3 ms·

Are any of the people taking a hard line here ("She owes him nothing!") actually children of abusive parents?

• chias 10y ago
  This is an intriguing question. I remember reading research some years ago that concludes humans are incredibly bad at predicting how they would feel in a situation that they have never been in, and the accuracy of the prediction had zero correlation with how strongly the subject was convinced.
• DasIch 10y ago
  Having the opinion that children don't (or shouldn't) owe their abusive parents anything, isn't in conflict with also having the opinion that they might feel differently. It is about freeing these children from moral and legal obligations and giving them the freedom to act in whatever way makes them happy and allows them to move on.
  • lawpoop 10y ago
    My wonder is, is it an effective way to help free them, when one doesn't take the psychological ties causing the problem into consideration in the first place.
• hga 10y ago
  As the son of one who's in fact gotten even more abusive this year, as my father got early stage Alzheimer's, which to date is still a minor disability, to more comprehensively take out 57 years worth of grudges against him, to the point of the unforgivable, to the point I'm almost certain she wants him dead if she can arrange it through sins of omission.... Yes, there are people who you're technically that close to, who you are obliged to "honor", to whom you (eventually) owe nothing, and like in this case, who fully deserve to die alone, and most decidedly unloved. Although I'll draw one distinction here, it's the sins against another that crossed the final line for me, the one where I've sworn to never speak to her again (modulo someone else's life being in danger). Sin against me, that can be not just understood but forgiven, but against an innocent (enough) 3rd party is somehow different. (And for a bit more pathos, by her order in 20 days I'll be completely out of the loop and living in the house built in 1910 I recently bought and have been remodeling, seeing as I'm the only sibling who's in the same town, have been living with him for the last 5 years on land she alone owns, and is the one most strongly objecting to her treatment of him.)
  • zeroer 10y ago
    Holy run-on sentences, Batman!
    • hga 10y ago
      Yeah, I know; in this case, a deliberate style choice not to break the flow most of the paragraphs. This isn't standard expository prose, I think it's allowed for the effect.
      • dTal 10y ago
        I find it very difficult to read. It's like minified javascript.
• throwawaycoap 10y ago
  Yes. My mother is abusive, so I cut her out of my life, and I am markedly happier for it. I certainly don't feel like I owe her anything. My father disagrees with me, which is a source of conflict.