ERASED follow up

The following comment was sent to me via email by Patricia Manzo, Esq., an attorney in private practice in Jericho, NY who is frequently a court appointed Attorney for the Child. I reproduce it here with her permission:

I agree. There are an awful lot of Moms who will swear they are the best Moms in the world yet they fail to see how destructive they are truly being by doing everything they can to put a wedge between their soon to be ex-husbands and their kids and they do have the upper hand because they usually are the custodial parent. As you have heard me say many, many times: a girl learns how to be a Mom and a wife by watching her own Mom. A boy learns how to be a Dad and husband by watching his own Dad. The very same people who revile drunks, drug addicts or abusers (usually because they grew up in an alcoholic/drug/abusive environment) are the same ones who marry the very same type because it is a familiar and comfortable place to be. They just don't "get it" that the very destructive behavior they are exhibiting in the "best interest" of their children is the very thing that will send their children into that very same type of "familiar" relationship and the dysfunction will continue. And people wonder why the cycle continues? Its because the parents are too selfish to permit their own children to freely love them both. They would rather expend every last cent and shred of strength into grinding the other parent into the earth. On top of it all, these are the same people who run up extraordinary legal fees in this sick process, blame their own lawyer for having the nerve to bill them and then reneg on the payment of their outstanding debt! People who sink to this level truly get what they deserve. So when their kid is pregnant at 16, or addicted to weed, or in a gang (because its a "real" family and "they" understand), in jail or worse, they'll look at each other and say "What happened? We loved them so much. How could they do this to us?" Once again making it about them and putting themselves first. The truly good parent will do everything possible to insure the kids know, love, interact with and respect the other parent. Children who are free to love both their parents, who have free and unhampered access to both whenever he or she wants it, is able to move freely between both parents without guilt or anxiety is the success story of the future. Why? because he had parents who gave a damn. Thanks for listening.