I think the thing that upset me most is that this woman was willing "to try to work it out" with her husband who was in jail for molesting their daughter. I'm sorry, but if my husband ever even thought of doing something that evil and wrong, I'd go kick his ass and then I'd have a restraining order slapped on him so fast that he'd have whiplash. I mean, what kind of message is she giving her 9 year old daughter. "Gee, I'm sorry you were molested and it sucks, but I still love your father. Even if he does have a sickness that allows him to abuse, photograph and distribute pictures of him abusing you on the internet to anyone who asks." The little girl was saying how she loves her father. She should be taught that people who do shit like that to kids, don't love them.

I wished I could throttle the mother AND the father.

I remember my mom telling me about an uncle who was attempting to molest her and my grandmother found him with her and kicked his ass out of the house and never spoke to him again. My grandmother was a holy awful witch, for the most part, but the fact that she protected my mother has made me hold out nuggets of respect for her. In the last decade of her life, she was pretty awful to my mother and I'm not sure I will ever get over the pain she caused my mom, but the fact that she protected my mom in that instance has softened some of my attitudes and opinions about her.

I know my mother is still rocked by some of the things my grandmother did to her because while she inherited a decent motorhome in Florida from Grandma H., she and my dad went out and purchased a house not far from there. My mom was so excited about moving in there two weekends ago. I was thrilled for her. I knew why she wanted to move, too. My mom said that my dad simply couldn't understand the kinds of ghosts that haunted her there. All I could think is: "Oh, mom, he's a man!" She watched her father die there and she watched her mother become more and more bitter after he passed away. My mother took years of drunken abuse in his absence that intensified in my grandmother with age.

My parents never abused me in quite that way. My mother had her moments. She had to overcome so much, but she worked at it, just as I do to give me something better. And now, that I'm older and have my own children, I appreciate that. I also know that some of the things she did were abusive and while I don't forget, I simply have let it go. She's apologized and I've given it over to a higher power. I simply can't imagine leaving a child a legacy of abuse in the way that the mother on Sally seemed to be setting her child up for or in the way that my grandmother did to my mother. I refuse to do that. I am not a perfect mother, but I work very very hard to break the circles of generational violence and abuse.