What about emotional abuse?
Feb 7th, 2008 by Jill
Emotional abuse won’t land a parent in jail, but what about emotionally abusive parents? Are they bad guys? What if we find ourselves co-parenting with one? This might be an issue I’ve been missing in thinking about the good guy/bad guy dichotomy.
Yes, I think this is very interesting. And it exists. People can be very high functioning and truly have grade of mental disorder….there are mood disorders and the like. And emotional abuse is often passed down from one generation to another. This may still exclude the bad guy/good buy paradigm, but mental illness is real and needs to be dealt with. Somehow.
As a step/parent, it is my job to give my child the tools they will need to move forward in their lives and grow into a productive compassionate adult. This includes giving a child a positive self image. Unfortunately, I’m not the only person helping develope the kids’ self image and not everyone is on the same page. So, I’ve started teaching the kids that they have to be critical thinkers and remember that they can only control one person and that is themselves. Hopefully, they will learn that just because someone says something that it doesn’t make it true!
-d
Maybe it’s the black/white labeling that’s a problem. While you know I’m struggling with the notion that everyone is capable of being a “good guy,” maybe even “bad guy” is too strident of a label. Maybe some are just, sadly, “doing the best that they can guy.”
“Doing the best they can guy” — I like that.
We have so much more sympathy in this world for people with visible disabilities. And yet, if you look at the world at large, so many more of the people we know suffer from illnesses that we cannot see by looking at them.
As much as I would like to think that Husband and I are on the “Good Guy” side of things, I don’t know that believe in the whole “Good Guy/Bad Guy” thing either. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that there are sometimes people in the situation who are better equipped to do the child-rearing. It doesn’t always bottom out to a difference of opinion. Sometimes a person’s mental health issues render them incapable of being a good parent—no matter their intentions or how hard they try. Add to that the fact that a great deal of mental illness go undiagnosed and treated, and you are left with people trying to navigate an inherently difficult situation without all the resources they need to be successful.
I think you are right — things don’t always come down to differences of opinion and some people are better equipped to to do the child-rearing. That makes sense.
My SD’s mother isn’t exactly emotionally healthy. It’s hard at times, but we do our best to counter act it with actual examples.. if that makes sense.
SD is 18 now, not the child DH wished she’d be, but considering the way her childhood went, she’s in pretty good shape. I think.