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From: Elissa
Date: 05 Oct 2010
Time: 13:48:32 -0500
Remote Name: 67.160.176.106
Hi, Scott -- Again, your kindness is very appreciated, but you know, I think anger is an appropriate response toward a parent who abuses a child, and has nothing to do with ego or needing to be right. Maybe both of us need to migrate a little toward some middle path? That is, I could try to be less judgmental, but perhaps you have some rightful anger toward your mother that you're not allowing yourself to feel. This is the merest speculation, since I don't know you and don't know your story beyond your article, but it sounds as if the dynamic in your family might have been that your father was the steamroller and your mother was the weepy ineffectual martyr and enabler -- which is in my mind as much a betrayal of you as your father's abuse. As for asking about my brother: I'm a little confused; did you in fact read my essay in Brain, Child? Because I went into some depth about how my brother became a pediatrician (as well as husband and father), that I believe he brings a special empathy and compassion to his work, but that anger has seemed to be his predominant response to stuttering, then and now.