The Mental Health Divide

The family estrangement epidemic has unleashed a civil war in the mental health community



I never went down the therapy road.  Arguably, I should have decades ago.  But I did not.  Today, with family estrangement raging in the United States, what I see is that the mental health types tend to pick sides.  That is to say, some so-called professionals choose the parents with their we don't understand the problem attitudes.  And others choose the adult children and advocate for no contact.

In a way I am glad that I did not go into this system.  Of course it took me decades to arrive at and confront my own issues.  And alone, I have probably done this very late and rather poorly.  But I think it would have been counterproductive to have one of these all too common mental health professionals who take sides.  And let's be honest, these supposed professionals often bring their own issues to their clients' situations.

I noticed this early on when I started researching the topic.  Articles, books, videos, and even whole communities tended to come down on one side or the other.  This bifurcation did not really affect me as I read everything I could on both sides.  But today looking at the body of resources available, it is obvious, everything tends to be on one side or the other.

I would say, that's fine, as in a courtroom, the truth comes out in the adversarial nature of the process.  But in a courtroom, the jury hears both sides.  In this mental health conflict, it appears that each side only hears what it wants to hear.

Now I recognize that this may be limited to mental health midwits attempting to collect clicks and views on the internet.  I mean, we are not talking about Jordan Peterson or Steven Pinker here.  For the sake of general mental health and family dynamics, I certainly hope that is what is going on.  But it does seem pervasive.

Grok has more.

This cannot be good for families or for society.

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Mental Health and Estrangement

On differing sibling reactions to childhood experience

Last year I had a somewhat uncomfortable exchange with an older gentleman, concerning the growing family estrangement epidemic in the United States.  He said something like this:  If the parents have more than one child, I look to see how many of their adult children are estranged from them.  If it is only one, most often it is a mental health issue for that particular child.

I had to stop and think about this.  At the time, my response was:  If you are correct, what role did the parents have in the now adult child's mental health issues?  And was there some type of abuse that caused or contributed to these issues?

I am afraid that this was the end of our conversation.  But of course, this troubled me.  I have two siblings, and to my knowledge, both seem to get along with our parents just fine.

But we can see his argument:  If your siblings are not also estranged from your parents, most likely you are the problem.

But I would argue, using my family as the only example I have, that both the mental health issues suffered by adult children and the inflection point of an estrangement, are directly related to the degree of abuse they suffered as children.  Because I can promise you this, all three of my parents' children have suffered from mental health issues as a direct result of my parents' behavior and attitude when we were very young children.

So would the degree of abuse not explain the dichotomy?  I guess it is an open question.

My parents abused their children, all three of us, in several ways.  Primarily lack of concern for the development of self-esteem, and the never-ending and completely unnecessary beatings.

But, and I think this is the important point concerning my adult siblings and their relationship with my parents, my parents did become less awful in their role as time went by.

I have little doubt that my siblings just do not see it as bleakly as I do.  Simply because I was the oldest.  And their abuse was less consequential than my own.  Like so many, starting in my early twenties, I suffered depression and other problems that thereafter affected my every relationship and every endeavor.  And to be clear, I hold my parents directly responsible for this impairment and the damage it caused.

Now my parents and siblings may believe that this is merely an excuse for failure.  And perhaps they are correct.  While I cannot hold my parents, and the way they raised their children, responsible for my failures, I can credit them with giving me the prerequisites.

They can, and no doubt do, blame nature.  It is a convenient excuse which nicely displaces their responsibility.  It is a shameful excuse for their derelictions.  But whether or not nature played a significant role, in no way could it nor did it, outpace nurture.  Take some responsibility.

I am perfectly well aware that this sounds like an adolescent complaint.  And thus, I just lived with it for decades without a word about it.  But yes, now I am angry about it.

Unreasonable?  Unfair?  At one time not so long ago, I would have said yes.  But our now seven year estrangement has allowed me to reconsider my parents' behavior, the attitudes they had about their children, and the long term consequences.  Perhaps I can never be truly objective about it.  How could I be?  But the distance of estrangement has been clarifying.

The essays in this collection have been a sort of writing therapy for me.  And yes, I did have to weigh my parents' discomfort against my own salutary needs.  So did this process need to be public?  Yes, I think so.  My concerns would not otherwise be heard.  My guess is they are still not heard.  I accept that.  But I have no doubt that everyone involved knows they are here.  My concerns can be ignored or minimized, but they cannot be simply discarded or erased.

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Reluctant Parents and Child Abuse

This is a follow-up to my previous post.  I just had a few more questions for Grok.

For people who do not really want children, or who are ambivalent about having children, why do they then have children anyway?

People who are genuinely strongly childfree, that is, I never want children, full stop, very rarely end up having them intentionally.  When it does happen despite that stance, it is usually due to extreme external overrides, contraception failure plus refusal/pressure against abortion, religious/cultural mandates that forbid contraception/abortion, or very controlling family/partner dynamics.

Far more commonly, the people who didn't really want kids / were ambivalent / weren't sure and then had them anyway fall into several overlapping categories. These are drawn from personal accounts, sociological patterns, psychological studies on parental regret, and common real-world reporting.

Here are the most frequent reasons:

1.  Partner pressure or relationship compromise

One partner, usually but not always the woman, is lukewarm/against, the other really wants kids, then the ambivalent/reluctant one concedes to keep the relationship/marriage.  Many people view having kids as a non-negotiable part of a lifelong partnership in their social circle.

2.  Accidental pregnancy plus it's too late to terminate

Contraception fails, they discover the pregnancy relatively late, or they go back and forth until past the point where abortion feels feasible, emotionally, legally, logistically, or morally for them.  Once the baby is born, abstract I don't want kids often turns into concrete love/attachment to this child.

3.  Societal/family/cultural/religious expectations

Strong pronatalist pressure:  You'll change your mind, Who will take care of you when you're old?, parents/grandparents begging for grandchildren, religious communities viewing childlessness as failure or sin, or simply it's just what people do.  Many people absorb this so deeply they override their own ambivalence.

4.  Ambivalence itself plus why not? reasoning

They are not strongly against children, they are neutral/fence-sitters.  Life progresses (stable job, house, age pressure, friends all having kids), so they think maybe it won't be so bad, everyone says it's different when it's yours, or I don't have a better plan for my life.  Biological clock anxiety or fear of future regret, What if I regret not having them?, often outweighs the current reluctance.

5.  Change of heart after the fact; sometimes genuine, sometimes post-hoc rationalization

A meaningful minority do report that once the child arrived, their feelings shifted dramatically and they became glad they did it.  Others say they love the child deeply but would not choose parenthood again if they could rewind.

6.  Lack of access to reliable long-term contraception or abortion

In many parts of the world, and increasingly in some U.S. states post-2022, people who would prefer to remain childfree simply cannot prevent pregnancy reliably over decades, or cannot safely terminate if it happens.

Regret rates among parents who were ambivalent or mildly opposed beforehand appear substantially higher than among those who actively wanted children from the start.  Studies and anonymous forums show recurring themes of burnout, loss of identity/autonomy, financial strain, and resentment, especially when external pressure, rather than internal desire, was the main driver.

In short:  Very few people who are truly certain they never want children end up as parents by choice.  Most of the cases you notice are people who were somewhere between meh and probably not rather than a hard no, and then life, love, pressure, accidents, or inertia tipped the scale.

Are the people who really did not want children, or even ambivalent about it, more likely to engage in child abuse?

Abusive Family Dynamics and Childhood Fear

Let's chat with Grok about child abuse

In families with abusive parents, is it common for the children, years later as adults, to have little or no relationship with each other?

Yes, it is quite common for adult children from families with abusive parents to end up with little or no relationship with their siblings, though it is not universal — some siblings become very close as allies against the abuse, while others drift apart or become fully estranged.

Several well-documented patterns explain why estrangement often happens in these families:

• Conflicting narratives about the abuse — Siblings may remember or interpret childhood events very differently.  One might recognize the parent's behavior as abusive and choose to distance themselves (or confront it), while another minimizes, denies, or rationalizes it to preserve a relationship with the parent.  This frequently leads to dueling family narratives, where parents encourage siding with them, pitting siblings against each other.  Research and clinical observations show this is a major driver of sibling estrangement, often as collateral damage when one sibling estranges from the abusive parent(s).
  
  
• Parental favoritism, scapegoating, or triangulation — Abusive or dysfunctional parents commonly favor one child, the golden child, while scapegoating another, or they triangulate by playing siblings off each other for control.  This breeds resentment, jealousy, and division that persists into adulthood.  Favoritism is repeatedly cited as one of the top causes of adult sibling estrangement.
  
  
• Trauma responses and coping differences — Growing up with abuse can lead siblings to adopt different survival strategies.  Some become enmeshed with the parent or repeat dysfunctional patterns, while others seek healing and distance themselves from anything reminiscent of the toxic environment — including siblings who remain tied to it.  This can result in emotional disconnection, even without overt conflict.
  
  
• Ripple effects from parent-child estrangement — Many cases of sibling estrangement stem indirectly from an adult child cutting off, or being cut off by, an abusive parent.  The sibling who maintains contact with the parent may feel pressured to align against the one who left, or loyalty conflicts make ongoing contact too painful.

Broader context shows family estrangement, including siblings, affects a significant portion of people — some surveys suggest around 27% of Americans are estranged from at least one relative — and abuse or severe dysfunction is a frequent underlying factor.  In abusive homes, sibling bonds can be complicated by additional layers like sibling abuse, which is surprisingly common and often overlooked, or simply the lack of a healthy model for conflict resolution and emotional support.

That said, it is not inevitable.  In some families, siblings bond tightly over shared survival and remain supportive into adulthood.  Outcomes depend on factors like birth order, personality differences, the severity/type of abuse, and whether any siblings pursue therapy or recovery work.

Regarding "Conflicting narratives about the abuse" is the problem that different siblings deny the abuse or is it that they deny the long term effects of the abuse?  Also, what about the problem that one sibling may have been abused more than others?

The Satisfaction of Estrangement

Wallowing contentedly in our self-indulgent satisfaction

Even if estrangement is well-deserved, and I know it often is, no one is happy about it.  I have read hundreds of pieces on estrangement from all sides involved.  And I have been somewhat surprised to learn that it is a bit of an epidemic in the United States.  Which of course means that sometimes there are good reasons, but more often than not, the reasons are, what?  I suppose questionable.

But here's the thing, good or bad, there are always reasons.  No one up and decides, nope I'm done with the family, time to cut them off, for no reason.  And further, the estranged must believe that their reasons are unresolvable.

So we have estrangement.  And there are unresolvable issues behind it.  And we are not happy about it.  Of course we are not happy.  Losing your family is not a happy ordeal or ongoing experience.

But if we are only unhappy, we could and would attempt to fix it.  Why be unhappy?  Why be unhappy, when we can do A, B, and C, to make ourselves happy, or a least less unhappy.

So why don't we?

Because it is not the question of happiness that sustains and maintains estrangement; rather, it is satisfaction.  We may not be happy, but we are satisfied.  We are satisfied with the status quo because the status quo ante was so much worse and we see no hope for a different or new status.

And notice this, everyone involved is satisfied.  If there is but one involved person who is dissatisfied, that person will work for reconciliation.  They may do so openly, or they may do so discreetly.  But they will make the effort.  It is only satisfaction that inhibits this.

So estrangement is a state of unhappy satisfaction.  Personally, I think that is so much worse, and more hopeless, than mere unhappiness.

We are all wallowing contentedly in our own self-indulgent satisfaction.  Many of us lack introspection and self-reflection; the worst of us are smugly complacent about the whole thing.

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A Father's Contempt

What kind of father has contempt for his children?

Contempt, thy name is father.

From the very first post in this series, I have struggled mightily to understand.  To answer the question:  What kind of parents treat their children this way?

I am still struggling with it.  But at this point, I think it comes down to contempt.  Sheer contempt.

My father always had contempt for his children.  And I do not mean for his adult children, although, at least in my case, that certainly followed.  No, I mean he had contempt for his children from the day they were born.  Sounds crazy I know, but I think it sprang from contempt for neediness and the burden he was forced to bear.  Which of course begs the question:  Why have children at all?  Children are so obstreperous.  And ever so needy.  Burdensome.  Expensive.  Whiny.  Smelly.  And embarrassing.  It's all just so...contemptible.

Later, I think he had contempt for his children's affluence.  Ironic of course because he was the source of it.  But I think he was contemptuous of what we had and how we lived...I suppose compared to what he did not have at our age.  Most parents want to give their children a better life than they themselves had.  My father never suffered from this delusion.

Finally and most importantly, I think he was contemptuous that his children did not measure up to the standards of his vanity.  Certainly I never have.  He's never been one to brag about his children.  But when asked about them, vanity demands that he is able to outdistance and/or outclass the accomplishments of his interlocutor's children.  I suppose it's a pre-digital form of humblebragging.  But even if not asked, he wants to feel superior.  He's perfectly happy to be quietly superior.  In any case, this contempt continues to this day.

The real irony here is that if you want your children to excel in this way, in a way that truly allows you to feel smugly superior, if that is what you need and what your vanity demands, you must first, and always, treat them well.  Responsibly.  If you do, your children are as human as anyone else, and they may still disappoint you.  But if you treat them badly, they will struggle and most likely let you down.  This is no one's fault but your own.  And your contempt is misplaced.

Imagine what it might mean for children if their father holds them in contempt.  Little kids.  And later adolescents.  Of course, if you hold something or someone in contempt, it allows you to justify and excuse any of your own bad behavior towards them.  In the extreme, you don't even recognize it has bad behavior.  Simply put:  Contempt gives you license to treat someone badly.  If you add lack of consequence, you have a recipe for real damage.

And imagine the damage.  The physical and emotional abuse.  While the physical abuse quickly heals, the emotional damage lasts a lifetime.  Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

But that is perfectly okay because they're contemptible.  Contempt justifies bad attitude and behavior which yields failure and disappointment which produces yet more contempt.  My parents produced three emotionally damaged, even broken, children.  Who later, naturally, became emotionally damaged adults.

And my parents could not care less.  They take no responsibility for the damage.  They were entitled to their attitude and conduct.  Even today, they retain their self-righteous impunity.

Contempt allows for it.

In fact, I think it is only contempt that makes this possible.

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Cheap Elevated to Cruel

What kind of mother does not buy milk for her children?

She would have to be desperately poor, right?

She would first have to sell the house.  And then the furniture.  And then her wedding band.

She would demand that her husband buy milk; or threaten to divorce him, taking the children, and filing for alimony and child support.

Wouldn't she?

Or...she could make the entirely reasonable decision to not have children.  Perhaps she cannot afford children.  Or perhaps she does not want children.  Either way, the decision to have children is just that – a choice.  And if you make the decision to have children, at the same time you make the decision to take care of them properly.

Or...she may not give any thought whatsoever to whether she wants children, or whether she is well-suited to parenthood.  She certainly does not consider whether the man she married, a truly angry and contemptuous soul, would make a good father to her children.

Ultimately she has children per customary expectations, and perhaps for her own selfish vanity.  Certainly for her husband's vanity.  And yet she decides that providing milk for them to drink is a bridge too far.  An expense she is unwilling to bear.

When I was a kid, there was always beer and wine and Scotch whiskey in the house.  But there was never any milk.  This was not neglect; it was a conscious decision.  It was simple and genuine miserliness.

It was cheapness elevated to cruelty.

By any standard, my parents were incredibly affluent...

I am five feet six inches tall.

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On Child Abuse and Depression

Last month I quoted an article about child abuse and PTSD.  The author, Susanne Babbel, makes the point that child abuse can lead to a number of psychological and emotional disorders in adults.  It reminded me of the Herbert Ward quote:  Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.  I think this is true.  It certainly has been for me.

To whatever extent I can, I try to leave my siblings out of my writings here.  But all three of us have suffered mental health issues in adulthood.  What are the odds of that?  One out of three might be statistically about normal.  Two out of three might be a high statistical outlier.  But three out of three?  That is something altogether different.

I only mention this in order to assure the reader that I am not some shallow ingrate with daddy issues.  The kind you occasionally find on the very popular subreddit, Raised by Narcissists, and on other similar sites.

I don't think I am.  In order to maintain my relationship with my parents, I was able to set aside my issues for more than thirty years of adulthood.  The issues were there, but I had put them behind us.  It was only my parents' renewed misconduct along with their reinvigorated attitude of self-righteous impunity that belatedly led to our estrangement.

The sad reality is this:  Behind the veneer of respectability lurks a common and wholly unrepentant child abuser, who longs for the day when he could simply beat his children into submission to his will, however irrational it may be.  And it has always been this way, I just did not want to face it.  I mean, who wants to face that?

The final break was eighteen months ago now.  I question my actions every day.  But I should not.  My actions were really only reactive.  My parents' conduct and attitude terminated our relationship.  I reacted in the only way I could to protect myself.  It was self-defense.  And further, estrangement finally allowed the pain of my childhood and the reality of our ongoing relationship to come to the forefront.

And what this has done is made it clear to me where my lifelong battle with depression originated.  As Babbel suggests in her article, I have suffered with depression and relationship problems all of my adult life.

For some people, perhaps most, depression may be the result of a chemical imbalance.  But for me...well, I know the source of my shadows.

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Your Parents Did Their Best

Earlier this year, someone said to me:  I'm sure your parents did their best.

I am not an unreasonable person.  I can forgive a lot if it is true that anyone does their best in any endeavor.  Most of us can.

But with a bit of reflection, I had to ask:  Really?  Because I do not think they did their best.  That would mean that they actually tried to do their best and I just do not see that.  They simply did not care enough about the project of raising children.  As I pointed out recently, responsible parenting was beneath their dignity and tolerance.  They were not willing to take the time and make the effort required to be decent parents.

By the time you get to my age (over fifty), you've seen good parenting and bad.  You've seen parents say:  Look little Johnny, I told you not to do that; now go sit on the stairs for a while.  And you've seen parents grab their kid and beat them for accidentally knocking over a glass of wine.  It's just not a difficult distinction to comprehend.

And while it may not be politically correct to say, surely education level plays a part.  To my mind, more educated parents have less excuse for mistreatment of children.  They should know better.

They do know better.  Some just don't care.  They do not care enough to conduct themselves in a proper manner.  And whatever you may think of this, it is very difficult to argue that:  They did their best.

They certainly did NOT do their best.

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The Question

Did my parents abuse me?

Let’s expand the question just a bit:  When I was a child, did my parents' conduct rise to the level of abuse?  This has been a question for me, basically, all of my adult life.  Broken as I may have been, I still asked the question.

And what a question, right?  But I doubt I am alone in asking this terrible question.  For some, the answer is an obvious yes.  However, those unfortunate souls need not ask the question.  They already know the answer.  But some of us are unsure, and seemingly there is no answer.  So the question just sort of festers…indefinitely.

Well in 2019, well past the age of fifty, I found an answer and it helped change my life.  Notice I say:  an answer.  I am sure other people will have other answers.  But for those of you who are perhaps unsure of the answer, as I was, maybe you will find this helpful.

I read this somewhere:

People who were not abused do not ask themselves if they were abused.  The question never occurs to them.  The only people who ask themselves this question are those who were in fact abused.

It is not a perfect answer.  Some might even argue that it is a bit trite.  But I found it immensely helpful.

And for those of you who might dismiss this simple theory, allow me to pick it apart…for you.  Just a bit.  The first two sentences, I believe, are simple statements of fact.  Indisputable.  So really, it is only the third and final sentence that is at all open to question.  But I can tell you this:  For those of us who have asked the question, that third sentence is spot on.  I know it is a bit of a cliché, but to ask the question, is to answer it.  Notice that there is no no.  Because if the answer is no, the question does not exist.

Some will argue that this is overly subjective and does not allow for any objective standard.  But this is not an academic work.  If the reader needs an objective standard, I urge you to search elsewhere.  The goal here is to answer our own individual version of the question.  For ourselves.

Now, might there be some people who will use this idea disingenuously?  In order to feign abuse for their own ends, whatever they may be.  Sure, I can see that possibility.  But this is not a question for others.  Again, this is a question for ourselves.  We need an answer to the question.  Not for others and not to use as an excuse.  To determine how we should move forward, we need to resolve the question in our own minds and for our own benefit.

So, did my parents abuse me?

Yes.

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Only Lazy Parents Beat Their Children

Parenting is a lot of work.  I know loads of good parents.  Mostly friends and neighbors, clients and colleagues.  I am always amazed at how much work is involved.  And of course, how it never ends.  It's 24/7 for years on end.  If it ever really ends.

Part of that, a big part of that, is teaching children to be good people.  To teach them right and wrong.  That is a big part of a parent's job:  To produce good, productive adults-in-the-making.  To that end, Jordan Peterson says:  Never allow your children to do anything that will make you dislike them.  I totally agree.

And think about how this is done.  It is a years-long daily exercise of example and instruction and correction.  Sure, some parents are better at it than others.  Some parents work harder at it than others.  Some parents care too much, and sadly, some parents care too little.

But there is a shortcut.  If your kid does something that you do not like, just beat them.

They'll stop.

And if you are the absolute worst sort of parent:  You'll congratulate yourself for it.  You might even look down on other hapless parents, with their rowdy, rambunctious children.  If only those people knew enough or cared enough to be effective, responsible parents, like you.  If only they had your...courage.

Just to be clear, there is a difference between lazy people and lazy parents.  My parents were very hardworking people.  But they found responsible parenting to be beneath their dignity and tolerance.  They were not willing to take the time and make the effort required to be decent parents.

So...they opted for the shortcut.

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Series:  Beating Little Children

Part Three of Three

The Myth of Spanking

I have to write a follow up to my previous post, On Child Abuse and PTSD.  People who beat their children always say:  I spank my children because I love them.  And if you allow these parents, they will expound on how they explain to their children why they are to receive such a punishment.  As if it is all done in some calm and constructive manner.

Well it is a lie.  And to the extent it is believed, it is a myth.

My parents firmly believed in spanking their children and were enthusiastic practitioners.  And if asked, you'd get the party line above.  But it was never calm and constructive.  It was ALWAYS done in anger.  And very often in front of others.  Sometimes even as a demonstration to other adults — Of what righteous and responsible parents they were.

Parents strike their children because they are angry.  Period.  There may be additional reasons:  The parents are tyrannical or unstable.  Or they lack self-control.  Whatever.  But there is one additional factor that is always present:  Parents strike their children simply because they can.  Without consequence.

Now, is it possible that somewhere out there is a parent who waits 24 hours, and then says:  Now little Johnny, I am going to spank you for your behavior yesterday?  Maybe these parents exist.  But if they do, they are extremely rare.  And I am certainly not about to justify even this parental misconduct.  Example:  Okay little Johnny, yesterday I caught you hitting your sister, and it is not right for you to hit anyone, and to prove it, I am going to hit you.  Simply labeling this reasoning old-fashioned relieves the parents of their culpability.  Would it be hyperbolic to label it barbaric?  Perhaps we can agree on primitive.

In fact, my parents struck their two little boys so much and so frequently, that looking back on it, I have to conclude that it was much more than mere anger and a lack of self-control.  Without consequence, their abuse was an entitlement, achieved with complete impunity.  It was a power trip and a fetish.  Even today, fifty years later, they gloat about it.  Just imagine.

Imagine the contempt that they must have had for their children.  An idea comes to mind:  They sacrificed their children on the altar of their own ego.  But that's not quite right, is it?  Whoever heard of an angry sacrifice?  A real sacrifice is done in sorrow in order to bestow future blessings.  An angry sacrifice could only ensure future sorrow.

An angry sacrifice?  There’s another word for that:  Execution.

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Series:  Beating Little Children

Part Two of Three

On Child Abuse and PTSD

I recently read that adults who suffered abuse as children often have symptoms of PTSD.  We have all heard the term PTSD, but I really did not know how this related to child abuse.

So I Googled:  child abuse ptsd.  And this short 2011 article popped right up:  The Lingering Trauma of Child Abuse.

The most salient paragraph:

Once a child has grown to be an adult, however, symptoms of PTSD can become more subtle as he or she learns how to cope with this in day-to-day life.  The symptoms of PTSD can be quite general and can mimic other disorders:  Depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, problems with alcohol and drugs, sleep issues, and eating disorders are just a few.  Many have problems in their relationships and trusting another person again.  Many even end up in abusive relationships and find themselves re-enacting the past.

Which of course eerily corresponds with what I wrote myself last year in The Shadow.

But as so often happens, it was in the comments (sadly since removed from the article) that I found the most useful nuggets.  Here's a comment and a response:

Spanking  Different children need different forms of discipline.  That is because kids are all different.  My two children are very self-willed and headstrong; just like their mom.  So if talking to them doesn't work then I will spank them.  I sit down and put them over my knee and spank them.  And you know what?  Their attitudes improve every time.  Spanking your kid is not abuse.  I've seen abuse and spanking isn't it.  I want to raise a kid that I can respect and like.  I'm not raising jerks, thank you.  Oh and btw, [I always explain] why they got a spanking and also that their mom loves them more than anything on this earth.  There's a right way to do it, ok.  Have a nice day :)

You abusers always tell us  You abusers always tell us you do this because you love us, and this hurts me more than it hurts you – but you never let your kid hit you to see if that is true, do you?  We know how stupid that, and you, really are.  Attitude improvement??  No, your kids just get quiet because they do not want you to keep hitting them and hurting them!

You want a kid you can like and respect, eh?  Well, that is not your job as a parent.  Your child’s purpose in life IS NOT to please you and give YOU satisfaction!  That is why you had kids?  To give yourself pleasure?  That is what you think your kids exist for?  Your gratification, satisfaction, entertainment and legacy?

It is all about you, isn’t it? Your child’s life is not our life.

You will probably be surprised to find out what your children really think of you someday.  Sadly, you probably will not get it even then.  You will join the group of parents who sob loudly and cry big tears about how you gave them everything, told them you loved them, and have no idea why they have cut you off.  You deserve to have them in your life, and they ungratefully refuse to come around.  You will not understand why they left and won’t give you the love and attention you deserve.  After all, you did it the right way, so it can’t possibly be your fault.

You are not teaching your kids anything.  You are beating them into submission.  They will do or say whatever they must to keep you from hitting them.  Are you truly stupid enough to think they will come to you with problems or ask you for help when they know they will be hit for it?  Yeah, you probably are that stupid.  Abusers are.

How do you like being an abuser?  You will deny it...they always do.  Enjoy your denial sandwich. 

Sure, I would have expressed it differently.  But she gets the job done.  One additional comment is worth noting:

The law  It's a sad, sad thing that most nations in the world have not banned so-called physical discipline.  By not doing so, they actually allow adults (among them, drunken adults, unstable adults, sadistic adults, religious adults, pedophile adults) to traumatize children.

I'm glad I live in a country (Norway) where all spanking is forbidden by law.  Under five percent of the world's children are that lucky.

All of these quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and readability. 

Understand that I personally never use the word spanking.  The word is used to hide and justify abuse as a legitimate form of discipline.

And I wanted to include that final comment, which is actually the first comment to the original article, because it is so on point.  Unstable adults.  Surely that must include irrationally angry and contemptuous parents.  Maybe this is part of the reason Norway has developed into one of the richest nations in the world:  They don't mistreat their children.

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Series:  Beating Little Children

Part One of Three

Final Thoughts on Estrangement

Today, it is so easy to mock parents for how they raise their little snowflakes.  Self-esteem above all else.  Above right and wrong, above winning and losing, above proper and appropriate discipline.  These parents are misguided and do not prepare their kids for the real world.  That's bad.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, what happens when parents do not care about self-esteem at all?  Surely this is infinitely worse.  It's unconscionable. These people do not attend to the most basic responsibilities of parenting:  Raising strong, productive, and mentally and emotionally healthy adults-in-the-making.  They have no business raising children at all.

I do realize that this series of posts will come across as self-indulgent.  It is too easy and convenient and cliché to blame our parents for our shortcomings.  Right?  Nevertheless, I need to crystalize my thoughts, and short of writing a book, this blog offers a convenient outlet.

There's an idea:  Maybe I'll do just that and turn this series of posts into a book.  Might be cathartic.

Update, 1 January 2021:  Contrary to the title of this post, turns out these were not my final thoughts on estrangement.  Since originally posting this about a year ago, I have added quite a few more posts on the topic.  But at this point, I think I need to be done.  As for a book, I have put a draft together.  The problem is that in book form, these writings appear even more self-indulgent.  That might be okay if I felt like this work could help others.  But I don't see that.  Rather this exploration has been a sort of cheap therapy for myself.  Time to move on.
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Machiavelli for Parents

I have written previously about my parents' misbehavior when I was a small child, as well as their conduct this year.  In regard to raising children, my parents took the Machiavellian approach.  That is to say, they preferred to employ fear rather than love.  It is easier, more efficient, and from their perspective, far more effective.  It is also an extremely lazy and unthinking form of parenting.

Once, in a Barnes & Noble, I saw a three-year-old running around and screaming, disturbing books and customers.  After what seemed like an hour, the mother finally appeared.  She calmly knelt down to get on the child's level, and proceeded to explain to the young child why running around and screaming in a book store was a bad idea.  I was right there to witness the child's behavior and the mother's response.  And of course I was just appalled.  I mean does one really reason with a three-year-old?

But is that the only alternative response to the way my parents dealt with such situations?  Needless to say my parents would have beat the crap out of their kid right then and there.  Both of these responses are terrible.  But beating a child is barbaric, unnecessary, and traumatic.  The worst you can say about this mother is that she was misguided.

So is a proper response so difficult to figure out?  Evidently.

Simply remove the child.  No matter the inconvenience, remove the child from the environment.  In this particular case, the mother should have grabbed the child and said, no books for you today, we shall go wait for your father in the car, and marched the child out of the store.  Child appropriately punished; calm book store environment restored.

My parents would appreciate another Machiavelli quote:  It has to be noted that men must be either pampered or crushed because they can get revenge for small injuries but not for grievous ones.

Oh yes, misbehaving children must be so severely punished that there is no chance of similar behavior ever again.

My parents chose to crush their children. 
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An Open Letter to My Siblings

Nathan & Leslie,

Here, I am not interested in relitigating the events of 2019.  Suffice it to say that our parents' conduct was despicable.  And fully accompanied by all the bitterness and venom that only our father can muster.  Now, they either cannot bring themselves to recognize it; which is bad.  Or, they just don’t care; which of course is worse.  And they are not stupid people.  I assure you, if they had treated you this way, you would have reacted exactly as I have.

In fact, it was reminiscent of their unconscionable conduct when I was a little boy.  But I was willing to set that aside for the sake of our relationship.  For decades.

I am no longer willing to do that…

What 2019 demonstrated to me is that behind the veneer of respectability lurks a common and wholly unrepentant child abuser, who longs for the day when he could simply beat his children into submission to his will, however irrational it may be.

Early this year, before they found the Monadnock Ridge house, he was gloating (there’s no other word for it) to me about beating Nathan and me in front of a client.  Over nothing.  It was almost always over nothing.  And even when there was cause, it was abusive over-reaction.  I have lived with a small boy for the last nine years.  Not once have I found cause to strike him.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.  Not necessarily about the behavior of their children.  Kids can do outrageous things.  But rather lying about whether or not they have the appropriate demeanor (patience and control) and intellectual fortitude to be raising kids in the first place.

Now one might argue that times have changed.  And parenting has changed.  But that does not negate actual abuse.  It certainly does not negate this attitude of impunity.

I have researched abuse and estrangement quite a bit.  What has always bothered me about the question of child abuse was this:  Did my parents' conduct rise to the level of abuse?  This has been a question for me, basically, all of my adult life.  Broken as I may have been, I still asked the question.

Well in 2019, I found the best answer so far, when I read:

People who were not abused do not ask themselves if they were abused.  The question never occurs to them.  The only people who ask themselves this question are those who were in fact abused.

It is not a perfect answer.  Of course not.  But it sure helps.

So what they gave me in 2019 was a sense of clarity.  It was a gift really.

Their heavy-handed and unnecessary physical abuse (they sure beat the love out of me), their emotional abuse (prominently featuring his unique venom), and their complete and utter lack of regard for the development of my self-esteem.  My sense then and now that raising young children was just a tremendous burden and embarrassment for them.

They were too cheap to buy milk for their little boys.  Let that sink in.  I mean, why have children at all?

So yes, they abused their children.  They were and remain child abusers of the first order.

Now as they pointed out when I last saw them:  "But we’ve done so much for you.”  They threw this at me in anger because I was calling them out on their inexcusable behavior in 2019.  (This was not a conversation I initiated or even wanted to have.  I did not see the point.  But they showed up at my home uninvited, unannounced, and most importantly, unapologetic.)  And of course, this is true; they have done much for me.  In fact, they have treated me better than anyone.  It would be foolish to deny that.  But they have also treated me worse than anyone.  This, too, cannot be denied.

How does one weigh that?

I do not know.

It seems to me that once you break a child, no amount of time and effort can fully reconstruct what has been lost.  No, not lost, taken.  They deny any responsibility or accountability.  He’s so smug and so arrogant.  Their lack of respect for me is palpable.  It's contempt really.  So be it.  I just want to protect what little self-respect I have left.  For my own mental health, I must, belated though it may be, separate myself from them.

And before you ask, of course forgiveness is always an option.  But it seems to me that forgiveness has only one prerequisite:  Remorse.  And of that, they have absolutely none.

It would be an unmerited improvement to say that:  “He has turned into a mean old man.”  No he has not; he’s been mean as long as I’ve known him.  And the time has come, for me at least, to admit that he is not a good person.  And while his sheer meanness was most often visited upon his own children, let's set my issues aside for a moment.

I cringe when I think how he treated his staff in the seventies and eighties.  Even though they were working for peanuts.  I remember when Jane Butler left to go work for Leslie Johnson; Mom and Dad were just baffled.  Evidently it was just too damned difficult for them to figure out that if you want someone to be good to you, you might first want to be good to them.  And similarly, how he treated countless waiters.  (Are you familiar with the Waiter Rule?)  I will never forget the way he treated my future wife on their first meeting.  I think that night, he treated her worse than the waiter.  I cringe when I think of how he treated James Melvin, a man who was always so kind to me and everyone else.  Growing up, I was led to believe that the way the Melvin’s raised their children was deficient.  But looking back on it and the results, I now know where the true deficiency was to be found.

The man did not have any friends because he did not deserve any friends.  If you think about people he would today describe as friends, they are all people who never really spent any time with him.  Business associates, all from out-of-town.

I remember once, when Nathan and I were quite young.  John and Pat Shaw invited all of us over for dinner.  All went well until after dinner, when the adults were playing bridge in the basement and the four children were playing in the adjoining playroom.  I remember, Michael and Susan Shaw being rather rowdy.  Well, by our standards.  And Nathan and I, were scared to death.  Rowdiness was just not to be tolerated.  So we sat in the middle of the room, meekly, and Michael and Susan sort of danced around us.  We were literally shaking.  Sure enough, Dad comes in and beats the shit out of us.  Right on cue.

This sort of fear really defined my childhood.

Now the Shaw’s never invited our family back.  Never.  And they never came to our house.  No doubt if you ask Mom and Dad, even today, they would tell you that their children (Nathan and I) made a bad impression and the Shaw’s no longer wanted to be friends.  But I was invited to that home hundreds of times after that.  No, I think the Shaw’s were appalled by how the Moore’s treated their children.  And no, they did not want to associate with such people.

I suppose you could point to the Danilla’s as the one exception.  But was that a real friendship or just all that was available?  I think it would be a stretch to describe Ron as a true friend to anyone.  Maybe that’s why they got on.

I could continue, but you get the point.  As for mom, well she is what she always has been:  His chief enabler and sometimes participant.

As best as I could, I have left you two out of this statement.  But I have to ask:  What are the odds that all three of their children would suffer mental health issues?  One out of three might be statistically about normal.  Two out of three might be a high statistical outlier.  But three out of three?  That is something altogether different.  I certainly do not want to diminish this writing with idle speculation on subjects I know little about.  But this is a question for me.

In any case, fifty years of bad conduct and bad faith is quite enough for me.

No more.
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On Child Abuse and Delayed Estrangement

I wrote earlier this year that the primary job of parents is to keep their children safe.  That is certainly true in the short term.  In the longer term, parents have a responsibility to raise well-adjusted, psychologically-healthy children, so that they later become well-adjusted, psychologically-healthy adults.

This is not a difficult concept.  But my parents did not give a damn about this duty.  As parents of young children, they only cared about two things.  One, their children conforming to their irrational, unreasonable, and preternatural conception of behavior and obedience.  And two, their incredibly warped and disturbed understanding of, and concern for, their reputation.  And they were perfectly willing to abuse their children, physically, verbally, and emotionally, to insure these requirements.  With devastating long term consequences.

I struggled mightily to overcome their abuse, and had put it behind me, and perhaps had even forgiven them, when in 2019, they were all too willing to demonstrate that nothing had really changed.  Behind the veneer of respectability lurks a common and wholly unrepentant child abuser, who longs for the day when he could simply beat his children into submission to his will, however irrational it may be.

The worst part is that they continue to believe that their child abuse, and likewise their conduct in 2019, were within the bounds of decency.  They refuse to even acknowledge any misconduct.  So they have no shame and deny any and all accountability.  It's arrogance; willfully blind arrogance.  This is what is so unforgivable today.  Not their actual abuse or misconduct, but rather their continuing belief that these derelictions were acceptable.  And why would they believe otherwise?  They have never suffered any consequences whatsoever for their bad behavior.

So in 2019, a new response was in order.  Estrangement is not desirable; no one wants to lose their family.  But when one's self-respect is in jeopardy, surely estrangement becomes a reasonable option; perhaps even a healthy option.  If someone does not respect you, regardless of who they are or what they may have done for you, in order to maintain your own self-respect, you have to let go and move on.

I had put their abuse behind me.  But the events of 2019 really left me no choice.  Our estrangement may have been decades delayed, but its time has come.  Because surely we, all of us, should expect some minimum level of goodwill and behavior.  Surely we owe this to ourselves.

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The Shadow

So what is your earliest memory?  Is it happy?  I'd like to tell you mine.

No, that's not quite correct; I don't really want to tell you.  But I need to record it.  And this seems as good a place as any.

I was maybe, four or five.  This was early 1970's.  A time when small-town parents still allowed their children to wander unattended.  And that is where my lifetime of memories begin.

Late one afternoon I was out roaming the neighborhood with my best bud, kid next door, and frequent bully, Steve Cashwell.  And right in front of my house, we found a pack of matches in the street.  Big stuff for pre-internet five-year-olds.

Steve, who was bigger and stronger, took custody of the newfound afternoon possibilities.  And against my urgent protests, he immediately went looking to put the pyrotechnics to use.  I stumbled along, as bullied kids so often do.

He settled on a solitary bush just off the street between our two houses.  As I am sure he'd never before struck a match, it took a little doing.  But before long, he had the dried leaves beneath the bush alight.  And then very quickly, he had that bush ablaze.

Well, that was too scary for me and I took off for help.  I ran through our front yard, past the front door, headed around the house, toward the back door that we actually used.  Unbeknownst to me, my father had arrived home, and saw the burning bush from his bedroom window.  We met just beyond the front door.

He yelled at me to go inside while he went and dealt with the Cashwell's flaming shrubbery.  Steve, by this time was no where to be found.

Afterwards, my father came inside the house and beat the crap out of me.

I tried to tell the story.  Of course I did.  And even after the beating, I denied that I was responsible.  So my parents, my well-educated, liberal parents, did what they considered appropriate and sufficient due diligence:  They phoned over to the Cashwell's, to find out what had actually happened.

And when they were informed during that telephone conversation that ... I ... was the actual culprit, they beat the crap out of me for a second time that night.  For lying about it.

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Like all of us, the most basic needs of children are food, water, and shelter.  But Maslow taught us that right above these physiological needs sits:  Safety.  Even before love, children need to feel safe.  This is the primary job of parents.  This is the primary purpose of a home.

And I learned very early that my parents and our home were not reliably safe.  My greatest fear as a child was not the dark or getting lost or whatever it is that children typically fear.  Rather, I feared the volatile and capricious nature of my parents.  All too eager to find fault; all too willing to strike with unpredictable abuse.  Physical as well as venomous verbal assaults.  Abuse used to insure preternatural behavior and obedience, and to protect a warped view of their own reputation.  For my parents, fear was the tool of choice in their burden of childrearing.

I did not feel safe with my parents.  How could I?  I was scared to death of them.  Trust is a vital element of safety and we are all born trusting.  But if you learn at the age of three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and beyond, that your parents cannot be trusted, do not be surprised if you have trouble trusting anyone, ever.  How does such a child find mental and emotional stability?  You can expect trouble forming and maintaining relationships, distrust of authority, and other symptoms of the maladjusted.

And if a child's home is not safe, he may never feel home anywhere.  He may spend a lifetime seeking a home that he lacks the emotional capacity to find.  If a child does not feel safe, how can he possibly develop Maslow's higher-level pursuits of belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization?

My parents did not give two cents about the self-esteem of their children.

But that is not all.  Abused children are likely to grow up to be angry adults.  And this internal rage affects everything they do.  And all of their relationships.  How could it not?  I wonder what percentage of our prison population were abused as children?

So angry and unfulfilled.  And unable to find happiness.  Yeah, that sounds about right.  But Jordan Peterson says that happiness is not the goal.  It is rather, a mere byproduct of moral venture.  So I guess, there's always hope.  One muddles onward, searching and hoping.  What choice is there?  The question becomes:  Can abused children transcend their anger and their lack of self-esteem to live a life of moral venture?  Here's hoping.

In any case, there was nothing special about the abuse described above; it was just the first incident that I remember clearly.  My parents were always ready, even eager, to find fault and assume the worst about their children and act on those assumptions.  They knew that Steve was bigger and stronger and a bully.  But they found the idea, that their kid was the one responsible, irresistible.  This was the defining element of my childhood.  Imagine what that does to the psyche of a little kid.  I don't think I ever got over it.

Now I know, plenty have it worse.  Far worse.  Some are hospitalized; some go hungry.  But parents should provide all that they can for their children.  Once they've been fed, it is the parent's job to make them safe.  And yes, feel safe.  When children do not have this, it follows them, like a shadow, into adulthood.  Where it lingers...for a lifetime.
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