Would you ever just cut a kid loose, because he or she had screwed up once too often?

Me, probably not.

I don't think I ever would, but then again, I'm not a parent.

It's hard to imagine, looking at my kids, that i ever wouldn't love them, care for them, do anything to protect them. But i've wondered to myself about that same question. I mean, Ted Bundy had a mother. So did Paul Bernardo. What do their parents see, when they look at them? Do they see the little boy who's knees they kissed, put bandaids on?

There's also the idea of being a parent of an adult. My children are still just that, children. They still need me. But how do you decide to let them make their own choices? And live with the consequences of them? My parents are in the process of helping bail me out of some real nasty stuff right now. It wasn't my doing, it was my ex horrorshow's, but what if it was? Would they have acted any differently? Or would they have done it to secure the fate of their grandchildren? I don't know. I know I'm 40 years old, and at this moment in time, my life doesn't work without my parents. I'm so lucky that they're both still alive, healthy, fit, solvent, and mentally sound enough to help me with my kids, and kind enough to do it.

You meet them when they're born, or you adopt them when they are tiny and helpless and you immediately love them, and you make them and yourself a solemn promise to never not be there when they need you. Unconditional promise. But they aren't tiny and helpless forever and at some point conditions do become implicit in the deal. And some things seem like deal breakers, but that promise is still there.

Yes! No,
Yes. No.
Ask me again tomorrow.

I don't know. Probably depends on just how old they are and how badly they screwed up. Though, I really strongly believe that parents have to accept some of the blame of how their kids are raised if the kid REALLY screws up something big time that can't be written off as youthful indiscretion. But, I don't actually have kids, so it's harder to answer than it probably would be if I had kids. I know I keep letting my cat hang around no matter how much trouble she gets into. [img]/domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/wink.gif[/img]

sadly, no.

This really is a tough question. I agree with others that age is a big factor. To me another big factor is if their "sin" involved hurting another person.

Hahaha

How is your little lifestyle choice doing, anyway?

Tough love is a hard decision to make for any loving parent. Not one that I have to make but know some one who did for the safety and sanity of the other children in the home. They told their oldest disrupted daughter who was eighteen to leave the family home and not come back till she had got her life together. Not sure how it all worked out for the daughter as they moved out of the district and we lost contact. I believe that daughter did turn her life around and moved to Australia and is doing well and is contact with her family again.
Was it tough love that helped her turn her life around and come to her senses ?. Maybe

I don't know how I could ever do that, but I have at times thought it was the right choice for others in that situation. About the even Ted Bundy had a mother... I often think about the accused's fmaily in cases where people are screaming for the death penalty. The victim's family scream- at least you can visit your kid in prison instead of his grave. At the court here, I always see very pained innocent relatives break down when their family member is sentenced. I also have a Judge who loves to tell the story of a man she sentenced to life in prison for killing his mother when he was high on PCP and didn't know he killed her until he sobered up. Sometimes you have to cut your losses...but when?

I think with alcoholic/drug addicted children parental acceptance of the behaviors enables the behaviors. I have no idea where the line is though. That's the difficult part to figure out.