Freki:

"An adult has the right to tell her adult siblings something that was foisted on her by an abusive mother. "

Abusive!?

Making a stupid mistake and saying something very inappropriate to your 10-year-old is unfortunate but understandable, if you are a sobbing wife who has just found out your husband is cheating on you. The mother is dealing with the aftermath of it wrongly now, too, for certain.

However, if you really think this is a case of child abuse, it clearly shows that you have never seen REAL child abuse. I have, and all the abused kids I have met would GLADLY trade their situation for one with two fundamentally loving if flawed parents.

Freki

Involving a child in a "sexual secret," swearing that child to secrecy for a dozen years, excluding that child from therapy to get over the shared trauma, and refusing to let the child vent IS emotional abuse. It's much more than "a stupid mistake" it's completely negating the importance of the child's feelings and undermining the child's sense of security, self-worth, and trust. This situation undoubtedly devastated the 10-year-old and caused daily emotional upset for quite some time when it happened. Doubtless this left scars. It's not just a "stupid mistake." A "stupid mistake" would have been apologized for immediately and the burden taken off the child. Besides physical abuse, abuse is also tampering with a child's emotional development and self-esteem, no matter what form it takes.

Posters who have observed that if all was well with the parents' marriage in present day the mother would not be so frosty on the issue are probably right. A parent who made such an abominable transgression once in anger and never had the grace to acknowledge it probably crossed the line more than once. At least the father had the awareness to apologize to the daughter at the time--the reason the daughter's resentment is focused on the transgressor as far as the hurt inflicted on her was concerned. The daugher is not being unreasonable in her resentment.

Leaving her out of the therapy might qualify as emotional neglect, but it was hardly abusive. It would be similar to sending a child to school with a headache, not realizing they were developing meningitis. They had no way of knowing it had impacted her so deeply.

The only thing remotely abusive was mom's big mouth. That wasn't exactly a pattern of abusiveness. Yes, one incident can be abuse, but just as you can't assume someone is abusive because they spanked their child one time, neither can you assume this one-time overstepping of parental boundaries was abusive.

Even people who suffered pervasive physical, sexual, and emotional abuse throughout childhood generally have found a way to work through it 20 years later. Does it still impact them in some way? Yes, but they also recognize that they are not going to get any restitution from the abuser or any complicit accomplices. They generally get on with their lives.

On top of all that, you only get one side of the issue from each letter. If you talked to the parents or siblings, there may never have been any indication that this person was at all bothered by this, besides a few times of bringing it up to mom, and the parents may otherwise been the model of Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver-dom. One verbal slip-up doesn't constitute child abuse.

Fucking Americans need something real to worry about.

Okay, I've got to agree with Tarquin here. At the risk of repeating what has been said over and over: get over it. The mother? Made a mistake, a pretty bad one. Parents are people too: sometimes they make mistakes when they are confused, sad, or upset. Sometimes they make this mistake worse by trying to pretend it never happened. But for god's sake, you are in your late 20's. You are not a helpless child anymore. If this issue is still affecting you so dramatically, and your mother refuses to deal with you, you should have gotten yourself to a professional a long time ago. Personally, the fact that the LW is still so traumatised by this makes me think she has other problems as well.

....and this is NOT one of them.

The poster who called the mother's act child abuse is correct. The poster who believes it is not, is dead wrong. What the mother did is called parentification. Google it. I doubt this was a one time behavior it rarely is, it just takes different forms.

I, at one time worked as a nurse in the family shelter system, I saw more forms of child abuse than I want to remember. Welts, burns, concussions and broken bones are not the only way you can be abused. We all have different psyches, we hurt differently. Explain why one child or adult screams/"carries on" during vaccinations and another is calm? The pain response whether emotional or physical is different for all.

Why does one soldier come home from war "shell-shocked" and another, who saw the same things not?

It is pretty egotistical to expect others to feel the same as you when it comes to pain.

The poster who thinks he/she knows all about abuse, does not.

What Prudie failed to understand it that the writer is still being abused by mom (though probably not intentionally) when she rebuffs him.

The letter writer needs to work this out in therapy with a neutral party.

1. The LW is an adult. When you are an adult, people can only do to you what you permit.

2. She should have worked this out with a counsellor long ago.

3. She has chosen not to deal with this like an adult, but like a vindictive child.

4. She has decided on a campaign to "punish" her mother.

5. She is now the abuser.

6. She is abusing her mother by threatening to reveal a stupid chance remark about an incident that is long since over and forgotten.

7. If she tattles (and that is what she proposes), she is also choosing to harm her siblings.

8. She is sincerely hoping that her sibs will also "punish" Mommy.

9. Then she can destroy ALL of the relationships between her family members.

10. She is clearly too stupid to realize that instead of making her feel vindicated, this action will cause her to have NO family at all. No one wants that kind of vindictive snake around them.

One comment over a decade in the past is not a pattern of abuse. Trust me on that one.

Well, this was an unfortunate situation. However, for those of you who are either paragons of virtue or living in a monastery; when someone finds out they have been cheated on,there is apt to be unconsidered emotional expression.

Everyone that I know has had, as a child, as least the occasional glimpse of adult sexuality, frailty, pain or conflict. As a child you know that you have heard or seen something shocking, but meaningful, but you can't put all the pieces together. You walked in on some sex, you sat on the back stairs while the yelling went on inside or your drunken aunt blurted something out she shouldn't have at Thanksgiving dinner.

We grow up and hopefully have some adult insight and experience with which we reframe these experiences. A woman grows up to realize what the pain of an unfaithful husband must be like and appreciate what it took for her mother to put her life back together. Maybe she develops some compassion and some understanding of just how vulnerable human beings can be.

What does this adult child want? If this episode was still being experienced from her 10 year old perspective, Messy is right, therapy is long overdue. Am I the only one that finds it creepy that a grown up would expect some detailed discussion about her parents sexual pecadillos? I'm with Messy, on this too; this sounds punitive. I'm not satisfied with the outcome so I'm upping the ante by humiliating you.

If the mother, in this case had killed the father in a fit of passion, she would be out on parole by now. In fact the mother did not do this. The parents went to councilling, put their marriage back together and I hear no mention of an unhappy home. Just a vindictive overgrown child. Four year olds all over America are handling this kind of thing routinely. Unfortunate, but true. What is the kid trying to prove anyway? What would be the value of this outing?

And, let's say that the mother, is as some are suggesting, a frosty arm folder (I don't think telling your child keep their nose out of your sex life qualifies as that) of what value is it to anyone to continue to dig in this spot?

Let's save the term child abuse for just that-abuse, not to justify creating drama over the merely unfortunate or unpleasant.

From this link: <link>

Parentification is a term used to refer to when children adopt the roles and responsibilities of parents within their families. Parentified children tend to hold a high degree of responsibility for household and caregiving duties, to have greater access to information normally restricted to adults, and to provide counsel to their parents on mature subjects.

Being told one adult secret doesn't fit that definition. You don't know whether any one person on this board know what he's talking about or not, unless you know what they know. I won't get into further discussion with you about this beyond this one post, so feel free to argue or rant all you want - I won't respond.

However, had someone gone to CPS, then or now, and told them that the mother had done this, at most they would have told the mother to take a parenting class. Most likely, it wouldn't even have warranted a home visit.

As stated above, every person at some point in their lives does something stupid and inappropriate. Parents are not immune to this on the sheer basis of having procreated. I'll wager you aren't immune, either.

myfranz:

The poster who called the mother's act child abuse is correct. The poster who believes it is not, is dead wrong. What the mother did is called parentification. Google it. I doubt this was a one time behavior it rarely is, it just takes different forms.

I, at one time worked as a nurse in the family shelter system, I saw more forms of child abuse than I want to remember. Welts, burns, concussions and broken bones are not the only way you can be abused. We all have different psyches, we hurt differently. Explain why one child or adult screams/"carries on" during vaccinations and another is calm? The pain response whether emotional or physical is different for all.

Why does one soldier come home from war "shell-shocked" and another, who saw the same things not?

It is pretty egotistical to expect others to feel the same as you when it comes to pain.

The poster who thinks he/she knows all about abuse, does not.

What Prudie failed to understand it that the writer is still being abused by mom (though probably not intentionally) when she rebuffs him.

The letter writer needs to work this out in therapy with a neutral party.

MyFranz gets it, having seen it repeatedly like a nurse. Others who have a huge blind spot and mistakenly think this is a vindictive child butting in on his/her parents' sex life have completely missed the mark.

This ceased to be about the parents' sex life when the mother vindictively--and manipulatively--involved her 10 year old child then subsequently forbade that child to ever discuss it again. Does anyone here doubt that that 10-year old fretted over this secret, not knowing how to handle it, for months before subduing the emotional upset? That kind of pent up strong emotion leaves a lasting impression. It isn't as if Mom had told her an ugly bit of gossip about a neighbor and then the child keeps harping about Mom having told her something ugly.

We do indeed have strong indication that Mom is a habitual manipulator. What was Mom's response when the adult child raised the issue (twice) more than a decade later? It was to blame the CHILD for still harboring feelings about the incident. She did a classic "attack is the best form of defense" to deflect a subject where she was clearly in the wrong. This is an effective "blame the victim" defense line. Mother knew exactly what she was doing when she chose this response rather than "I'm so sorry this has bothered you for so long." ...and for those of you who missed the point, mom was also being highly manipulative when she punished her cheating husband by humiliating him in front of his oldest child. This is not just a simple slip by a parent in distress, it strongly indicates a manipulative person.

It's not surprising then that this adult, conditioned at a very young age to be submissive, is having issues toward her mother (notice she has forgiven her father, who at least had the grace to admit he had transgressed and apologized to the child for causing the child pain). Undoubtedly this individual needs counseling to be able to stand up to her mother and exress herself. She has a right to tell her mother exactly how she feels about the position she had been put in for so many years as a child. The mother, of course, can rebuff her again, but putting her feelings down in a letter that her mother can either read or choose not to read would help.

A manipulative person who molds a child from a very young age can reap havoc on that child's self-confidence. It's way too easy to add to the adult child's feelings of frustration by continuing to casually dismiss the very real damage that was done.

MessyONE wrote the following post at 07/19/2008 4:58 PM: 1. The LW is an adult. When you are an adult, people can only do to you what you permit.

Riiiiight. And that's exactly why the conviction rate for date rape and certain other forms of assault is virtually nil. Way to victim-blame.

It didn't happen when the LW was an adult. It happened when they were a child. I agree it should have occurred to them to arrange their own therapy sessions a while ago, but I'm not willing to blame them for their continued pain over this incident.

Wow, this is harsh.

Let's look at the mother's pattern of abuse (as far as we know by this limited glimpse into this family):

1. Vindictively humiliating father by exposing his transgression to his oldest child.

2. Next day, when heat of anger is over, talking to the child, minimizing the wrong done to the child by involving him/her, then forbidding the child ever to discuss the subject again.

3. The child is denied relief and forced to deal with her emotions alone and can't even unburden himself/herself by discussing the pain with a sibling. This is to protect MOTHER'S transgression (Mother gets therapy) as well as father's. Children shouldn't be held to the same standards of keeping secrets they are too young to deal with. True, the now adult child now wants a bit of revenge by telling her siblings, but let's face it--she's entitled. If discussing the situation she was put in with a close sister would help her, then confiding in a sibling should be her right. The mother had no right to put the burden of the secret on her child. (BTW, in my own situation I thought I was keeping mother's secret for two decades--9 years in estrangement of my parents--until my sister and I finally compared notes. It turns out sister knew more than I did and what I DIDN'T know hurt only ME. Mother was able to manipulate me precisely because I didn't know what my sister knew and I perceived my MOTHER as the victim and felt protective of HER. Yes, I met the definition of being parentized. Keeping the secret of mother's manipulativeness may actually be working against another sibling.) It would probably be wiser of this adult child to unburden herself to a therapist rather than a sibling, BUT, her siblings are undoubtedly adults now too (if she's now 28) and can handle a few ugly truths. This adult child has a right to choose either path to unburden himself/herself.

4. More than a decade later, when the child tries to discuss feelings she was impotent to discuss as a child, mother not only refuses to acknowledge her fault in putting a burden on her child the child was too young to handle, she blames the CHILD for still harboring resentment.

5. Almost a decade after that, when the adult child tries again to discuss the subject (and the subject is MANIPULATION, not ADULTERY), mom successfully uses the tried and true "blame the victim" again.

We only have a mere glimpse of how this mother handles adversity, but it isn't just one brief slip. To keep from admitting that what she did was wrong, she CONTINUED to minimize the child's distress, adding to the now adult child's feelings of injustice.

Note: The "Wow this is harsh" referred to MessyOne's list of 10 items that expressed her opinon that the LW was being a vindictive brat, not the post immediately above.

Darling, you wouldn't know a victim if one came up and bit you on the ass.

Yes, the adult victims are partially to blame. Absolutely. If you permit someone to treat you like garbage, then someone is going to do it.

The LW is not talking about pain, she's talking about punishment.