DEALING WITH A TOXIC PARENT AFTER GROWING UP.

DEALING WITH A TOXIC PARENT AFTER GROWING UP. Emily Yoffe’s article is primarily concerned with the problems that children of toxic parents have after they have grown up. Mary Jane and I have known adults who never escaped and others who cut off contact with their parents forever. The dilemmas are greater because the problem is rarely discussed. Yoffe says that: “One hallmark of growing up in a frightening home is for the children to think they are the only ones in such circumstances”. Yoffe gives examples of ways that some famous people have struggled with the problem. Bruce Springsteen would obsessively drive by his old house as an adult even though his family had moved away. Warren Buffett’s sister struggled with depression all her life. Yoffe cites this review of GIVING IT ALL AWAY: THE DORIS BUFFETT STORY, which deals with her problems. The review has a painful quote from the mother: “What do you do….when you don’t like your children?” Yoffe tells how, during Abraham Lincoln’s father’s final illness, “Lincoln ignored letters telling him the end was near.” He finally wrote: “Say to him that if we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant.” Yoffe concludes: “Lincoln didn’t attend his father’s funeral.”