from struggling turkeys.com

[Antigen]

On 2005-11-15 08:04:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Helena, I gather you are another brilliant person here.  Yep, it is the kid's life- but if they expect financial support, they won't be making these kind of choices. If you read previous posts by the parent, you would know the background."

In other words, you've clearly chosen your new gurus over your own daughter. Don't come cryin ta me when you're old and feeble and all alone in the world. You're earning it.

The Mann family was only one of a host of influential voices being raised against the traditional reading instructions in the most literate nation on earth.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3n.htm' target='_new'>John Taylor Gatto

[The Liger]

On 2005-11-14 19:23:00, Anonymous wrote:

"So you find it amusing that this parent is heart-broken because her daughter, who she thought would be applying to college and was ready to do some positive things in life, is going to run off with a criminal?  This girl was addicted to drugs- BAD drugs-not just pot. The parents did everything possible to help her.

I'm sure you have some very helpful suggestions on what they SHOULD have done to help their daughter. Too bad they didn't check with you first."

"Run off"?  I thought she was going to exercise her legal right to walk the fuck out of there!

And just because her mother says she was a "drug addict" doesn't mean that she was.  I love how pro-program people take what parents say as the infallible word of God, but when anyone else says something, there's the inevitable, "Can you prove that?"

They're not trying to help their daughter, they're trying to control her.  With money.  If they really wanted to help her, they'd accept that she's leaving the program, and try to work out a plan to get her into school or work.  Not do this juvenile "oh yeah, well if you don't do what I say and act how I want you to act, then I'm not going to be your friend anymore" bullshit.

[CCM girl 1989]

WOW, that's a shocker!!! You mean now that your daughter is 18, she has the legal right to make choices for herself, and she actually is??? That's sooooo strange! And she is planning on leaving with a boy who also is in the same situation??? Even stranger!!!! Wow, I can see why your soooo frusterated. Let me tune my violin.

[Antigen]

Well, as the mother of a rather bombastic teenager, believe me I understand the anguish of "knowing" that your kid is making a huge mistake. As the mother of that same young woman, who's now 21, I know a little more.

First, I now know that coercion and guilt tripping are exactly opposite to the best approach to helping a young person who you love to stay safe while learning to make sensible decisions. Second, I now know that my daughter had very good reasons, unknown to me and none of my damned business so long as she didn't ask for my advice, for thinking and behaving as she did. In other words, I know that I was quite mistaken about a number of things (read damned near everything I thought I knew about my daughter's life)

If I had understood all that right from the beginning, I think she may have actually believed me more often, asked for my advice more readily and disclosed more of those difficult issues earlier on when I might have been able to be helpful.

But what's done is done. I hope this young couple succeed and take good care of themselves and each other and that, one day, the mother comes to accept her new role as the parent of an ADULT.

It is wrong to leave a stumbling stone in the road after it has tripped you.
http://fornits.com/wwf/bb_profile.php?mode=view&user=1005' target='_new'>Hands Out Light