Parental Alienation: Struggling to Be Right, Or Appearing Righteous?
--image from health-res.com Something happened today that reminded me of a conversation I had a few years ago with someone who became a friend. Caryn (not her real name, and no, not me) was struggling with maintaining her relationship with her adult daughter. After surviving a painful divorce, struggling to maintain herself and her daughter financially and emotionally, and returning to school to study in a field she'd always loved and wanted to pursue, things were beginning to fall apart for what seemed like the last time. Her comments ended with something like this: "I am the one who has done the right thing, struggled to keep a good home for ------, raised her and helped her through school and college, and now she has no respect or appreciation for me as a person, or as a mother. Both women and men can be victims of parental alienation. I posted about parental alienation here earlier this year. Learn more by visiting paawareness.org . What I finally said to her was this (and...