My mother was evil; here's how I help others face their own abusive childhoods



Almost every coaching client I serve says something like this:

“What am I supposed to think about my mother? I don’t want to think of her as a bad person, but would a good person treat her children the way our mother treated me and my brothers and sisters?”

These good shards of her personality could never coalesce into a normal-range person. But I have an idea of who that woman could have been.

Who are these clients, and what am I doing with them that we’d be talking about this?

If I were a licensed mental health “professional,” you’d call what I do counseling. Since I’m not a licensed professional, I call it personal coaching and consulting. As a man who was raised by a mother deranged with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders and who became a self-destructive alcoholic for much of his life, I offer peer support and advice from someone who lived it.

Accepting reality

Let’s return to the question we opened with. No, a good person would not abuse her children the way the parents of my clients treated them. That’s the answer that many people don’t want to hear. But accepting the ugly reality of an abusive parent is a minimum requirement for getting past the psychological damage this inflicts on children who later become damaged adults.

For many people who grew up this way, accepting reality is necessary but not sufficient. They don’t know what to do with the memories of the good times, the apparent kindnesses they remember from otherwise frightening parents. I’m going to come back to this below with some stories about how I’ve turned this over in my mind as I’ve tried to grapple with who my abusive mother really was.

How did the parents of my clients treat them? Many of my clients had parents who threatened or attempted suicide in order to extract care and pity from their children. Some of my clients were nearly killed by their fathers. (Yes, I mean that the fathers consciously, knowingly tried to kill them; strangulation is the usual method.) Some were pimped out as prostitutes by their mothers.

Not everyone had such a florid experience, but nearly everyone I serve was raised by a parent who could not be trusted. My clients were abused as children. Actually abused, not “TikTok” abused. They don’t ruminate on how being denied an ice cream cone at age 8 ruined their lives. Instead they’re people who suffered under cold, capricious, and sometimes sadistic parents. And decades later, these adults who never did anything to deserve what they got still feel it is their fault their mother didn’t love them.

A moral problem

As I’ve written about before, we are living in an age characterized by what are known as Cluster B personality disorders. These are better thought of as character disorders, in the vein of psychologist George K. Simon. He’s one of the few practicing and writing psychologists who recognize that people who are intensely narcissistic, exploitative, manipulative, dishonest, and cruel are not suffering from a medical problem. They are suffering from a moral and spiritual problem. A personality disorder is not an organic brain problem. It is not a “disability.” It is not diabetes. It is the state of having an immoral and warped personal character.

My goal with clients is to give them a kind of conversation that will allow them to see, and to accept, the reality of their parents’ derangement. If you grew up in a normal, loving family, you may have a hard time accepting that I’m telling you the truth about what kinds of people these parents were to their kids. There is a taboo against acknowledging that some mothers (it’s not symmetrical; people have no problem believing this of fathers) do not love their children and try to annihilate them.

To hell with the taboo. Reality doesn’t conform to what we prefer to feel.

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Emotional balance sheet

Grown children from abusive homes usually don’t know, or can’t accept, that their parents were bad people. Many of my clients hesitate to use the word “abuse,” even a moment after a client tells me a story about how her mother hit on her teenaged boyfriend and then slapped the daughter, accusing her of being a slut. Genuinely abused children spend decades denying the truth and working overtime to rehabilitate the image of a grossly destructive father or mother. It is only when alcoholism, depression, or a string of failed relationships drive them to despair that they’re ready to take steps toward telling the truth.

When a person crosses the threshold and accepts that her mother or father was not a good person, did not “do their best,” and did not really love their children, she’s made enormous progress. This is the first and most important goal in recovering equanimity. But it’s not enough for many of us. What are we to do with the good memories? How are we to see our mother when we remember the times she imparted skills and wisdom to us? How do those affect the emotional balance sheet’s bottom line?

I’m going to concede something but with an important proviso: Yes, it’s generally true that no person is all good or all bad. But here’s the proviso: The kind of parents we’re talking about are not “a normal mix of good and bad.” We’re talking about parents who are, to a close approximation, 95% “bad” and only 5% “good.”

The arithmetic on that is straightforward. Five percent achievement will not get you a passing grade on a test, and it does not give these adults a passing moral grade for parenthood.

Glimpses of good

Still what about the good times? I’ve thought about this for years. I’ve talked about it with my (non-woke, conservative, old-school) therapist for years, and it’s been on my mind lately.

Back in the late '80s, my mother and I were watching TV, and something came up about women’s place in society, how to have a career and a family at the same time. We’ve all heard these topics discussed for decades; it was one of those times when something “truthful-ish” leaked out in my mother’s conversation.

My mother was a deranged woman with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. She was abusive and horrible. I use the past tense even though she’s still alive because I permanently removed her from my life 10 years ago.

But there were times when a real person glimmered through. Sometimes you could see and hear the intelligent, insightful woman she could have been if her good qualities hadn’t been subsumed by her moral and psychiatric derangement.

The mother she wanted to be

This conversation in the '80s was one of those times. I remember it so well because it’s one of my memory’s best examples of the woman I hoped she truly was — the woman who could have been the good mother that deep down I think she wanted to be but could not.

We were listening to the TV discussion. I don’t remember the specifics, just that it was filled with the usual pat feminist answers that contradicted each other and demanded a world of circumstances for women that was never realistic. Having cake and eating it too, that sort of thing.

My mother reflected on all that, and she had this to say:

“It’s impossible for you to understand how strong the biological drive to have children is for women. We like to pretend it isn’t real and say it’s not real, but it is. A woman can feel the pull, and it’s overwhelming. I wanted to be a mother and have children since I was a little girl. It’s all I wanted to be.”

Living with the contradiction

This was true but only sometimes. My mother had borderline personality disorder, and such people have extreme and often opposing desires that conflict with each other. Their problem is that they don’t know how to integrate these conflicts, or how to live with the conflict and ambiguity. So instead of acknowledging the conflict, they pretend it’s not there. The next day, for example, my mother could rail at the top of her lungs about how women were enslaved, how they had a right to be “more than just mothers.”

A contradiction, yes, but an understandable one. My mother would have been better off if she’d found some way to live with the conflicts that most women feel, especially in a society that treats the status of women and mothers in such a, well, borderline way. My mother may have been crazy globally, but she was not “crazy” to react badly to these contradictory messages.

She also said this:

“Young women are making a mistake waiting so long to have children. You just don’t have the energy at 30 or 35 that you have when you’re 20. It’s not the same. Women were built to have children, and we were built to have them as young women. Today’s mothers are going to have problems they’re not counting on because they waited so long.”

She was right. Even my mother, a florid Cluster B personality case, could see the truth in traditional wisdom. Even she, a screeching feminist liberal, could admit that men and women were built differently and that women had biological drives to bear children.

Unanswered questions

My mother and I had many conversations like that over the years. Long talks where honesty crept in, even if it was gone the next day. I remember them so well because they showed the woman she could have been, they showed the best of her intellect and perception.

I miss them. I do know, of course, that there wasn’t a stable version of my mother just waiting to blossom. These good shards of her personality could never coalesce into a normal-range person. But I have an idea of who that woman could have been.

So it goes with many of my clients. A son remembers his intensely selfish and punitive father who sometimes imparted helpful wisdom. A daughter remembers a mother who once took real joy watching her daughter graduate from college, even though the week before, mom overdosed on pills in a sick bid for attention.

Who are these people? We may never know. This is not how I want to end this essay. I don’t like unanswered questions and puzzles that can’t be solved. Nevertheless here they are.

When fathers fall, grace asks more of us



Families gather for all sorts of reasons — Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, funerals. And sometimes that’s when the fireworks start. There’s an old joke that any family gathering where the cops aren’t called is a successful one. Beneath the laughter sits a truth most families know. When people with long memories sit at the same table, old hurts rise right alongside the cranberry sauce.

Sin fractured families long before politics did. It divides hearts, poisons conversations, and leaves scars that last for generations. Every family bears some of that damage, and nowhere does the fracture cut deeper than between fathers and children.

Every father fails in some way, and those failures bring deep sadness. Grief isn’t a sin. Derision and resentment are.

A caller once told me about his alcoholic father, who had been abusive for years. The caller was 52, yet when he talked about being around his father, his voice broke. “Every time I’m around him,” he said, “I feel like I’m 9 years old.” The man’s father had fallen and now needed care, but the wounds had not healed. His wife and children were watching, waiting to see what he would do. His father was still drinking, still choosing the same path.

I told him, “You’ve made sure your father has food and care, but you’re not required to be subservient. Your family counts on you. Your father continues to make destructive choices, and you can’t change that. Your family’s well-being cannot come at the expense of his demands. He may not make it — but you have to.”

That conversation stayed with me. It reminded me how hard it is to see a parent’s weakness and not respond in anger or disgust or fear. We want to fix it, mock it, punish it, or walk away. Yet scripture gives us a different picture of what honor can look like when a father’s failings are laid bare.

After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard, drank too much, and passed out naked in his tent. His son Ham saw him exposed and mocked his shame. His brothers, Shem and Japheth, took a blanket, walked backward, and covered him.

It wasn’t easy. I imagine Shem and Japheth groaning at the sight of their father — maybe with tears in their eyes. Some fathers decline; some abandon; but every father fails in some way, and those failures bring deep sadness. Grief isn’t a sin. Derision and resentment are.

What do we do when we see our fathers in their weakness? When bitterness stirs, when old wounds reopen, when the urge to expose feels justified? The man who once loomed large now looks small. He wielded power over a child but appears diminished, not just by age but by the perspective that comes with time. That truth can stir anger or sorrow — or offer release.

In the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned, they saw their own nakedness for the first time and tried to cover it with leaves. The first act of grace in scripture was God covering their shame with garments He made Himself. Blood was shed to make those coverings — a quiet foreshadowing of what grace would one day cost.

That moment wasn’t about modesty. It was mercy. God did for them what they could not do for themselves. He covered their shame. From that moment on, grace has always moved toward covering — not humiliating.

At the cross, the story reached its fulfillment. The Son of God allowed Himself to be stripped bare. He bore the nakedness that belonged to us. What began in Eden with God covering human shame ended on Calvary with Christ carrying it. We were clothed in mercy because the innocent one was exposed.

Jesus told another story about a father and his sons. One rebelled and returned in disgrace. The other stayed but grew proud and resentful. Both disrespected their father — one through sin, the other through scorn. Yet the father ran to meet the prodigal and later went out to plead with the older son. He carried the same heart as Shem and Japheth. He covered shame, and even resentment, with grace.

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Caregiving brings old wounds to the surface fast, and the holidays push them even closer to the edge. Many caregivers know this. They spend their days covering weakness — with blankets, patience, or prayer. They honor parents who can’t return the favor, who may not even recognize them anymore. Sometimes they protect in spite of, not because of. Some fathers, like that caller’s, won’t change. But we can.

At some holiday tables, people say, “Please pass the turkey,” when what they really want to say is, “Why can’t you?” or “Why didn’t you?” Those moments expose the gap between what we feel and what we’re called to.

Some fathers failed in ways that make reconciliation impossible. Honoring them does not mean returning to harm, pretending nothing happened, or carrying the weight of their failures. Their shame is not ours to bear. But we’re also not given permission to parade it.

So we honor the office, tell the truth, and set safe boundaries. We refuse to be shaped by their sin and trust God to deal with what belongs to Him. And because grace covers us, we can choose dignity over bitterness — even when fathers fall.

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Why Hollywood’s ‘Nobody’ is every father today



If you’re old enough, you remember Clark Griswold — Chevy Chase’s bumbling but optimistic dad in “National Lampoon’s Vacation” — dragging his family across the country to reach Wally World. After a trail of disasters, Clark got his family to the gates, only to find the theme park closed. Undeterred, he improvised, fought back (in his slapstick way), and refused to give up on his promise to deliver joy.

Fast-forward to today. Warning: This article includes spoilers.

'Nobody 2' isn’t really about bullets and bloodshed. It’s about fathers who refuse to quit.

In “Nobody 2,” we meet Hutch (Bob Odenkirk), a far cry from Clark Griswold. Think “Vacation” meets “John Wick.” Hutch is a quiet father under siege by a world that won’t leave him alone. He struggles to shield his family not only from criminals but also from the toll the fight takes on his time and soul.

So Hutch does what Clark did: He plans a family trip, hoping to reclaim some peace. Instead, everything explodes — literally. A sadistic crime boss, a brutal syndicate, and one gut-wrenching moment when a security guard strikes his daughter. Hutch erupts, not for revenge, but to protect the people he loves most.

Fathers against a hostile culture

That arc — from Clark’s comedy of errors to Hutch’s bloody brawls — tells us something about our culture. In 1983, dads were goofs trying to make memories. In 2025, they’re embattled guardians. The father who simply wants to provide and protect finds himself waging war against a culture that derides family, treats children as disposable or designable, and mocks traditional marriage as oppressive.

The threats aren’t just cinematic. Fathers fight mountains of bills, debt, and cultural poison pumped daily into their children’s minds — DEI’s racial grievance, the LGBTQ+ lobby’s sex radicalism, and a constant drumbeat that undermines fatherhood itself.

Men are told they’re helpless. But they’re not. A father’s job is to lead his family toward the good life, armed with truth and love.

The 'nobody' every man

Hutch is called a “nobody” because that’s how the world sees him — the quiet everyman doing his duty, not chasing glory. But that’s exactly what makes him extraordinary. He embodies what fathers have always wanted: the best for their children and the enduring love of their wives.

The emotional heart of the film comes when Hutch tells his father, “I just want my son to be a better man than I am.” That is fatherhood distilled. We know our limits, we know our failures, and we want our sons to rise higher.

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And here’s the twist feminists won’t like. The final villain — a shriveled old woman who embodies bitter family-hatred — isn’t defeated by Hutch. She’s finished off by his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen). Far from sidelined, she stands as his partner, the helper he needs to secure a future for their children.

Better men

It’s all metaphor, maybe allegory. “Nobody 2” isn’t really about bullets and bloodshed. It’s about fathers who refuse to quit. Men who insist that their families are worth everything. Husbands who know their sons can and must be better men.

The Griswolds made us laugh four decades ago. Hutch forces us to face what’s at stake today for fathers.

Dads: Want to leave a legacy for your kids? Focus on living like this.



Too many children in America are growing up without a father. Sadly, even when there is a father in the home, although he is physically present, he is often emotionally absent.

On this Father’s Day, I want to reflect upon a simple premise: To leave a legacy, you must live a legacy.

None of us will ever get everything right. But we can choose to be faithful even when we mess up.

Leaving a legacy for your kids is certainly important, but the emphasis of scripture is living a legacy. If we’re going to pass our faith along, we must first possess our faith. Fathers must confess their faith openly while also living it and walking in purity and integrity.

Little eyes are watching you, Dad. There’s no place in our lives for the stain of moral impurity or the lack of integrity. We need to be setting the highest possible standards for our lives, not seeing how close to sin we can get without being burned.

So much about being a father is about being the leader of the home.

Consider the questions:

  • How are you living?
  • What kind of leader are you?

If you are a follower of Christ, you’ll be living right and you’ll be the right kind of leader in your family, in your community, and your church.

A man who pursues integrity and follows Christ in His holiness and purity is a godly father who can faithfully lead his family in truth.

Following Jesus means humbling yourself enough to admit when you're wrong. Maybe you've lost your temper, been distracted and disengaged at home, or ignored what God’s been nudging you to confront. Leading well starts with being led — by Christ.

It’s about more than clocking a few distracted minutes with your kids each day. It’s about living a life they can watch and imitate. Can they see that you follow Jesus — not because you say it, but because it’s obvious in the way you live?

That’s the kind of legacy that matters.

None of us will ever get everything right. But we can choose to be faithful even when we mess up.

Sons need to see a dad who doesn’t just talk about values but actively pursues Christ. Daughters need to see their father love their mother with the same faithfulness and sacrifice Christ showed His church.

Dads, your children don’t need a perfect father. They need a present one. They need a praying one, and they need a passionate one. They don’t need a weekend warrior or a distant provider. They need someone who’s following Jesus and letting Jesus lead him every day.

If we do that — if we stay close to Christ — we won’t just leave a legacy. We’ll live one. Right here, right now, in our homes, in our churches, and in the hearts of the children who are watching us every day.

As we consider the significance of Father’s Day, let’s make it our lifelong goal to be faithful in God’s eyes — and not just be successful by the world’s standards.

In the end, we may never be the smartest, richest, or most accomplished men in the room. But we can be the fathers our children need and the followers Christ has called us to be.

How strong fathers shatter a poisonous narrative about manhood — one child at a time



“Boys will be boys.”

I know this because I have two of them — and I’m still one at heart. Give me a cardboard tube, and it quickly becomes a sword or a lightsaber (complete with sound effects). My sons do the same. My daughter? Not so much.

Fatherhood matters — not just sentimentally, but statistically.

But beneath the innocent play and imaginary battles lies something deeper, something wired into the heart of every man: the call to provide and protect.

It’s a calling that many men feel innately, but tragically, our culture has done all it can to distract from this responsibility and delay the transition to true manhood. Worse still, modern messaging often reshapes manhood into a version that previous generations wouldn’t even recognize: one of detachment, passivity, or perpetual adolescence.

Nowhere is this more evident than when an unexpected pregnancy enters the picture.

Too often, fathers are overlooked or written off as irrelevant to the decision-making process, either by societal expectation or personal retreat. But at thousands of pregnancy help organizations across the country, that narrative is changing. These centers are not only supporting women. They are increasingly reaching out to men as well, challenging them to rise to the occasion and embrace fatherhood.

In fact, in the past two years alone, programming specifically designed for men at pregnancy help centers has grown by 6%. It’s a quiet but powerful shift, one that recognizes that helping women also means equipping and encouraging men to be the dads they were created to be.

Why does this matter? Because children benefit when fathers are present and engaged.

According to research compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, children with involved fathers are more likely to do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, and avoid high-risk behaviors. Studies show that children with involved fathers are 43% more likely to earn A’s in school and 33% less likely to repeat a grade. Another study found that children with present fathers are significantly less likely to suffer from depression or engage in criminal activity.

Fatherhood matters — not just sentimentally, but statistically.

And yet the narrative of modern America too often casts men as optional or even unwelcome in conversations about parenting and family formation. If we want to change the outcomes for the next generation, we must change that mindset.

We need a culture that encourages men to step up — not step back.

That’s why many of us working in the pregnancy help movement have taken up the mantle of being a “dadvocate” — someone who sees the value in reaching men, even when they seem disinterested or discouraged. We believe that just as women deserve support and hope, so do the men who helped create a new life. Whether they choose to engage or not, we trust that something greater is at work: a call deep within them to be part of their children’s story.

In a world increasingly confused about manhood, fatherhood, and family, perhaps the best gift we can give this Father’s Day is a renewed recognition of the vital role dads play — and the encouragement they need to step into that role with confidence and purpose.

Let’s build a culture that welcomes fathers, equips them, and celebrates the irreplaceable part they play. For the sake of every child and every generation to come.

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