Last night I took my 18 year old daughter to a DUI victims panel. She has been charged with DUI and one requirement is that she attend a panel and hear firsthand from DUI victims how drunk driving has changed their lives. Both of the speakers lost loved ones to drunk driving, one a 19 year old son, and the other a brother.

I stayed there in the spectator area and listened to the presentation also. It was very intense. The two speakers have suffered such loss and that will always be there for them. The situation of the speaker with the teenage son--it is every parent's worst fear. The speaker with the brother--it was 16 years ago he lost him and still he broke down in front of the audience and cried.

I felt moved by both of the presentations and cried at both. I saw a number of people in the audience wiping tears.

Between the two speakers there was a break, and my daughter and I stood together. She could see I had cried. She said maybe I should just leave for the next speaker since I didn't have to be there. I said, no, I wanted to stay. She didn't understand why I would want to be there. She did not seem outwardly moved at all by the presentation. She had not cried and seemed unaffected, although she agreed it was intense (the only thing I said about the panel to her during the break). After the second speaker, her reaction was the same (she had a lack of reaction).

Earlier I had told my younger daughter (age 14) that older daughter and I were going to this panel. She was very interested and it seemed she thought it was kind of cool. She wanted me to videotape the event on my camera so she could see this (of course I said no). She was especially interested in gory details of the crashes. It's hard to describe, but I sensed in her a desire to hear these people and laugh at them. As if the thought of people getting up and sharing their grief was cause to make fun of them. (When she has seen me cry before, her reaction has been to make fun of me, and she was showing the same affect toward this.)

I am feeling very put off by the reactions of my 2 girls. Are they without empathy or feeling? I just feel yucky about them. I know everyone reacts differently and some people are more outwardly emotional than others but still have hidden feelings. I have certainly hidden my feelings many times. But I am having this yucky feeling that my girls are unfeeling monsters that I have raised and I am wondering what I did wrong.

I know that's an awful thing to say about one's own children. It's something I have never felt about my kids before.