Cary's response to this letter writer seems melodramatic. I can relate to wanting to cut my parents' out of my life, saying it is for the sake of the grandkids, but all the while knowing it's my way of exacting punishment. I can relate to wanting to punish my parents in that way. I haven't done it, and won't; my parents were probably not as damaging as LW's. But still. Does following through with cutting your parents out of your life make you a scary person? I don't think so. It's a person who has decided, perhaps, to treat their victimizer with as much ruthlessness as they were subjected to at the victimizer's hands (or words). It is the LW's right, really.

I think it would probably help the LW to find a therapist, but for god's sake, I don't think cutting your parents out of your life makes you mentally ill. Can someone explain Cary's response to me? I'm mystified.

You asked. I ignored you.

You asked again. I wrote a column that could have (should have) been an e-mail to you, saying, "I can't help you, but feel free to ask me a third time and I'll try."

I sincerely hope they don't pay you for this shit.

I feel compelled to share my experience. My mother was directly abusive to me as a child and continues to be incredibly narcissistic; my father was at best clueless and really negligent; I was also sexually and physically abused by my grandfather; my grandmother on the other side was extremely cruel and controlling with her daughter and us grandchildren. So I have kind of been there in similar ways.

I have chosen not to cut contact with my parents. I have confronted them on some issues. But I never severed contact. From that experience I learned this: people who abuse their kids almost never are going to acknolwedge it or make restitution in any way. Whether you keep in contact with your parents or not, the fist thing you have to give up is your - human, understandable - hope that they will ever understand or agree or make restitution.

If they were the kind of people who could do that, they would have. Long ago.

On to the question of your kids. If anyone is seeing your kids without your express permission, you have a serious problem and you need to fix it. You need to be able to say no and /mean it/ and follow through before you can go from there. It is not okay to have your kids in contact with people you think are dangerous. If you think your parents might hurt your kids you have to make sure, today, that they don't see them again.

If you can't say no, your yes is worthless.

Then, once you're sure that if your parents are/would be damaging to your kids that they would not see them - period, point blank - then and only then do you have the luxury to consider letting them see them. Under what circumstances would it be okay? I allow my child to see his grandparents, but he is supervised by myself or my husband. We have never told his grandparents this is the case; we've just quietly done that and not "bothered" them to babysit him alone. It's just the way we do it.

And they have a very good relationship, my son and his grandparents. He has no need to know the dark truth, because we are always physically there to run interference.

I agree with Cary that you need support, whichever way you go. It is hard, but you can do this. Hang in there.

I feel the need to respond to other notes in the peanut gallery.

It's okay to have a mental illness. Illness is usually something from which we recover. You get a cold and you feel crappy for a few days. You get the flu and you feel worse. Maybe you get something horrible or debilitating or fatal. Mental illness has the same variety of severity and symptoms. Most people recover from mental illness the same way they recover from having a virus. You would never know they had a cold unless they told you.

That said, Cary did not say that the letter writer was mentally ill. He said she needs help. He was explicit that the help might come in the form of a spiritual advisor or a physical trainer. Sometimes the ongoing support of others is needed to find acceptance or in this case deal with an ongoing problem. I have certainly benefited from all sorts of support. The credentials of those people supporting me changed as my needs changed.

I suspect that, as I write this, the letters are flooding in questioning the peculiar extremity of Cary Tennis's response.

Note to Cary: It seems to this observer, who admittedly knows neither you nor the letter writer, that something in this correspondence has triggered a kind of panic in you. Or at least something very odd and not at all typical of you. As an admirer, I suggest that you take a long look at this one.

Note to the letter writer: Your problem sounds serious, troubling, and not remotely unusual. Scary parents are everywhere. It sounds like you really do need to seek out professional help (something short of an exorcism, I would think), and I'll bet -- with your obvious intelligence, sophistication and heart -- that you find the resolution you need.

Even if you felt the need to blow off the LW with the "seek professional help" suggestion, Cary, you could have at least validated her concerns about her children and given some common sense advice. Surely you can see that making an end run around the parents to get at the grandkids is unhealthy at best? Mom tells her folks how they've hurt her, how she feels abused, so they refuse to acknowledge her statements and sneak around to get at her kids when she isn't there? That's controlling, creepy and potentially damaging to those children.

Nobody needs to have contact with a 5 year old and a toddler unless it's through their parents. LW needs to state to daycare or whoever is responsible for her children when their parents aren't available that their grandparents are only allowed contact when a parent is present to supervise.

Frankly, if I felt my parents had been abusive toward me in any way, protecting my kids from them would be a no brainer. I don't understand why anyone should have to write to an advice columnist to ask if they should limit contact between people that abused them and their kids, or why the advice columnist can't tell that questioner to protect their children from the same abuse they themsevles endured. It's not a difficult call to make.