Parenting (which I'm sure has NEVER been a Blog Title before)

This is not about me parenting.

Or my parents parenting.

Or actually about any (actual) parents I know.

This is about a dear friends parents. Or shall I say ex-parents? For my friend (let's call her Sweet, and she IS) has recently had to cut herself off from her 'family of origin' (that's therapy talk there).

This was after MUCH painful reflection, painful experience, and a truly horrendous upbringing. Sweet's ex-parents win the 'worst parents I've ever heard of' award, HANDS DOWN. Well, that I've dealt with in real life. I know there are worse, although that is very, very hard to hear.

Sweet is a TRULY optimistic person, with the ability to laugh at life in a way that completely astonishes me (me, the perennial poster child of 'take it too seriously'). She is a marvelous mother to her children, and has gone WAY out of her way for this 'family of origin' to the point of almost alienating her fabulous husband.

See, Sweet was raised by substance abusers, where the word NEGLECT takes on meanings I still cannot comprehend. I'm pretty sure they are complete narcissists too (in every possible literal psychological meaning of the word) where everyone, ESPECIALLY their daughter, is not a real 'person', but something to be used.

I was on the phone with Sweet today when she received a letter from her ex-father (she has had zero communication with them for about a year) that reduced her to incoherent tears. My heart utterly breaks for her.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND people like this (the ex-parents). At all. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

Why do these people have children at all? How are people with THIS damage allowed to EXIST? What is WRONG with this world?

And how in the heck did Sweet get to be as well-adjusted, as intact a mind, with actual SELF-WORTH, as she did under these circumstances?

There is a lesson to be learned here, I just can't quite figure it out here....

Either way, I am sending 'white light' to Sweet tonight. She deserves some peace.