This is the kind of thing that, once started, can really get out of control. At a previous position, someone in the office received a joke that was nasty, racist and sexist all in one and was stupid enough to print it out and then forward it. Once discovered, it led to several employees threatening to quit, and others to cry. Yes, it was that offensive. The person who received the e-mail never took real responsibility for "passing on" patently offensive material, but was forced to publicly apologize.

As a result of this incident, now, when I receive off-color jokes of any nature from a business acquaintance, I hit reply to all with a message that I do not want to receive such material and that I should be deleted from any list of recipients that includes similar items.

In this instance, I would probably add that I found the "joke" to be offensive, unfunny, unprofessional, and a waste of my time. Then I would delete the original post. I never forward any jokes of any kind.

What you don't want is to be "implicated" in this person's demented views on race, such that if people see that you are receiving such materials you must agree with them.

I don't know whether I would contact her boss. I guess it depends on the relationship you have with the vendor -- if you have an existing relationship with the supervisor, I might do it. You can even do it in a non-judgmental way: making it clear that you disagree with these materials and would like the supervisor to instruct its employees that you and your co-workers should not be on the recipent lists of such communciations. I would also contact your own supervisor so that he or she can officially restate the company's position about sending offensive materials using company e-mail.

There are things I dislike about my mother, just as there are things I dislike about myself. These are less overlapping than you might think! Your mother has apologized, but it seems like she may be one of those people for whom apology, in their own minds, means absolution.

I suspect that what is going on now is a little like what went on then: your mother seems to have a deeply felt need to show loyalty to someone not associate with her failed marriage, only, now, that requires associating with rather than rejecting you. Nice, huh? So your mom is lost and lonely and you are now the foil to her ex-husband and, possibly, the one person who can't (in her own mind) reject her.

Yes, your mother is using you. Based on her past conduct, she is not high on insight into what motivates her own behavior.

Maybe you can ask her to draw some lines (like, "you know I disagree with you on x and I would prefer that we just not make it a subject between us", or calling her once a week at some time convenient to you and ignoring her messages in between). But however you can do it, if it were me, I personally would try to keep your relationship at a level that is comfortable to you, and not feel guilty about it at all.

I wrote a comment previously, but I wanted to amplify in light of village jonesy and others -- my father was "abuse light" compared to LW. My whole childhood can be epitomized in the following exchange: "Daddy, I got into L Law School." Long pause. "Did you get into Harvard?"

Never good enough. Not snide or sneering or cruel just forever withholding any sense of approval or shared happiness at accomplishment.

I knew, even at an early age, that my father was projecting onto us his own deep sense of having failed to live up to his potential, but realized much later that his projection onto us of that sense of failure probably impeded our own success, whether personally or professionally, more than any other childhood circumstance.

As a child, neither I nor LW could diminish the pain of parental unkindness by making our parents go away. But as I sometimes said when my husband would pressure me to be closer to my dad, "I gave up my childhood to the futile task of trying to please him, and I am not giving up the rest of my life too." Eventually, I found the proper distance and lived with it. Maybe my dad was disappointed, but even though he is now dead, I still think it was the right thing to do.

LW's mom has to live with the consequences of her decision to take out her misery on her child. She's lucky that her daughter is willing to give her the gift -- yes, the gift -- of any kind of relationship at all. Lots of children wouldn't.

Unless you've had serious doubts before now, I would let it go.

I think a British study once found that as many as 25% of children are being raised by men who only think they are biological fathers. People make honest mistakes about things like this, which is not to say that LW has, but still, a stray comment doesn't seem like a sound basis for causing so much trauma.

Anyway, what do Czech people look like? Pretty much like other Eastern European or Pan-European people. As a person of partial Czech heritage (German and Serbian being the other contributors), I've been told I look like I could be French, Turkish or even Native American (high cheekbones). No one ever guesses accurately.

As for Czechs loving beer -- like the Irish, English, Germans, Dutch, Icelanders, Swedes, Norwegians, Hungarians and Finns don't?