I believe much like you do, but I have to say there is one thing that could cause me to turn my back on my child in a heartbeat.
If I thought that would cause them to really think about something - something I believed was very harmful to them - I would turn my back. I would do so to hide my own tears, but I would keep my back turned until they had done the thinking they needed to do.
Maya is mentally ill and needs treatment. While she refuses to seek it she is hurting herself and those who love her. Maybe Dr. Keyes has chosen the right approach to get her to seek treatment, maybe he hasn't. Only time will tell, which is the biggest problem with being a parent. But if I thought it would accomplish her seeking treatment I would do the same thing and I would call it love.
On a similar note, I know two young married women. One was thinking of leaving her husband. She called her mom to talk about the possibility of divorce. Her mom said, "Whatever you do, if you divorce him don't come here. When you married him this ceased being your home. If you leave him you have to make your own home somewhere else." She decided to stay and, after resolving some issues, they have been happily married for over 20 years.
The other also called her mother to discuss the possibility of divorce. Her mother said, "Well, if you do decide you have to leave, you can move back in here until you get your feet back on the ground." The daughter left within 2 weeks.
Which mother loved her daughter more?
Shalom.
Telling your daughter she can't move back home is no guarantee that she'll stay married. Please. Unless the woman had no way of supporting herself, which is pretty sad in and of itself.
It depends on the reasons behind the divorce. If the first daughter was trying to leave an abusive husband and her mother refused to let her live with her, that makes the mother an unfeeling monster.
You're going to catch heat for this, and it is a very, very difficult situation -- but I think there is a lot of wisdom in what you're saying.
There is no question but that, as a fact of human nature, one often reaches for an easy out. If there is no easy out, one is forced to try harder to resolve the situation.
Consider an analogy. Proaborts argue that ending legal abortion-on-demand would just result in more back-alley abortions. I disagree. The decision to engage in the act that makes babies would definitely be affected by knowing that there IS no easy out if "something goes wrong."
No doubt many women have left their husband very lightly, in part because they were assured of unquestioning and easily-accessible parental enablement.
I don't advocate that there is an easy answer. I do strongly insist that yours is certainly one that merits very serious consideration and, often, implementation.
Check out my blog titled "The least-heard marriage truth" at Biblical Christianity BLOG.
Dan
It's nice that it worked out. You wouldn't have told this wonderfully contrasting story if the daughter, with no place to go, had shacked up with a series of men that led ultimately to disaster, and I have seen that scenerio played out first hand.
The other also called her mother to discuss the possibility of divorce. Her mother said, "Well, if you do decide you have to leave, you can move back in here until you get your feet back on the ground." The daughter left within 2 weeks.
Which mother loved her daughter more?
Now that you have 3 daughters, 1 who stayed with her husband because her mother wouldn't let her come home, 1 who went from shackup to shackup because her mother wouldn't let her come home, and 1 who left her husband and moved home with mom, you tell me which mother loved her daughter more.
It's not as cut and dried when the endings aren't so neatly tied to the action is it?