My brother and his wife are Exactly like Leo. During family get-together's I always go over early so my dad and I can talk politics before the assholes show up. They use their kids as leverage against my dad any chance they can get. (They've already taken them away from me. They can no longer stay the night at my house.) What they don't know is their oldest son, 10, already sees their crazy antics and vents to me about them all the time. The other day he said "my mom just makes me so mad because I feel like she always only listens to her friends about things. And her friends make her make rules for us. I just hate her sometimes!" It was heartbreaking to hear him say he hated his mom. It was even more difficult to "do the right thing" and not tell him that we all hate her too!
My brother and his wife are Exactly like Leo. During family get-together's I always go over early so my dad and I can talk politics before the assholes show up. They use their kids as leverage against my dad any chance they can get. (They've already taken them away from me. They can no longer stay the night at my house.) What they don't know is their oldest son, 10, already sees their crazy antics and vents to me about them all the time. The other day he said "my mom just makes me so mad because I feel like she always only listens to her friends about things. And her friends make her make rules for us. I just hate her sometimes!" It was heartbreaking to hear him say he hated his mom. It was even more difficult to "do the right thing" and not tell him that we all hate her too!