by Amanda Fowler

Created on: July 29, 2009   Last Updated: July 30, 2009

I think it is the worst idea to speak in an ill manner to our kids about a relative. I have seen too many situations where the kids ended up angry and stopped speaking to their mother because mother trashed father. It also gives the kids a false image of that person.

Take me for an example. Growing up, my mother made sure to tell me and my siblings that she was only married to our father because of us. She made it clear to us on numerous occasions that the day I (the youngest) turned eighteen, she was leaving my father. She would always talk down to my father in front of us, and she would tell us things about my father that we shouldn't have been told. In a nutshell, I grew up with the thought that my father was a looser deadbeat.

As I got older, I never thought highly of my father. I always took my mother's word that he was indeed a deadbeat. If he didn't come to a game of mine, my mother would just say "See, told you he was a looser." My mother never attended any of my games either.

I was sixteen and a dear friend of mine died. I was sitting on the front porch one night crying alone, watching the lightening in the distance and wondering what happens when we die. My father came out to check on me. He sat down next to me, held my hand, and told me about when he lost someone he loved. It was a nice conversation that lasted hours.

After that night our relationship went from non-existent to the greatest father-daughter relationship ever. We made it a point to talk to each other every night even if it was only for ten minutes. I couldn't figure out why my mother felt my father was a deadbeat. I learned a lot about my father and he was far from what I originally thought he was. I became angry with my mother for making me believe my whole life that my father was the worst man on the face of the earth.

My husband went through pretty much the same thing, however not as extreme as my situation. When I found out I was pregnant, I told my husband that I wanted our child to form his/her own opinion about people. I did not want any of our thoughts, whether positive or negative, to influence our child's opinion. My motivation was that I didn't want any of our kids to grow up and become angry with us. I also didn't want to be the one to have to explain to my children that the reason we don't associate with so and so is because I didn't like them. Of course that meant that he would have to be more involved with his father. That also meant that we got grief from his mother when we would do things with his father and the same with my family.

Overall, this is working out for the benefit of my children. My husband and I make a point to not talk bad things about relatives in front of our children. When one of our mothers gets upset, I tell them that it's not their business, and if they choose not to speak to us again then that is something they will have to live with and answer to when their grandkids gets older!

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