1. Unsure;

Wrong? Certainly not! Offensive? Who gives a shit? Your loyalty to your sister is understandable and perhaps even touching, but it is misplaced. The safety and well-being of children always takes precedence over coddling the sensibilities of their parents, however well-meaning they may be. If the child is truly at risk you have a moral duty to intercede. I suspect that you ask Prudie's advice only because you find going against your sister emotionally difficult. Now consider for a moment how emotionally difficult her daughter's life is going to be if nobody acts and then grow a pair of balls and do what you already know is right.

2. Once;

First, if you don't tell him, sooner or later somebody else will. Second, he would be perfectly justified - and probably wise - to end the relationship regardless of who tells him. Those who cheat once may not always cheat again, but they usually do and even if they don't that still in no way changes the fact of their deceit and betrayal. You are living in a damn soap opera. You need to figure out why and how to stop it before seriously considering matrimony - unless you really don't care who you hurt doing whatever the hell you feel like doing. Oh... and by the way, after you've grown a pair of balls and accepted the responsibility for your actions with your fiance, you need to forward those text messages to your friend - if you really are her friend, anyway.

3. Mommy;

Welcome to parenthood! Ain't it grand? First, talk to any competent animal trainer and then use the very effective conditioning techniques they can teach you to reign in your tyrannical little drama queen. Then have a large martini in a nice bubble bath and stop beating yourself up for being human. You love them both and abuse neither. Your likes and dislikes are not a matter of choice. They are dictated by the nature of your interactions with people, not by your wishes and not by your beliefs about what they should be. If, in fact, you showed your daughter the same kind of affection that you show your son you would only be reinforcing her bad behavior and attitudes - and that really would be horrifically bad parenting.

4. Philanthropicky;

Oh for the love of God! Grow a pair of balls! Then go buy a damn dictionary and look up the words "gift" and "donate". That which is offered out of guilt is not a gift at all. It is appeasement. Give what you wish to whom you wish and tell the damn panhandlers to go fuck themselves.

Per #1---you could not be more wrong!

What gall to assume you can just swoop in and take someone's kids away. Most parent/child relationships are turbulent to some extent in the teen years. You don't just take someone's kids away because YOU don't agree with their lifestyle choices. If this beeyotch really wanted to help her sister, she would get her a$$ over to her house and babysit in the evening and try wield some positive influence in a less destructive way than breaking up a family.

I have a strong feeling this self righteous poser doesn't really want to help her sister----she wants to show her up so she can look like the hero/savior.

It's ok. You don't need to say the same thing to everyone individually.

MessyONE:

It's ok. You don't need to say the same thing to everyone individually.

I stand corrected... <g>

[and BTW, I was using the term "balls" strictly in the figurative sense.]

Jospry....wtf is wrong with you? Quit running around copying and pasting the same response. Are you by any chance an alchoholic, bad mommy who had her kids taken away because of her neglect? Thats what I'm thinking.

You're fabulous. Don't change a thing - we curmudgeons have to stick together. *smooches*

Besides the SHADDAP that's coming this week is going to be extra-vituperative...

Jospry has been posting the same five or six sentences to every poster on the board.

Jospry:

Per #1---you could not be more wrong!

What gall to assume you can just swoop in and take someone's kids away. Most parent/child relationships are turbulent to some extent in the teen years. You don't just take someone's kids away because YOU don't agree with their lifestyle choices. If this beeyotch really wanted to help her sister, she would get her a$$ over to her house and babysit in the evening and try wield some positive influence in a less destructive way than breaking up a family.

I have a strong feeling this self righteous poser doesn't really want to help her sister----she wants to show her up so she can look like the hero/savior.

You may be right. Or not...

Two points:

1. I almost always operate on the assumption that the LW was telling the truth, regardless of any "feelings" or "hunches" I might entertain to the contrary. This is not because I necessarily believe them, but because once we start allowing assumptions of falsehood we introduce specultion about what the "real" situation is, and those speculations are entirely arbitrary and subjective. There is absolutely no way to know with any certainty what the truth is once we assume that the LW is lying and at that point any advice we offer is made to imaginary people with imagined problems based entirely on our own experiences and prejudices. There is already quite enough of that going on in these Frays, complete with wild flame wars between camps who both agree the LW is lying but who have different assumptions about what the "real" story actually is. I have no inclination to jump into those particular snake pits, since more often than not I would tend to agree with the advice of either camp so long as I agreed with their assumptions about what was actually going on. In this case, the LW clearly stated that many people in the family are concerned about the sister's drinking, that the child is frequently left home alone, and that she is in trouble at school, with the law and with boys. She also made it clear that all she was considering was inviting the child to come stay with her, not taking legal action to have the children removed from her sister's custody. If we assume that the LW is speaking the truth, I'll stand by my advice because...

2. I have personally been in a similar situation and did not intervene. The result was a child who wound up in the custody of the DYS (and from there out on the streets, doing drugs and spiraling out of control) and a mother who wound up dead from liver disease. I wish to God I had had the foresight and the courage then to step in and say, "Enough! Let the child come live with me for awhile". I will always be a little ashamed that I did not, no matter what comfortable lies I told myself at the time about not interfering in a mother's sacred relationship with her offspring. It felt wrong at the time and I knew it and all my excuses were nothing more than fancy rationalizations for avoiding unpleasantness and conflict. Breaking up a family is not a good thing, but living in a broken home is far worse than being removed from one.

MessyONE:

You're fabulous. Don't change a thing - we curmudgeons have to stick together. *smooches*

Besides the SHADDAP that's coming this week is going to be extra-vituperative...

Jospry has been posting the same five or six sentences to every poster on the board.

ROFL

I haven't been reading most of the threads... just scanning for the few posted by people whose posts I always enjoy reading every hour or two, so I didn't know this Jospry person was trolling and spamming the boards. Yours, in particular, is one I have been eagerly anticipating. You are one of a handful who regularly bitch-slap the whiners and Poor-Me's back into the far corner of their cages where they belong.

It ain't gonna be pretty!

Send'em to The Rock, I say. Did you want a key?

MessyONE:

It ain't gonna be pretty!

Send'em to The Rock, I say. Did you want a key?

No thanks.

The Rock of Presumptuous Ninnies is not someplace I have any intention of visiting if I can possibly help it.