DrSkipper, while I share the exact same sentiments, I'm not so sure that I'd go so far to make the judgement that "you shouldn't be a parent in the first place". It's a fact that parents tend to say and do some pretty screwy things from time to time. I know that I certainly have. But just because I don't agreee with the way another parent is raising their child, who am I to tell them that they are wrong. I mean, even if in my own judgement I believe that what the parent is doing is not in the childs best interest, it is not my place to judge or interfere with the way another parent chooses to raise their child. I'm sure that there were people that took issue with some of the things my wife and I did when we raised our daughter! We took a very unconventional aproach to child rearing. (One that worked out very well, thank-you-very-much) Where do you draw the line and who becomes the arbiter of what is acceptable and what is not? You? Me? The government? CPS? No, that's a very slippery slope to go down.

So, yeah... all I can do when I see how some parents are, in my opinion, permenantly mucking up their kid it to walk away shaking my head and feel compassion for the poor child.

Now, if the parent is physically abusing the child, then there are certainly many remedies available that will allow others to intervene. But in our present social and legal systems, mental or emotional abuse does not usually constitute an actionablable offense. Currently, for the most part, those things are only moral offenses, even though they engender impotent outrage in most people who witness them.

But yeah... I agree. "Disgusted" is a good way to put it.

Dan