You should ask yourself whether you have been unconsciously rejecting this child all along. I do not think you are a bad person, but it's very easy to miss one's own failings when other people's are so obvious.

You have allowed someone you feel conflicted about (to say the least) half-adopt your own child. If you really, truly wanted him to respect and cherish you, you would have taken him away from his grandmother when you first found out she was teaching him to lie to you. Instead, you have allowed HIM to bear the burden of YOUR troubled relationship with an abusive person. You have forced him to make a choice. I'm not sure you are in a position to revoke that choice, after all this time.

But I do think you have two good options. First, you could keep him away from his grandmother but let him go to a nice, sane church and pursue his own interests instead of forcing yours on him. Or, you could let him stay where he thinks he wants to be. Maybe after your mother no longer gets the thrill of using him against you, she will need to start abusing him instead, and he will want to come home. Then he'll be all ready for the family therapy we all know you need; but I don't think he's ready for it now. His loyalties are confused, and that's at least half your fault. I think before you do anything else, you need to own up to that.

Nevo, did you read the article linked to in graf 3, from the words "October 2004"? You don't need to rely on your memory. It's right there in black and white.

or walking if you prefer the urban landscape. Just keep moving. You will probably find things to chat about while you walk, and if you don't it's not as uncomfortable.

My husband and I are both introverts, and we went hiking for our first date. We had a picnic and looked up birds and flowers in a field guide. We sat silently by a waterfall. Later on, while I was looking up yet another flower, I turned around and he kissed me.

Don't be afraid to have a date you are comfortable with, even if it seems unconventional.

Did all you naysayers miss the fact that the average worldwide weaning age is 4.2? No, you probably didn't actually read the whole article. The only thing here that makes me sick is how willing people are to take anonymous shots at strangers. As a mother, I am sick of listening to other people's rude interventions in my parenting. We have had people call the police because our babies were in the yard naked. If you have a problem with seeing a naked baby - well, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. I would suggest therapy for whatever deep sexual issues make you feel that way. And I suggest the same for anyone who has problems with a nursing child. A woman who was smoking my face once criticized me for nursing my baby in public. Like many people here, my question for you is: which decisions are actually hurting someone else?

OK, I know it doesn't, but people often confuse the Rhythm Method with Fertility Awareness (a.k.a. Natural Family Planning) - which DOES! WORK! And I didn't learn how it worked until after I already had two children. When I DID learn how easy it was to tell when you're ovulating, I was embarrassed that I had been so incredibly ignorant about what my own body had been doing all those years (including years of puberty when I thought I was really a boy "inside" because I thought I had semen coming out of my vagina). The basic workings of female fertility are not addressed even in comprehensive sex-ed classes.

At least it has room for atheists. There is nothing inherently religious about it. The main advocate (Dr. Sears) is Catholic, and I do know a few Catholic attachment parents, but most of the people I know who practice (or try to practice) this style of parenting are evil, atheist secular humanists like myself. Oh, yeah. Plus a hell-bound pagan or two.

What LLL is doing with this woman I don't know. Can't speak on that topic at all. But no one I ever met in LLL was overtly religious in any way - let alone against adoption, fertility treatments, or anything else. The one thing LLL is absolutely absolutist about is that LLL meetings are about breastfeeding and other nutrition issues only. If the conversation goes off that topic, the leader asks people to continue after the official meeting ends.

Our sex also has the breasts. I guess other readers think I'm a "nut" for advocating the position that human milk is the ideal physical and emotional nourishment for human infants, but I think most medical and sociological experts agree with me.

But I can't even think about gender politics in this context. I can't even get myself past the fact that they are killing people for drug trafficking. All I can think is thank goodness she found a way to get herself pregnant so they wouldn't execute her.