\fs32 \cf2 * * *\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 Dear All Three\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: You didn't write to me, but since this rant of yours went viral, I happened upon it, and that means it's getting a mangling. Your own daughter, emily, is too kind toward you and she thinks you don't owe her an apology. she's entitled to that opinion, but I don't share it and am not about to give you any slack.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 With last evening's crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: Okay, I don't know what exactly has been going on between your wife and kids so won't presume anyone to be right or wrong on that. It's your behaviour being called into question now. If your daughter really has disrespected her mother, I would side with you on telling her where to get off. But that soon gets overshadowed by what's coming up.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of you has in your own way dished out to us.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: So who's whinging now? That's one heck of a thing to say to your kids. You just better have a dang good reason. and I mean a real reason to be disappointed, like if your kids turned out to be violent, thieves, cultists, fraudsters, home-wreckers etc.\
\
"You didn't marry the guy/girl I wanted you to" or "You got divorced" or "You got laid off" doesn't come anywhere near to cutting it. Life happens.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: Collective, that means you're mad because your kids had marriages that didn't pan out. You're not just upset over one kid for pulling a Liz Taylor. Look, break-ups are regrettable but necessary in some cases, especially when the marriage shouldn't have happened in the first place. Not the end of the world for you. Difficult? Of course. But would you rather they stayed in a loveless marriage?\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 at the same time we see the advent of a fifth,\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: So that's 5 marriages between three kids, not five marriages per kid within as many years. You have nothing at all to snivel about. It's not like your kids are going around changing boy/girlfriends every six months. You can't live their lives for them. They couldn't magically make their spouses be the people they wanted. That's life.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 We are constantly regaled with chapter and verse of the happy, successful lives of the families of our friends and relatives and\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: who are probably not telling you anywhere near the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Ever consider that?\
\
so now you're jealous because you feel you can't keep up with the Jones's in bragging rights. That isn't why you're supposed to have kids anyway. And if you were ever cocky about your own kids being better than the next family's, maybe this is just life's way of kicking you in the pants a little. I've seen that happen with people we used to know. They bragged about how wonderful and exceedingly good their kids were, looking down on other people, only to have their kids grow up and turn into hellions.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 being asked of news of our own children and grandchildren.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: so suck it up. Just give them the small stuff like what grade your grandkids are in school and how they're doing there. It's nobody's business how many break-ups there are in anyone's families but their own anyway. and if all they want to do is gossip and brag, they're not worth talking to.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 I wonder if you realise how we feel \'97 we have nothing to say which reflects any credit on you or us.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: Yeouch, what a zinger! if you stopped whining and feeling so dang sorry for yourself and started looking hard enough, you'd find something good to say about your kids. Are they kind-hearted? Are they artistic? Are they good with finances? What are their hobbies? Have they ever said or done anything to indicate they love you at all in their lives? Do you have any fond memories of them at all?\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 We don't ask for your sympathy or understanding \'97 \
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: No, heck no. You just want to slam a whopping ginormous guilt-trip on them. and just what do you hope to accomplish by that, beyond giving yourself the temporary relief this sort of tantrum might bring?\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 Mum and I have been used to taking our own misfortunes on the chin, and making our own effort to bash our little paths through life without being a burden to others.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: so you made mistakes. So you're not perfect. so your kids aren't perfect. Nobody is. But I'm starting to wonder if maybe you think your biggest mistake was having kids at all.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 Having done our best \'97 probably misguidedly \'97 to provide for our children, we naturally hoped to see them in turn take up their own banners and provide happy and stable homes for their own children.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: Yes, any loving parent wants the best for their kids and grandkids. But this wouldn't help.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 Fulfilling careers based on your educations would have helped \'97 but as yet none of you is what I would confidently term properly self-supporting. Which of you, with or without a spouse, can support your families, finance your home and provide a pension for your old age? Each of you is well able to earn a comfortable living and provide for your children, yet each of you has contrived to avoid even moderate achievement. Far from your children being able to rely on your provision, they are faced with needing to survive their introduction to life with you as parents.\
\
\f1\fs22 \cf5 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3\b Ocean Elf: Jobs, like money, don't grow on trees. I do not know if your kids have had trouble landing jobs because that is a real problem, or if there is plenty of employment they are just avoiding... You are making it sound like the latter, but I'm not so sure that should be believed.\
\pard\tx220\tx720\pardeftab720\li720\fi-720\partightenfactor0
\ls1\ilvl0
\fs24 \cf6 \cb7 \
\pard\pardeftab720\partightenfactor0
\ls1\ilvl0
\f0\b0\fs32 \cf2 \cb1
\f1 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews: {\field{\*\fldinst{HYPERLINK "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/relationship-advice-and-romance/9690592/The-edifice-of-marriage-is-always-worth-repairing.html"}}{\fldrslt
\f3\b\fs24 \cf6 \cb7 The edifice of marriage is always worth repairing}}
\f3\fs36 \cf4 \cb7
\f4\fs22 \cf8 20 Nov 2012
\f3\fs26 \cf4 \
\
\f1\fs28 \cb1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: Not always.\
\pard\pardeftab720\partightenfactor0
\cf4 \
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 So we witness the introduction to this life of six beautiful children \'97 soon to be seven \'97 none of whose parents have had the maturity and sound judgment to make a reasonable fist at making essential threshold decisions. None of these decisions were made with any pretence to ask for our advice.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: At least they didn't pretend to want your advice, only to go dismiss/ignore it and just do whatever. IMO that's worse.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 In each case we have been expected to acquiesce with mostly hasty, but always in our view, badly judged decisions. None of you has done yourself, or given to us, the basic courtesy to ask us what we think while there was still time finally to think things through.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: See above. The hard fact is you can't live their lives for them.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 The predictable result has been a decade of deep unhappiness over the fates of our grandchildren.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: I have no comfort to offer you. I do not know what these situations are. Only that somehow, things seemed to have turned out wrong, which is sad.\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 If it wasn't for them, Mum and I would not be too concerned, as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashes from one cock-up to the next.\
\
\f1 \uc0\u55358 \u56797 \u8205 \u9792 \u65039
\f3 Ocean Elf: Uh, what? Did you mean that - the way it sounded? *Cringe*\
\
\f1\fs32 \cf2 \uc0\u55357 \u56910 \u8205 \u9794 \u65039
\f0 Nick Crews:
\f3\fs28 \cf4 It makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven, and then helplessly to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you, their parents.\
I can now tell you that I for one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children's underachievement and domestic ineptitudes. I want to hear no more from any of you until, if you feel inclined, you have a success or an achievement or a REALISTIC plan for the support and happiness of your children to tell me about. I don't want to see your mother burdened any more with your miserable woes \'97 it's not as if any of the advice she strives to give you has ever been listened to with good grace \'97 far less acted upon. So I ask you to spare her further unhappiness. If you think I have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change my mind. But you won't do it by simply whingeing and saying you don't like it. You'll have to come up with meaty reasons to demolish my points and build a case for yourself. If that isn't possible, or you simply can't be bothered, then I rest my case.\
I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.\
Dad\
\
Comment options:\
\