Cutting Loose : An Adult's Guide to Coming to Terms with Your Parents

Rating:
Summary: Changed my Life
Review: I have NEVER been a person who believed that a self-help book could change your life. But this one changed mine! I read this book years ago (I am buying it now for a friend). I was in my 30's and I was still intimidated by my mother's manipulation. This book made me slap my forehead and say to myself "why on earth have I put up with this for so long???!! If ever a book liberated me, this book did. It showed me that it takes two to tango. If I didn't like the way my mother acted, there wasn't much I could do to change her behavior. However, I COULD change the way I responded - I could refuse to "dance the dance." For any adult who feels intimated or bullied by a parent, this is the book to read. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Say Good-bye to Momma and so long to daddy!
Review: If we know what's holding us, then there is a good chance we can get loose.

Parents for some reason want to hold on and strangle the future of their children. Maybe because they didn't always want us around; maybe for some parents never wanting us from the beginning.

Cruel Statement you say, well I don't think so.

The passages in his book seem like he was right there with me. These statements made by Halpern are not just once in awhile in his book, but all too often.

It puts the problem where it belongs and points us in the right direction.

This knowledge is a way of cutting loose of their strong hold, once and for all.

After exposure to these writings it is very difficult to turn back, very difficult to make excuses anymore. I'd say almost impossible. You end up knowing why these things happened and where to start.

Good luck.

One personal comment: The talk of this book has been too little. Not enough people read it.

We heard it said that if I knew this years before, my life would be so much better.

If you read this to the last chapter then years no longer need to be wasted.

take care - steve write to [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Parents of adults are themselves adults, and should act it.
Review: Parents of adults are themselves adults - so making excuses for their obnoxious or hurtful behavior does not to me create an incentive for them to change it.

Understanding the causes for that behavior is good and compassionate. Yet there are times when, to preserve the "inner child" the author refers to, a parent will do something which is actually destructive to a child, such as being a toxic in-law or undermining their child's sense of self-worth.

Sometimes it's not about love - just control.

At this point you must draw a clear line. My compassion ends where another person's assault on my well-being begins. I advocate compassion and understanding in so far as they help an adult child begin to end the pattern of being a willing partner in an unhealthy codependent relationship.

Loving yourself means not giving people the permission to harm you or hold you back in life. Certainly not your parents, since that contradicts what their very role in your life was supposed to be.

For this reason, I believe parents should be held to a higher, not lower, standard of behavior in this regard.

People who claim to love you should not habitually cause you pain. That contradicts the meaning of love.

I posit also that attempting to create dependency in an adult by subtly trying to make that person feel incompetent and inadequate is a form of emotional abuse - and one of which not only parents are guilty, of course - friends, lovers, other family members may all have a stake in your inadequacy or dependency.

Such are false relationships. Someone whose love for you is real and unselfish rejoices in your competency, growth, happiness, and the fulfillment of your dreams. Or, is contrite when they realize they have not been doing so, and makes the effort to do better.

Rating:
Summary: Simplified solutions
Review: The book was very complete since it included mostly every parental abusive situation from moralistic parents to unavailable to self-centered and controlling. However, the solutions given for children to address the damage done to them is over-simplified and puts the responsibility of understanding back on to the child. Every chapter has an explanation of the type of behavor and goes on to indicate how it is the child in the parent who is really reponding to his/her child or adult child. To solve the hurt and enmeshment with the parent, the adult-child must now see the child in the parent when the dysfunctional behavior takes place and everything will be okay. Also, Halpern chooses a parent for each behavior. For example, the unavailable "father" and the controlling "father." Perhpas the domineering, controlling person is the "mother." This adjudication makes it harder to see since I must substitute one for the other throughout full chapters.

Rating:
Summary: Learning to understand
Review: This book has hits the nail on the head when explaining why a controling,manipulative,self destructive parent behaves in the manner that they do. It also attempts to explian why and how the child participates in this song and dance. It also gives good advice on how to break the cycle and move forward to a more productive parent/child relationship or the reasons when and why you should end the relationship. All this is clearly written and easy to follow. What I liked most was the compassion and point blank honesty that is directed at the parents part and the childs part. I AGREE WITH THE AUTHOR THAT THE FAMILY RELATIONSHIP SHOULD BE PRESERVED YET NOT TO ALL COSTS.