LW1 made me laugh out loud. When I got my first vibrator in my mid-20s, I remember commenting to my buddies that if they gave one to each teenaged girl on their 15th birthday there would be no teenage sex. It's not better than sex, but it sure takes the edge off!

LW3, your mom may be certifiably nutty, but your dad ain't much better. Please stop taking so much blame on yourself. Why on earth did he leave you with your "certifiably nutty" mother and not attempt to get custody? Your actions were extreme, but not outside the realm of understandable for a kid in your position. You were obviously deeply troubled, and you don't indicate he ever tried to get any help for you or enter into family counseling. And now he's avoiding you because he was "hurt." I'm sorry, but he's a douchebag. I am of course working under the assumption that you don't have a violent prison record, ongoing drug problem or serious untreated mental illness that you deny. Write him your letter of apology for your actions, but don't expect much. He sounds pretty blame-worthy himself. Concentrate on forging a new life for yourself with your wife and resolve to be a better parent to whatever children you end up having.

I think you sound like you are being a bit hard on the father. According to the letter writer, she threatened to accuse him of a criminal offense (stalking) if he continued to try to contact her. She also stated that she attempted to harm his wife and infant son. Would it really be responsible parenting to take in a violent, enraged teenager, who didn't want to live with him at all? Based on what the LW said, she spent significant amounts of time with her father (using it to steal from him, abuse his wife, and try to harm her baby brother). She then refused to have any communication with him (threatening him a criminal accusation if he contacted her). What exactly should he have done at that point?

Am I a jerk for suspecting the motive for contacting him? She's getting married. Does she want him to share the milestone, or help pay for the event?

alldenwall:

Am I a jerk for suspecting the motive for contacting him? She's getting married. Does she want him to share the milestone, or help pay for the event?

Now that you mention it, I could definitely see a "you owe me for my crappy childhood" mentality in this situation.

I don't know. I think the LW sounded sincerely ashamed and remorseful. It's possible that marriage has made her think about children, the future, and being a grown-up. I can see wanting to fix the mistakes of the past at the time that you really start thinking about starting your adult future. I also can see that LW might feel like she wants to have some sort of mentally healthy, responsible parent present at her wedding.

Her letter really made me sad, because so much of what she did was so clearly a childish lashing out in pain and grief and confusion. She hurt herself and others in the way only a child can. It's an example of how are unthinking childish can permenantly damage our futures.

He let it get to that point. There's no indication of an attempt to intervene with mental health professionals. This was a clearly troubled kid. I have no patience for parents who let their kids go off the deep end and then wipe their hands off and walk away.

I have a friend who's alive today because his working class parents made the wrenching decision to have him institutionalized when he was 17 because the knew something was wrong. He was violent, angry and self-destructive. They were NOT educated people, but they loved him enough to do what they could to save him. It's not his favorite memory, but he freely admits he would have been dead otherwise. He's lived a good life since then. They could have just kicked him out and washed their hands of him. At the same time, I know a family of educated professionals who shoved their son's burgeoning mental illness under the rug and ignored it for 30 years. He's never held a job for longer than a month (and doesn't work at all now) and is entirely reliant on them for everything. When his parents die, he will have no way of surviving and no mental health care to help him cope. He's an intelligent man, but crippled by the inaction of his parents when it would have mattered most.

I think the LW's father falls into that "passive parenting" category. She was lashing out over an extended period, but he apparently couldn't be bothered to really work on getting to the root of the problem before the situation escalated to one he deemed intolerable.

Now maybe the LW has totally mischaracterized the entire scenario, but the letter struck me as pretty honest.

I thought of the "wedding money" issue, but it's easy enough to turn something like that down if that's the ulterior motive. Weddings are also times when people reflect and reach out. I have a friend who did that - used his wedding as a moment to reach out to his father who had walked out on him 10 years before.

I guess you have a point in that, as the parent, it was irresponsible of the LW's father to allow his unbalanced child to dictate the terms of their relationship (perhaps there was something in the fact that he had started a new family and didn't want to import a "mess" into his new life?). All the same, getting a child committed isn't an easy thing to do (especially now, when the terms of involuntary committment are very high - it's not something that can be done easily - especially if the mother was uncooperative). I can also see that a parent, probably unwisely, would be afraid of blighting his child's life by having them committed over something he might see as natural jealousy and pain. Teenagers do lash out for a multiptude of reasons, it is very difficult, as a parent, to know when to call in the calvary.

At the end of the day, the LW wronged her father, her step-mother, and her brother in multiple ways. The fact that the father may also have wronged her, doesn't cancel out her original actions or make them right. Thus her desire to seek forgiveness is right and valid as is the hurt her father feels.

Having a kid committed is only going to result in their being pumped full of designer psychiatric drugs with horrific side-effects- to be alleviated by more psychiatric drugs- and it dosn't sound like the LW had a mental illness. I agree that the Dad is responsible for marrying psycho-mom, not fighting harder for custody, and not being more proactive about LW's emotional issues leading up to the behavior in the letter. I'd totally be with the sympathizers on this one if it weren't for the booby-trapping. I'd love more detail on what she meant by that. C'mon, folks, sometimes even healthy teenagers speak and act obnoxiously and are excruitiating to be around. Most don't try to hurt people.

alldenwall:

I'd totally be with the sympathizers on this one if it weren't for the booby-trapping. I'd love more detail on what she meant by that. C'mon, folks, sometimes even healthy teenagers speak and act obnoxiously and are excruitiating to be around. Most don't try to hurt people.

Exactly! I mean, she tried on purpose to HURT her stepmom AND the baby. How exactly? Hmmm...maybe she let toys on top of the stairs so stepmom could fall...?? That could kill someone. We don't know. And she also tried to press CRIMINAL charges on his father!! That is not just a normal teenager "lashing out". That girl was a psycho bitch! For all we know the father could have tried to get her into counseling. It really seems like he tried, with all the phone calls, taking care of her, etc.

14 is NOT a child. She was old enough to know better. And why has it taken her 13 years to try to make amends? The getting married excuse sounds lame.

I don't think the dad doesn't want to talk to her because he's "hurt", I think he's AFRAID! I'd be afraid.

Since we are using anecdotes, why not chime in? I am an attorney. I have handled many custody cases. I have seen cases of parental alienation that are quite extreme in these days. Parental alienation was not considered in the same way then as it is today. Further, the state of custody law has significantly changed in a way that is more fair to fathers. He very well may have tried what he could have to deal with daughter. You say there is no indication, but you casually skip over the fact that a 27 year old adult who was in that situation and causing those problems stated that her father did everything that he could to help her. SHE THINKS THAT HE COULD NOT HAVE DONE MORE. That feels in the gaps better than your assumptions, I would think. Regardless, I once had a case where the Dad and his family continued a pattern of alienation for years. There were experts but dad always faked that he had nothing to do with it. Counseling worked for some time, but was unraveled by continuous alienation by father. Mom even got custody through the courts, but when Dad saw the children, he would continue to push the children away from their Mom. By the time Mom got custody, the behavior and attitudes were so ingrained that after a while, the counselors believed that it was less harmful for the children to be with Dad (because he could not do anymore damage) than to live with mom. At that point, Mom gave up and gave the kids back to dad. This was the worst that I had seen.

Sometimes there is a good reason for a parent to give up. If the child poses a danger to other members of the family (a 14-year old setting up a trap for an infant, are you kidding me?), it may make sense. Sometimes it is even in the child's best interest for the parent to back away.

That fills in the gaps, not feels. Oops.

All the same, getting a child committed isn't an easy thing to do

And keep in mind that he was not the custodial parent, so it went beyond "not easy" to "nigh impossible".

Also part of my personal crusade to get people to pronounce the word correctly: it's "cavalry". Calvary is where Jesus died.

I thought Jesus died on horseback.

JRZ: " When his parents die, he will have no way of surviving and no mental health care to help him cope. He's an intelligent man, but crippled by the inaction of his parents when it would have mattered most."

JRZ, your friends' son is even now elligible for social security disability and medical/mental care even if he still lives with his parents.

If he came down with schizophrenia in his teens or ealy twenties (the usual time for schizophrenia to hit --there is now a theory that it is caused by a virus) there would have been and there is no cure anyway. It's also well nigh impossible to have someone committed for more than a couple of days these days, unless you can pay for it privately...

Back when the divorce in letter #3 likely happened it was nearly impossible for a father to win custody over a mother. The whole situation probably would have been turned around on him if he had even tried. But still, do we know he didn't try?