And we have a right to a nationally syndicated TV show too?

awsomeO: "The law and morality have nothing to do with each other"

Exactly! I mean, if I want to murder someone why should society tell me that I can't? They be all legislating morality at me.

If you got that out of this story, then that's fantastic; I guess it never occurred to me that other people wouldn't think about child abuse that much, so thanks for pointing that out.

Cool. I think that lots of Christianity is derived from the interactions between Abrahamatic (is this a word?) monotheism and Paganism. Like Mary filling the space previously left by Isis and other general mother goddesses that hung out around the Mediterranean in ancient times.

Why do you capitalise the S in when you say 'she' referring to Mary? Do you consider Mary also to be divine/a god?

Fair enough. I will disengage.

Interestingly, historically in a lot of places (like the UK) you couldn't really transcend your class, either. A working class or middle class person could make a ton of money but they'd still be patronised and treated poorly by the upper classes.

Yes, you can say the world's Jews come from a privileged group. I'd also add the caveat that they're much more likely to be victims of hate crimes than most people are...oh, and within my grandparent's lifetime the majority of them were murdered. But yeah, money and all that.

Dude, this was in the first paragraph:

Pretty much this.

As long as the person committing violence is a child committing violence against someone who is abusive to them, you mean.

The woman is telling a story of what she did as a kid. Not what she ideally would have done. What's your problem, exactly? She should've lied and said she was a 12 year old girl with the wisdom of Solomon?

Here's the thing about that whole gender flip thing: it presupposed that men and women in our society are equal and that there's no historical inequalities.

I honestly think it's just meant to be a short story based on the author's experiences. Not an allegorical tale. Nor a moral lesson. She's not saying 'And this is how you deal with an abusive arsehole who is dating your mother'. She's saying 'This is what I did at this age when this thing happened.' I've read…

You read a story about a child reacting to an abusive adult and your first instinct is to blame the child for their actions.

You mean if a 12 year old boy who was being emotionally (and possibly physically) abused did it to their abuser?

She mentions that Charles was someone her mother had 'brought into their lives'. That makes it sound like a boyfriend, not a relative.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

I thought of shaking her awake and dragging her out to see for herself the person she had let into our lives, but I knew deep down that I wouldn't enjoy how sad she'd be.