.
To your kids you have a (time-limited) responsibility because you brought them into this world without their consent. Everybody else in your family who's toxic should be cut off and never thought of again. Jesus Christ, life is too short to bother.
I think one of the beautiful things about this story is that it actually describes two contrasting points of view on the matter, and one of them is in agreement with you.
The author spends far fewer words on her sister's perspective (who seems to share the same opinion you do), but I think talking about it less is kind of the whole point -- as you say, the answers are obvious and straight-forward, so there isn't much to go in to. The author herself tries to hold this perspective, but ultimately finds she has a different one. One that includes, among other things, the need to write this story even after "it is finished".
What exactly are you talking about? Supporting your underage children is a moral responsibility in my book. If you're talking about filial responsibility laws, then yea, you have a point; it's somewhere that I disagree with the law. But fortunately, due to federal medicare support, these laws are rarely enforced. For face-to-face meetings and everything else, shitty family members should be shunned. I wish more people would tell their abusers to take a hike.
I'm not entirely sure on the laws in the US but in Germany the law basically considers parents to be responsible for their children and as the parents and children get older, eventually the children become responsible for the parents. I'd imagine it's similar in other countries.
A lot of the time there isn't much or any consideration given in case of abusive relationships. Even though I think we both agree on the fact that in such a situation any ties both morally and legally should be severed.
Are these laws actually enforced? In addition to the one you point out, there's a host of loopholes I see in the bare bones law, "when such parent through misfortune and without fault of his own is destitute".
As I understand it, in the US in general (this area of law is more done at the state than Federal level), unless you take upon yourself the responsibility of taking care of one of your parents, in which case metrics of care come into play, you have absolutely no legal responsibilities to them (separated and/or divorced spouses are a whole nother and much more nasty can of worms).
And those metrics of care most certainly do not include monetary contributions, just seeing that they get medical care, live in habitable lodgings, eat, etc.
Or so is my understanding of Virginia state law, I have a friend who's taken up such a responsibility towards her mother along with another sibling, but her mother generally refuses to keep her appointments with doctors.... My friend is worried about the liability that might arise from this.
burkaman believes otherwise ... but it'll be a cold day in hell before I accept anything WRT my mother like that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470409), on the other hand, it wouldn't even need to be enforced by the law if it was my father....
You don't have any choice if you are able to support your parents and they are "in necessitous circumstances". However, Virginia is very clear about excusing victims of abuse:
> This section shall not apply if there is substantial evidence of desertion, neglect, abuse or willful failure to support any such child by the father or mother, as the case may be, prior to the child's emancipation or, except as provided hereafter in this section, if a parent is otherwise eligible for and is receiving public assistance or services under a federal or state program.
Hmmm, and what happens if the child is living in another state? (Although in this case it's just on the other side of the Beltway in Maryland.)
My, that law is quite detailed, incorporates quite a bit more into it, and doesn't have the "through misfortune and without fault of his own" loophole.
Yuck. Is it, are any of these seriously and rigorously enforced? Or are they perhaps used for internecine fighting between siblings and/or parents?
ADDED: my home state of Missouri has not such law per ptaipale's citation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470488), so that might be why I'm ignorant of the laws of the states that do so. Hmmm, what if you live in one of those no responsibility states and your parent in a responsibility state?
Actually, this varies a lot depending on country, and in the US depending on state.
In European Union, different member states have different practices. Germany and South European countries have laws and strong social norms that adult children must take care (or at least pay) for caring their old parents. Northern Europe does not (Nordic countries, Netherlands, Belgium, I understand Britain as well).
According to [0], 28 U.S. states make adult children responsible for their parents if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves.
In Russia, law also requires adult children to care for their parents (this I know for a fact due to an immigration case where I helped).
In China caring for old parents is an important responsibility of children, but I do not know how that is formulated in law.
I think the author recognizes that she had no duty to her father after the abuse she suffered and that nobody she cared about would think twice about her never seeing him or his family again. Reading between the lines I heard the voice of a young girl who will nonetheless always miss the father figure she wanted (so desperately that she was ready to forgive and forget sexual abuse if he would either apologize or lie to her about it) but never had (because he never existed) and these emotions become triggered by any mention of his name. I've had close friends in this situation and the psychology of it can become very frustrating and confusing. In any case the article wasn't about him, it was about herself - probably written, she would say, for others in her situation with less self-awareness or self-confidence - children who should recognize a duty not to an abusive parent but to themselves to achieve some measure of peace and closure in their own lives.
It is phrased in terms of duty and responsibility, which are easy to reject. But the ongoing struggle for some kind of relationship really stems from her own desire for understanding.
I will start from the beginning to explain why. Keep in mind, I will talk from the point of view of Asian cultures.
When you are a child, your world is limited to your parents. You listen to them because that's what you are told to do by everyone else. You love them because that's what you are told to do. My mother kept on telling me to go under a bus because I am dumb, or I was not good looking. She told me to always tell myself that I am stupid and dumb and I will never achieve anything in life. But yea, she loved me too, in her own way; atleast that's what I like to think. So its not been exactly an easy childhood for me.
In no way, I have undergone what the author has experienced. But had that happened to me, what would I have done ?
The answer is complicated. What about compassion ? What about forgiveness ? And keep in mind, I am an atheist. But what do I gain by letting someone die ? Nothing.
I take a step back and try to understand from their point of view. Why did they do what they did ? There is always a reason. Maybe the author's father experienced abuse or had a rough childhood too. Maybe he wasn't loved enough. Maybe love and understanding is all he needed. Or I maybe wrong on every count. Who knows ?
So I will try to forgive and be compassionate towards everyone. Maybe because I don't have the balls to stand up and defend myself. Or maybe those feelings do not come to me at all. All I know is this is what I can do and will keep on doing. And hope that one day, everyone is kind to each other.
I remember reading research some years ago that concludes humans are incredibly bad at predicting how they would feel in a situation that they have never been in, and the accuracy of the prediction had zero correlation with how strongly the subject was convinced.
Having the opinion that children don't (or shouldn't) owe their abusive parents anything, isn't in conflict with also having the opinion that they might feel differently. It is about freeing these children from moral and legal obligations and giving them the freedom to act in whatever way makes them happy and allows them to move on.
My wonder is, is it an effective way to help free them, when one doesn't take the psychological ties causing the problem into consideration in the first place.
As the son of one who's in fact gotten even more abusive this year, as my father got early stage Alzheimer's, which to date is still a minor disability, to more comprehensively take out 57 years worth of grudges against him, to the point of the unforgivable, to the point I'm almost certain she wants him dead if she can arrange it through sins of omission....
Yes, there are people who you're technically that close to, who you are obliged to "honor", to whom you (eventually) owe nothing, and like in this case, who fully deserve to die alone, and most decidedly unloved.
Although I'll draw one distinction here, it's the sins against another that crossed the final line for me, the one where I've sworn to never speak to her again (modulo someone else's life being in danger). Sin against me, that can be not just understood but forgiven, but against an innocent (enough) 3rd party is somehow different.
(And for a bit more pathos, by her order in 20 days I'll be completely out of the loop and living in the house built in 1910 I recently bought and have been remodeling, seeing as I'm the only sibling who's in the same town, have been living with him for the last 5 years on land she alone owns, and is the one most strongly objecting to her treatment of him.)
Yeah, I know; in this case, a deliberate style choice not to break the flow most of the paragraphs. This isn't standard expository prose, I think it's allowed for the effect.
Yes. My mother is abusive, so I cut her out of my life, and I am markedly happier for it. I certainly don't feel like I owe her anything. My father disagrees with me, which is a source of conflict.
> But five years later, after he'd isolated my mother by taking her 2,000 miles away from her friends and family
> or why his one-bedroom apartment was deemed suitable for overnights with two girls, but that was the decision. He moved apartments twice more, but never anywhere more spacious, so my sister and I continued to share a bed that unfolded from the living room couch
> In these close quarters, he crossed a line when I was still a child. I'm not prepared to explain the details of the assault.
> and two, memories from ages four through 12 aren't necessarily the most reliable record, and perhaps not everything was as I remembered it.
> The summer before I turned 13, my father got pretty gnarly brain cancer and told me and my sister to fuck off, though he used the Christian phrasing.
I can see a different story. Wife is tired of living away from her parents, so she fabricates domestic abuse to get better deal at divorce. She even poisons his own children against him.
He moves 2000 miles, fights at court, all to be with his children. But for alimony he can not even afford decent apartment. Eventually he gets brain tumor and just gives up.
Wow. And when she wrote to him and he partially acknowledged violence and ignored the sexual abuse?
Edit: There is also the note from the court psychologist.
I assume you're being sarcastic, why? Would you admit to violence against kids in writing if you didn't do it? There may be another side to this, but the guy didn't dispute and partially agreed that he was a violent child rapist.
Great article; her resentment and confusion, directed at her father, is something I can definitely relate to. Writing someone off, especially a manipulative parent, is difficult and not as easy as some may think.
Wow I feel terrible for the author. She got dealt such a bad hand. I hope, outside of her relationship with her father, there was love from the rest of her family.
Cool. You're former poor white trash with an Internet connection. If I wanted to hear this kind of sob story about how your family is dysfunctional there's plenty of people I can ask about their family.
I think it's safe to say that her father was a dick but it's also highly unlikely anybody in that family is free from blame.
Her father sounds a little too much like my daughter' father. Leaving him was the easiest thing I ever did -- it just took 13 years to work up the courage to do it.
56 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] thread"The summer before I turned 13, my father got pretty gnarly brain cancer and told me and my sister to fuck off, though he used the Christian phrasing. And then he survived brain cancer and lived another 19 years. So that was awkward."
And a poignant one:
"I was in utero when my mother left my father. Her one great moment of bravery was defying the Baptist church and walking out on her abusive husband with a two-year-old and a half-done bun in the oven. I think she relied so heavily on her backbone in that moment that she was never able to stand up for herself again."
Life is hard; she probably did the best she could when dealt a less than enviable hand early in life.
Not my usual reading material, but a good read nevertheless.
A friend of mine, now over 50, still struggles with his mother's rejection throughout his childhood. He and his siblings have confirmed stories of malice (bleeding after being beaten by his mother with a whip, euthanising a much loved pet out of spite, etc).
Despite enduring years of torment, he still seeks his mother's affection. She died a long time ago and he never came to terms with the loss or the lack of love or the malice his mother frequently demonstrated.
It leaves me with a feeling of deep sadness when I see how cruel some parents are to their own children. It also leaves me even sadder when excuses are made for some of these abusers (she must have suffered depression, poor woman).
Having said that, as someone who is both an atheist, and someone who has had family members killed by another person, I have had both the time, and the rare circumstance to think about this a lot.
I've become aware of the fact that we need to forgive, despite whatever has wronged us. This is the only possible way to prevent the cycle of hate breeding hate.
I know it sounds like a defeatist point of view, but it's actually a multi-generational view. It's also a view of acceptance, and one that holds that no matter what has been done to you, you will hold true to the tenet of forgiveness.
Possibly the most important thing for humans of the modern age to realize is that life deals you a random hand. Any actions that perpetuate this unfairness to the next generation or beyond are wrong, despite how right they may feel.
This is probably the only path that conscious evolution can take that doesn't continue the current cycle of hatred breeding hatred.
Sorry to sound like a hippy, but it took me over a decade to arrive at this conclusion after a whole lot of nasty stuff happening. Hopefully you will never need to go through that process, and will take my viewpoint as a valid piece of anecdata.
TL;DR: despite what other people do to you, it's in the best interests of humanity if you show forgiveness, but do all you can that it never happens to another person.
As a generally calm person I think it is enough to just freeze your hate and forget about it until [maybe never happening] moment, when you'll bring revenge while losing nothing. Forgiveness is for you to go through it, not to let them go.
We then enter into the realms of how to deal with perpetrators. Isolation vs. rehabilitation vs. eradication.
I prefer rehabilitation over isolation, and both over eradication.
This is one of the roles of government, and thus we enter a whole new world of discussion.
People don't often deserve to be forgiven but the victim deserves to move on and through some weird irony of human psychology that often requires forgiving someone who has no right to be forgiven.
the people he or she has abused? nope
Wow, reading this hurts me because it makes me feel so privileged in life for having the family I had. That phrase is a terrible rationalization of her situation.
Volunteering with kids that are drugs addicts or have other addictions, troublemakers that will enter a bank or shops to rob you always find a dysfunctional family: the father alcoholic, the mother with several lovers,or with psicological problems, beating the children because they hate them and never desire to have them, the kid alone all day.
You become a parent for them because they desperately need it. Some times the only thing they need is a reference in life.
I agree a parent that does not take care of his children should not expect to be taken care of as adult, but in European countries there are laws that force you to do it, a heavy burden.
Got any references for me to lookup? I wasn't aware of any such laws.
http://www.dw.com/en/should-children-have-to-pay-for-parents... for Germany. That's from 2010.
That's from some searching on "Europe children taking care of parents law" and "Germany children taking care of parents law". I didn't try other variants for other countries.
Maybe I just don't get it. The answers to these questions are obvious and straight-forward. I wouldn't think twice about my responsibility to a person who molested me, beat my mom, and then "fucked off", let alone spend 4,000 words bloviating about it.
To your kids you have a (time-limited) responsibility because you brought them into this world without their consent. Everybody else in your family who's toxic should be cut off and never thought of again. Jesus Christ, life is too short to bother.
The author spends far fewer words on her sister's perspective (who seems to share the same opinion you do), but I think talking about it less is kind of the whole point -- as you say, the answers are obvious and straight-forward, so there isn't much to go in to. The author herself tries to hold this perspective, but ultimately finds she has a different one. One that includes, among other things, the need to write this story even after "it is finished".
A lot of the time there isn't much or any consideration given in case of abusive relationships. Even though I think we both agree on the fact that in such a situation any ties both morally and legally should be severed.
This Massachusetts law does excuse children who were not "reasonably supported" by their parents when they were a minor.
And those metrics of care most certainly do not include monetary contributions, just seeing that they get medical care, live in habitable lodgings, eat, etc.
Or so is my understanding of Virginia state law, I have a friend who's taken up such a responsibility towards her mother along with another sibling, but her mother generally refuses to keep her appointments with doctors.... My friend is worried about the liability that might arise from this.
burkaman believes otherwise ... but it'll be a cold day in hell before I accept anything WRT my mother like that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470409), on the other hand, it wouldn't even need to be enforced by the law if it was my father....
You don't have any choice if you are able to support your parents and they are "in necessitous circumstances". However, Virginia is very clear about excusing victims of abuse:
> This section shall not apply if there is substantial evidence of desertion, neglect, abuse or willful failure to support any such child by the father or mother, as the case may be, prior to the child's emancipation or, except as provided hereafter in this section, if a parent is otherwise eligible for and is receiving public assistance or services under a federal or state program.
My, that law is quite detailed, incorporates quite a bit more into it, and doesn't have the "through misfortune and without fault of his own" loophole.
Yuck. Is it, are any of these seriously and rigorously enforced? Or are they perhaps used for internecine fighting between siblings and/or parents?
ADDED: my home state of Missouri has not such law per ptaipale's citation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470488), so that might be why I'm ignorant of the laws of the states that do so. Hmmm, what if you live in one of those no responsibility states and your parent in a responsibility state?
In European Union, different member states have different practices. Germany and South European countries have laws and strong social norms that adult children must take care (or at least pay) for caring their old parents. Northern Europe does not (Nordic countries, Netherlands, Belgium, I understand Britain as well).
According to [0], 28 U.S. states make adult children responsible for their parents if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves.
In Russia, law also requires adult children to care for their parents (this I know for a fact due to an immigration case where I helped).
In China caring for old parents is an important responsibility of children, but I do not know how that is formulated in law.
[0] http://www.elderlawanswers.com/requiring-adult-children-to-p...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-parents-children-v...
I will start from the beginning to explain why. Keep in mind, I will talk from the point of view of Asian cultures.
When you are a child, your world is limited to your parents. You listen to them because that's what you are told to do by everyone else. You love them because that's what you are told to do. My mother kept on telling me to go under a bus because I am dumb, or I was not good looking. She told me to always tell myself that I am stupid and dumb and I will never achieve anything in life. But yea, she loved me too, in her own way; atleast that's what I like to think. So its not been exactly an easy childhood for me.
In no way, I have undergone what the author has experienced. But had that happened to me, what would I have done ?
The answer is complicated. What about compassion ? What about forgiveness ? And keep in mind, I am an atheist. But what do I gain by letting someone die ? Nothing.
I take a step back and try to understand from their point of view. Why did they do what they did ? There is always a reason. Maybe the author's father experienced abuse or had a rough childhood too. Maybe he wasn't loved enough. Maybe love and understanding is all he needed. Or I maybe wrong on every count. Who knows ?
So I will try to forgive and be compassionate towards everyone. Maybe because I don't have the balls to stand up and defend myself. Or maybe those feelings do not come to me at all. All I know is this is what I can do and will keep on doing. And hope that one day, everyone is kind to each other.
I remember reading research some years ago that concludes humans are incredibly bad at predicting how they would feel in a situation that they have never been in, and the accuracy of the prediction had zero correlation with how strongly the subject was convinced.
Yes, there are people who you're technically that close to, who you are obliged to "honor", to whom you (eventually) owe nothing, and like in this case, who fully deserve to die alone, and most decidedly unloved.
Although I'll draw one distinction here, it's the sins against another that crossed the final line for me, the one where I've sworn to never speak to her again (modulo someone else's life being in danger). Sin against me, that can be not just understood but forgiven, but against an innocent (enough) 3rd party is somehow different.
(And for a bit more pathos, by her order in 20 days I'll be completely out of the loop and living in the house built in 1910 I recently bought and have been remodeling, seeing as I'm the only sibling who's in the same town, have been living with him for the last 5 years on land she alone owns, and is the one most strongly objecting to her treatment of him.)
> or why his one-bedroom apartment was deemed suitable for overnights with two girls, but that was the decision. He moved apartments twice more, but never anywhere more spacious, so my sister and I continued to share a bed that unfolded from the living room couch
> In these close quarters, he crossed a line when I was still a child. I'm not prepared to explain the details of the assault.
> and two, memories from ages four through 12 aren't necessarily the most reliable record, and perhaps not everything was as I remembered it.
> The summer before I turned 13, my father got pretty gnarly brain cancer and told me and my sister to fuck off, though he used the Christian phrasing.
I can see a different story. Wife is tired of living away from her parents, so she fabricates domestic abuse to get better deal at divorce. She even poisons his own children against him.
He moves 2000 miles, fights at court, all to be with his children. But for alimony he can not even afford decent apartment. Eventually he gets brain tumor and just gives up.
I think it's safe to say that her father was a dick but it's also highly unlikely anybody in that family is free from blame.