My daughter is a prostitute

[BusynMember]

I think so, appi. Honestly dont know how it works though.

 

[GoingNorth]

I believe we have legal, regulated prostitution in several counties in Nevada.

You do, and they've been fighting, not always successfully, to keep the Mob out of it.

The other difference is that at least some of the houses in Nevada allow drugs on the premises. They do not sell drugs on the premises, but they look the other way if a client brings them in for personal use. That's what happened to Lamar Odom: he ODed on drugs he had brought with him.

 

[Copabanana]

I actually visited a house with husband, he wanted me to see the place, visit with the girls

M and I lived at a brothel for a year, while I worked at a prison nearby. I was already scared to drive highways and staying there was the only place I could get to work without being terrified.

We stayed out of it (business wise) and we were treated with respect and kindness almost all of the time. One of my best memories was when we made Thanksgiving for the whole place (in a motel room microwave and small outdoor gas stove.) It was too fun.

I had not remembered this when I wrote my posts although it was only about 5 years ago.

The issue as I see it for Slim is not the prostitution so much as the abuse. As I recall, Slim, your family had been involved in prostitution as a business. While you chose otherwise, and would have preferred that your daughter do so, too, your issue with her is how she exposes you and others to that which makes them uncomfortable. It seems more as if it is a control and domination issue--that she not rub your face in her lifestyle.

I see this as little different than the situation for many of us on the board whose kids try to dominate us and to muddy boundaries--regardless of the way they do it.

My son insisted on talking about wacky conspiracy theories. I could not stand it. He would not stop. While there was a range of opinion on how I should handle it, I chose to tell him I would not talk to him if he spoke to me about those things. That I wanted a reciprocal relationship, including talking about topics of interest to us both.

That was a turning point for us. 99.9 percent of the time he curbs himself. He is much more integrated in our lives, and he seems to be gaining in self-control in other areas as well.

I learned very late that it is both permissible and advisable to set limits and ask what you want.

 

[BusynMember]

That sounds a lot like we still need to work on this s lot.

 

[Slimothy]

SomewhereOutThere- I got this from what you shared thank you!
I have understood that when I was at my daughter’s graduation I was so thrilled for her, for all the work she did to get that far. I watched her creep across the stage at her graduation, skeletal with Crohn’s and I remember thinking she achieved her degree all by herself! I understand that I must therefore attribute the same thinking to my daughter regarding my daughter being a sex worker, my daughter being in an abusive relationship, and my daughter choosing to flaunt her ideology around having sexual boundaries which are not mainstream and are commonly offensive. She has done, and is doing these things all by herself.

TanyaM, from you I am taking on board:
In the past year I have been to a counsellor (who looked blankly at me, like what’s my problem) and a psychologist (who saw my values as the problem, and mocked me!), and I have learned and understood more here in the past week with you Warrior parents, than from any other source in the past year.
-So far I have come to realise that drug abuse, alcohol abuse and sex work, are all ways for a person to lose themselves and not address their issues.
-I looked up the definition of warrior and liked this one:

Warriors are men and woman that are fearless, strong and skilled fighters that are lacking in our modern times- (Urban dictionary online).

Copabanana
I like your plain speak. I have learned that while I was thinking of my daughter as a victim to both Crohn’s and her former relationship, while I was paying to support her lifestyle and hurting for and with her, I was depriving myself of enjoying my life and also I was taking away my parenting energy and joy from my two adult sons who are highly respectful to me, themselves and others. I was not allowing my daughter to fully experience the consequences of her choices, as is her right as an adult.

Scent of Cedar
I am going to stay with you guys. I have come to terms with so much and only in a matter of days. I think I had come to the point of separation by myself, but I been looking so much at my daughters behaviour, I wasn’t looking at mine.

GoingNorth
The place my daughter works is a high end place. The girls are advertised as ‘hand-picked’ by the madam. My daughter has two degrees, so part of her online spiel to draw in clients is her ability to have a conversation with them. The prices where she works are probably the highest in our country and they draw in the men from high powered positions (i.e. Judges, lawyers etc.). Also, these men in these types of positions are the ones who request to be in ‘the dungeon’. Where my daughter works there is a huge dungeon that would rival any water-boarding facility.

In my opinion any type of prostitution is prostitution. I think we are all the same when we are naked with the lights off. All sex workers are somebody’s daughters and I don’t know any right minded mother who would raise their daughter to be a prostitute in western educated society.

When prostitution is legal the advertising is on line. I wondered if you would be open to go online to see what that looks and feels like? If you are open to rethinking your view (I am respecting your positive experience) you may want to think of a young woman you love the most in the entire world, and allow yourself to look at the pictures of the prostitutes, their prices, their bottoms, their naked breasts etc, and place your loved one into that picture.

This is what I live with. I love my daughter and I hurt to see her there. I have stopped looking. The rest of the world can look on her nakedness though, and I don’t like that either

There is powerful advertising to draw in students starting University right now. This means that 18 year old girls are being enticed to work as prostitutes, openly online in New Zealand. The Madam is saying (appealing) that they can pay for all of their expenses plus live very well for only a few hours’ work a week. She is saying to them that ‘the business’ is over in a matter of minutes. I thought of those young woman aged 18 stepping away from their parents for the first time in their lives and forming adult relationships for the first time away from loved ones….on their backs with their legs open, in a brothel. Sorry to be so blunt here. This is the truth of prostitution.

In my view 18 year olds are not forward thinking. Enticing them into the trade at that age is an unfair playing field to me. This is the reality of legalised prostitution.

Prostitutes display their goods to entice men (some of whom are single, or visiting with their wives), many of whom have wives and children at home who know nothing of their activities. I know that there are sex slaves in the world, but in the case of my daughter, she has other avenues to make money. She is having sex with other woman’s husbands. She is absolutely gorgeous so she would haul in the clients, many of whom would be sex addicts. She is likely to be a sex addict. In my opinion prostitution feeds their addictions. ‘Looking for love in all the wrong places’, as the saying goes. As humans we are designed to reach out to seek comfort from another. Prostitution fills lonely hearts, for a minute. Brothels are incredibly sad places.

You had a positive experience, in what you knew to be a positive and safe environment for you to be in. There are not many husbands who have thier wives/partners by thier side in a brothel.

I wanted to share a part of a poem with you. I have mentioned here that my mother and brother ran (high end) brothels for many years and this sort of stuff goes on commonly:

The interview, Margaux Fragoso….

I stood in a tight short velvet ridges dress with my hair
Pre straightened and well combed, still thinking about the literature
But thinking more about the money I could make, lots of money.
The client was naked, a thin Asian man
The boss had told me he had written out what he wanted done beforehand.

It’s always about what the client wanted.
He wanted to be stepped on with our bare feet.
This I did.
He wanted to be spit on.
This I did.

He wanted to be told he was , he was nothing.
This I did.
I saw him in the hall at the end of the training session.
He was dressed in street clothes.
I had stepped on him, spit on him.

We looked at each other
He had the eyes of my Japanese grandfather.
His cheeks were as white as the shoreline
& he was as ashamed as shame can run
In a human face.

 

[GoingNorth]

Slim, No one says you have to be proud of your daughter's career choice. It would be nice if you could accept it as her choice and nothing you can do about it, but I can see your point of view if you cannot.

I never had children, but have known quite a few sex workers over the years. Some are happy doing what they do. Some are miserable and trapped. There are many variables in terms of why they feel the way they do.

From what it sounds like, you and your family are a bit conservative. It also sounds like your daughter has made a career choice KNOWING it would devastate you.

The dirty jokes, overstepping boundaries with your friends and family, etc, are a direct attack on you. She gets pleasure out of humiliating you.

The only thing you can do here is change how you react. You didn't have anything to do with your daughter choosing sex work, nor do you have anything to do with her vulgar behavior. Therefore, there is nothing to be embarrassed or humiliated about.

Next time your daughter crosses the line, ask her to leave the house or you will call the police and have her removed

 

[GoingNorth]

Forgot to add. I've seen husband's butt on the internet. Unclothed. He was a dancer and singer as a sideline. I've also sat with 700 other people who were gawking at my husband who was naked except for a skimpy loincloth and a dance belt.

Plenty of people took pictures. That didn't bother me, either.

 

[BusynMember]

Slim, thanks for making it more personal so I could understand. How awful to see your own beloved daughter advertising that on the internet.

My heart bleeds for you. I just wasnt thinking of the big picture. Just remember...she is choosing it and you have nothing to do with it. Maybe you should never look her up on the internet. Dont punish yourself. Be good to yourself. We have no control over our adult childrens choices. good, bad, neutral...their decisions rest on their shoulders, not ours. Try to remember you dont have a vote, you dont approve, but it is not your decision (big sigh).

 

[GoingNorth]

I apologize as well. I wasn't thinking terms of the internet era where, of course, the house would be advertising online.

That does explain to me a lot of the heartache you are enduring. For me, the idea of possibly thousands of people seeing your daughter nude and fantasizing sexually about her, with all that can entail, is a bit sickening.

The sad thing is that they'd get better results and come off higher class if they showed the workers in tight fitting or somewhat revealing clothing: like tight jeans and a shirt unbuttoned enough to show cleavage. That sort of thing.

As far as my nude photo winding up on the internet. I'm not at all well-built. I'm quite fat, in fact. I would collect a lot of nasty fat-shaming comments, etc.

Now with your daughter, since you said she is beautiful, now that her picture is out there, there is a risk she might be lured into porn.

Sigh.

 

[Copabanana]

The dirty jokes, overstepping boundaries with your friends and family, etc, are a direct attack on you. She gets pleasure out of humiliating you.

Yes.

I agree with GN. There are two parts to this that can be looked at separately and handled separately.

First is the prostitution.

Second is the abuse.

Every parent on this board has to deal with the latter. Most of us have to deal with the former, too. Our kids have chosen lifestyles antithetical to ours and to our values, and those to which they were raised. Whether homelessness, or drug use, or drug sales, or sloth, or fill in the blank, we all are dealing with the same thing.

In my family, I will not accept the abuse. I am ambivalent about the lifestyle choices. I accept my son's right to his life. I do not accept his right to expose me to it. If he chooses to accept my help and support, he lives in a way that is compatible with my lifestyle or he leaves. Still, there is constant tension around this.

I suggest you read the detachment article if you have not already done so. It helps.

I wrote this post before the posts by SWOT and GN came on, which precede mine.

I think the dialog about prostitution, per se, is useful to many of us. It shows how each of us thinks differently about the same thing and how we cannot know how another mother feels unless we have been in her shoes. It is one thing to think about prostitution in the abstract, it is another to see your child in this life.

I was going to write in a post above, how I feel conflicted because my son's strongest motivation is to preserve his SSI. I believe in work and goals and ambition, and it saddens me that my son does not seem much interested in any of these things.

While I understand that lack of motivation, difficulty with goals and work skills can all be tied up in a specific diagnosis of mental illness, and I surely get that it can be wrong and mean to project my own values onto a person who has different interests, values or capabilities, I am a person too. A person who is a mother.

I did not include my feelings about my own son in the post above because I did not want to hurt anybody else, with my value judgments, and I did not want to be criticized for having value judgments.

We are not disinterested observers. We are not politicians or civil rights attorneys. We have pain when our dreams for our children turned into something difficult and ugly for us, and in our hearts, for our children. We had dreams for our children before they were capable of having them for themselves. We guided them. and nurtured them, based upon these dreams. It is very, very hard to let go of a dream. Especially if it has turned into a nightmare.

 

[Slimothy]

Thank you for your apologies and comments. I think you are amazing Warrior parents here, and have appreciated you coming to my aide
I think the discussion has also been positive in that it highlights how easy it is to bring our own experiences and ideology into a discussion where prostitution is involved. It's mostly why I don't talk with my friends about this. Sex and politics can and does overshadow what's happening for me, understandably.
When my daughter called me to tell me about her choice of work I mentioned I didn't sleep, for about three weeks. I was what New Zealanders call "off my face" with fatigue. So I went to a psychologist (and I know I mentioned this) and I felt ridiculed for my views. Not only that, the madam where my daughter works had published a book about her experiences. She had worked for my Mum about 30 years ago and she slammed my mother in her book, for the way she dealt with the takings (Ie money). She went even further to alledge I was the recipient of a considerable amount of money obtained fraudulently. Anyway, I had added this to my list of dismay topics when talking with the psychologist about my daughter and to be sure he looked very excited about the whole awful story! I wasn't that off my face with fatigue that I missed his Gleeful response! So I got up and left and made the rudest comment about where the book could go (anatomy
of the madam, aka dominatrix) and for "no charge! " Gosh I was extremely rude and regardless of my behaviour, strangely don't feel sorry at all.
So when later feeling like jumping off a bridge, I went to my doctor. She did a spiel about prostitution and the men being the only problems in it, gave me a script for sedatives and sent me packing. I believe each of them treated me from their value base.
I threw the pills out by the way, and came here instead .

While reflecting last evening, I realised I was my mothers difficult child. Leaving my family and their brothels, I joined a Baptist Church! my mother couldn't cope with my oppositional lifestyle choice even though I lived half a day's drive away and never spoke of it with her. She told me she needed to cut all ties with me.

I rang her a few days later and let her know that she was the only person in the world who had the title 'mother' to me, and I wanted and needed her in my life. We eventually agreed I would visit her 4 times a year (inc Christmas) and call her on Mother's Day and her birthday. Over time the calls increased and she relaxed more as she accepted my decision.

My daughter was a youth leader at a camp (aged 18) when my mum died. She was a youth leader at a Church when doing her first degree three years later. I stopped going to Church when the Pastor died about 14 years ago although hold the value of our bodies being sacred, particularly the womb where life begins. I still hold many Christian values, come to think of it.

My daughter saw me bullied in the Church. The pastors wife and daughter did not want a former brothel worker / supporter there, and ousted me as soon as the Pastor died. They told me I could only return to Church on admission I had impure thought about him!!! And I hadn't had the thoughts as stated and nor were my thoughts their business and basically they found a way to get rid of me! My daughter and I, both walked away from the man made rules and attitudes heaped on us at that particular Church.

In the past decade my daughter has obviously shifted her beliefs although I had not realised until two weeks ago, that she had thrown them all out completely. She lives to feel good now, she tells me.

I think I have made huge progress here with you all and a gathered supports along the way. I had a big smile over your comment Going North, about being fat. I don't know why I found that funny except we could all locate ourselves in scenarios I have put across here and thought how we would stack up. Me, I'm not far from 60 and hanging in there in a country that values youth and treat older woman as invisible, in my opinion. I don't know what the US is like.

I am going to light a candle for you all by the way. And this is nothing to do with being a former Christian. It's just a way to bring you all to mind and send you my thanks and best wishes for what you are experiencing too.

 

[BusynMember]

I have read, and do not know if this is true, that most European countries are mostly atheist and that values that people once held dear are ridiculed. I could be way wrong. It does seem that most Europeans who post here are total atheists and seem to feel that this is the only intelligent explanation for life, and that doesn't bother me. The difference in values does though. People, whether Gods creation, others who are sure there is a spiritual higher power or atheists still in my opinion must have some self respect. It doesn't need to be religious. It is sad to me and rather chilling that anyone would feel content using their own body to make money by allowing tons of disgusting men, none who care about them at all, the intimacy of themselves. And advertising how good they are seems narcissistic and shallow. Yes, a very educated person can be both narcissistic and, inside, shallow. A certain type of person only would want to do this as life's work. And I can only think that a psychologist that did not understand a mother's angst over this is ok with women, who are somebody's daughters, letting countless men use them because, money or not, they are just a body to most customers. In the U.S. I believe therapists would still understand a mother's angst and help her and agree that prostitution is not a healthy persons professional choice. How awful for you to get no empathy, Slomothy, when you reached out for help. Do mental health professionals in New Zealand not see the sickness of women who chose this profession? Well, you do have it here. We mostly do get it.
Legal or not, immoral or not, a woman with good self esteem would not choose to be a prostitute not should anyone fool themselves into thinking it is a healthy decision.
I am sorry she made a decision she may later really regret but still...you can't stop her so handle it in way that makes you comfortable and get on with your life. You never know. In a decade when she is no longer as pretty and has had so many filthy minded men with her, she may take a hard look at her life.
I have read more than once that most prostitutes hate sex and men. I wonder how many women decide that they want to do more with their lives.
Americans can be foolishly affectionate... I give you a big cyber hug. I get it from deep in my gut now and I am hurting for you.

 

[Copabanana]

You know I am remembering that for about a year I lived with a woman who had been a prostitute. Before I adopted my son, maybe 26 or 27 years ago. Her name was Jennifer. She I think was then in her early 30's. We became friends. I did not know she had been a prostitute until she began to act a bit strangely, like something was on her mind. After weeks she blurted out: I was a prostitute.

It seems that she held me in some esteem, or maybe it was because my life was more straight and narrow, and felt my caring for her would be affected by the disclosure.

While it was not, our relationship became strained, because it was she who seemed to feel stigmatized by her disclosure. The easiness between us never returned.

I think about her sometimes. We drew apart because she was an alcoholic, for one, and I became uncomfortable about being around her drunk; and I think my new son stood between us. I had changed.

I went to a psychologist (and I know I mentioned this) and I felt ridiculed for my views.

I am so sorry for this.

Your views? What are they really? I mean, how are they really different from the rest of us, most of us? You want your child to feel self-regard and to make choices from this place. Who could not understand your pain?

It is sad to me and rather chilling that anyone would feel content using their own body to make money by allowing tons of disgusting men, none who care about them at all, the intimacy of their body.

I would guess that there is a lot of suppression of what this feels like. I worked many years in prisons and I knew if I thought about it that I was likely an object of desire, not because of any attractiveness on my part but because I was there.

If I thought about it I was grossed out. But I did not think about it because I could not function. Although this is a world away from the prostitute's situation, there are defense mechanisms that protect the self from really getting what is going on, I think.

Although I can imagine that for some people, calloused, damaged, angry, etc. there is a relatively stable deadening to feelings that might interfere with their functioning in this manner.

I am less interested in all of that than in Slim, whose experience like all of ours, is that of a mother who has to follow her child to places where she was unprepared to go or to return.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am going to light a candle for you all by the way. And this is nothing to do with being a former Christian. It's just a way to bring you all to mind and send you my thanks and best wishes for what you are experiencing too.

Thank you, Slimothy.

:O)

Gosh I was extremely rude and regardless of my behaviour, strangely don't feel sorry at all.

Good for you!

You are stronger than me.

I always believed everything a therapist said. I wish I'd thought about telling that first one what to do with his wrongnesses like you did.

HA!

I will absolutely do that now, in my thinking.

Great imagery!

I threw the pills out by the way, and came here instead .

I am glad. I feel that way, too.

While reflecting last evening, I realised I was my mothers difficult child. Leaving my family and their brothels, I joined a Baptist Church! my mother couldn't cope with my oppositional lifestyle choice even though I lived half a day's drive away and never spoke of it with her. She told me she needed to cut all ties with me.

I rang her a few days later and let her know that she was the only person in the world who had the title 'mother' to me, and I wanted and needed her in my life. We eventually agreed I would visit her 4 times a year (inc Christmas) and call her on Mother's Day and her birthday. Over time the calls increased and she relaxed more as she accepted my decision.

I love how you dealt with this.

I laughed at your description of yourself as your mother's Difficult Child, and at the concept of your Baptist lifestyle as oppositional. Thinking like this puts a different spin on the lifestyles our kids are following.

Isn't that something.

A paradigm shift.

My daughter saw me bullied in the Church. The pastors wife and daughter did not want a former brothel worker / supporter there, and ousted me as soon as the Pastor died. They told me I could only return to Church on admission I had impure thought about him!!! And I hadn't had the thoughts as stated and nor were my thoughts their business and basically they found a way to get rid of me! My daughter and I, both walked away from the man made rules and attitudes heaped on us at that particular Church.

This is terrible. I am glad you walked away. And I agree with you that those "rules" were manmade.

How jealous these women must have been for all those years. And how awful of them, to have betrayed you.

My daughter saw me bullied in the Church. The pastors wife and daughter did not want a former brothel worker / supporter there, and ousted me as soon as the Pastor died.

This makes me angry.

In the past decade my daughter has obviously shifted her beliefs although I had not realised until two weeks ago, that she had thrown them all out completely. She lives to feel good now, she tells me.

What happened in the Church gives insight into daughter's choices. She wants it all out in the open. She refuses to be ashamed, or to hide herself away.

I wonder if you know the work of Susan Howatch.

All her work is excellent reading. Cashelmara, especially, is beautifully written. Much of her later work takes place within the framework of the Anglican Church. I mention her work here because one of her last books has to do with the life of a male prostitute. Somewhere in the book, there is a quote I love:

"Only God knows why Gavin does what he does, and only God can judge him."

I don't know whether that is an exact quote, but I think it's pretty close. Here is a little blurb about the book:

Finally, The Heartbreaker follows the life of Gavin Blake, a charismatic prostitute specializing in powerful, influential male clients, who finds himself at the center of a criminal empire and must fight to save his life. Meanwhile, both Graham and Darrow must deal with their own weaknesses in trying to help Gavin.

Here is a link to information about the writer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Howatch

Me, I'm not far from 60 and hanging in there in a country that values youth and treat older woman as invisible, in my opinion. I don't know what the US is like.

I am 64. Here too, there is a noticeable loss of attention after a certain age. Now that I have been invisible for some time, I like it. There is a freedom in it to be myself for myself.

Though I will say I miss high, high heels fiercely.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I still hold many Christian values, come to think of it.

My daughter saw me bullied in the Church.

I just wanted to add this observation which has nothing to do with what happened to you. Except that in a way, it does. So, I am not so religious. One of my grands is, and one summer when she was visiting, we found and began attending a little church here. The music was fantastic. The musicians were women. There was a drummer, and a singer and a guitar player and I think there was a horn of some kind too, but I am not sure about that.

Oh, how we loved Church, and the music, and the people it drew.

There was a young family who sat near us. The mother wore dreadlocks and a cloud of patchouli and the father had a beard, and they had two children and they were so loving and kind and happy.

The next year when we came home, and when granddaughter came and we attended that church, it had been changed. A stricter faction, headed by a former music teacher, had taken control.
There was only piano music now, played by the former music teacher. And played with strict, pounding rhythms and no magic, at all.

No drums.

No horn or guitar.

The little family with the dreadlocked mother and bearded father were gone.

It was a male who gave the sermon, and he spoke about sin, and about hell.

It was very sad. Like the small young family, we never went back.

Your experience with the women of your church brought that story to mind.

I still think about that church and that music and that little family. There were people of color there too, now that I think about it. Veterans were there, too. And all of us just blended in together, somehow.

The last time we attended, there were no people of color. I'd forgotten about that. And there were no veterans either.

How sad for us all that these things happen.

Cedar

 

[Slimothy]

Copabanana, I think your comment about me being a mother who has to follow her child to places where I was unable to go, or return, just about says it all. You get this. I told my husband I have new best friends! I simply feel so supported here.

Scent of Cedar- Imagine if we turned the clock back and my mother, a madam and brothel owner came to this site because of her Difficult Child.
When it all went down my mother rang the Pastor and gave him what-for and told as many people as would listen that I was chanting and playing tambourines on street corners. I did let her know I hadn’t shaved my head and joined the Hare Krishnas, although any religion was one and the same to her. She was hurting at my lifestyle choice. I know her pain is as valid as anyone’s here and I know she was hurting a great deal.
After Mum died, I packed up her home. From her diary I learned that in the months before she died she had been watching (TV) ‘Hour of Power’ from the Crystal Cathedral. In her diary she had written quotes from the service. The last one she wrote was ‘the darkest hour comes before the dawn’. That speaks loudly to me.

In fact, I was in a dark hour with my daughter a couple of weeks ago, which led me to stepping back from contacting her for a few months and starting this thread. When she had her surgery three years ago, I stayed with her for a month while her partner was there bullying her excessively. I was shocked. She could barely walk and was on mind altering drugs and still he bullied her. Then he started on me so I told him I found his behaviour disrespectful. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago my daughter told me she is seeing someone new and IF she gets sick (she was assuming I would be at her home looking after her), I will allow her total control of what’s happening re her partner. She viewed my behaviour with her former partner as inappropriate.

BUT I have new thinking since coming along here and I have written a poem and will start a new thread with that, in case anyone else can resonate with it.

Basically I now can see that I was enabling and rescuing by being there in her home, with her partner. If my daughter is sick like that again and NEEDS me to look after her I have decided I could only do that at my place. If she has a partner, I decided he can visit her and I will not become involved in her /their relationship. If he is a bully to her and / or me in my home though, it will be my house and my rules and he will be OUT!

This is the new me. I will keep telling myself this to reinforce my new thinking. Even if it takes a while.

On another note I have not heard of the author you mentioned, but did look her up and her books appear very interesting, thank you. I enjoy reading but of late, have been too distressed to concentrate. I work a bit with clay as a hobby and have found that very therapeutic.

Can you handle a true story on heels? Before you even answer I am telling you….I decided to wear heels to my son’s recent engagement. So I could ensure my mobility at the party, I trailed them around the office. So I teetered about for a few hours a day over a couple of weeks thinking I would manage just fine.

At the event I staggered in, totally sober while appearing otherwise because of wearing inappropriate footwear for all of the steps around the place (I hadnt counted on those >groan) and my age. I got to the loo door and given my compromised weight distribution I didn’t feel good just pushing it with my hand (it was a big heavy wooden door), so I stepped back and launched forward to give it full force with my shoulder. It wasn’t quite a Geronimo moment but I was in full flight when something happened I stupidly hadn’t anticipated- a woman pulled the door open from the other side.

So she and I had a difficult encounter for which I profusely apologised (several times over) as I peeled her off the wall and tried to help her straighten herself out. She was in a bit of shock, actually. We hadn’t collapsed completely which was really positive (as I was quick to point out to her several times over as well) because the floor was dirty and we were in above-the-knee length party dresses. Anyway, after returning from the loo my daughter in law to be, took me to introduce me to her mother for the very first time.

Sigh…so I let my daughter in law to be know, that her mother and I had already met (oh dear )

SO I have decided to wear more sensible footwear to the wedding. Or if I do wear heels they won’t be quite so high and I would want to wear trousers.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

SO I have decided to wear more sensible footwear to the wedding. Or if I do wear heels they won’t be quite so high and I would want to wear trousers.

:O)

It would turn out to be the mother of the bride-to-be in that stall! Maybe, you and she will become great friends. How could it be otherwise?!?

I am sorry your daughter behaved as she did. It might have been that one of the men there knew her professionally.

Do you know whether that is what happened?

That might account for Daughter's outrageous behavior at Family Dinner.

When prostitution is legal the advertising is on line. I wondered if you would be open to go online to see what that looks and feels like? If you are open to rethinking your view (I am respecting your positive experience) you may want to think of a young woman you love the most in the entire world, and allow yourself to look at the pictures of the prostitutes, their prices, their bottoms, their naked breasts etc, and place your loved one into that picture.

I am sorry, Slimony. I did go look. Very public and no way to try to put it out of your mind. Especially with the training to specialize. That speaks to a long term commitment.

Two University degrees....

You child is making an informed choice. Really, you have no choice but to accept it.

I would not like knowing my child had chosen this profession. But, as Daughter is University-prepared, it isn't as though she could not have found other work. So, we have to conclude that you've done your best to prepare her to make her living, and she chose to do this, and that's all there is to it, for you.

Daughter will need to figure out how to behave more appropriately in Family Dinner situations where someone may know what she does for her living.

***

The truth is that we parents have so little say in what our children will ultimately do. Another true thing is that we can train our minds to stop judging ourselves or our children for whatever it is. That is a toughie. I was thrown for a loop at what my children were doing. It sent me into a place where I could think of nothing but how to help them when of course, there was nothing I could do to help them. I blamed myself mercilessly for their choices. And here is the thing, Slimony. That I suffered made me blind to the damage my enabling behaviors were causing. If I had not been certain that what was happening to all of us was somehow my fault, I would have been a stronger mom. Which is what they needed. It did get to a point where I said: "I love you too much to love you this way."

That happened with my family of origin, too.

We may not like what the people we love are doing, but as it turns out, we love them no matter what they are doing. Those we love are simply those we love. That is an Anne Rice quote, and totally true.

I have been in the strangest places imaginable, and have done and forgiven and gone into ten thousand kinds of denial for the sakes of those I love. I wanted everything to look right ~ to be perfect.

Honest is better.

Then, we know where we are.

It isn't like we can just turn away from them. We will miss them too much. So, we say, here are the rules I need for all of us to manage to live together happily. Then, we see what comes next, and take the consequences.

Which in my case meant that my family of origin turned away.

They loved my role more than they loved me.

It is better, to know.

***

So, once we have given our children our best thinking about what they are doing, and why, then we have to "sit on our lips".

I learned that phrase here on the site from a mother whose site name was Coookie Monster. Her advice has served me in good stead many times. Sometimes? I stop talking, right in the middle of a sentence.

The trick is learning to say what must be said, and saying it, but only once.

Then, we have to act on what we said. We need to behave with whatever integrity we can muster, and keep our pain about whatever happened because we took a stand to ourselves.

So says me. Today, that is what I say, anyway.

In addition to learning to sit on our lips, there is a concept called Radical Acceptance. Our situations are what they are. Once we have spoken our pieces, our adult children will surely do as they please. Our job is to be there for them emotionally ~ now, and if and when they decide to do something else. Our job is to be honest with them as we come into balance around their choices.

And not enable.

Enabling was huge, for me. Your daughter's behaviors must not be enabled. Unless no one minds, daughter will need to behave appropriately at Family Dinner or not attend.

I still think the betrayal of the Church ladies has more to do with this choice of lifestyle than it seems.

***

So...if we were going to have a look at why prostitution seems wrong, what would we find.

It's a question of respectability. Which is so often a question of docility. An independent female prostitute is someone who refuses to come under exclusive male protection. She owns herself. The value judgment being made here has to do with what value it is that is being exchanged for money. Typing skills or medical training or fighting in a ring or working in a factory for minimum wage.

Women are not supposed to own themselves to the degree that they can thumb their noses at society's mores. Lest society fall apart.

That is maybe why, though prostitution is the oldest profession, it happens in the shadows. It was interesting to me that it was the homosexual community who reminded all of us that marriage is sacred.

She was hurting at my lifestyle choice. I know her pain is as valid as anyone’s here and I know she was hurting a great deal.

I understand this. It is a question of morality. She believed you'd been raised better than to believe them. It turned out she was correct about them, Slimony.

An exchange of money for value, especially in someone with University degrees, who could choose another line of work if she chose, keeps things scrupulously honest. It would be a different, and very sad situation, if your child were addicted and were forced into prostitution to service the addiction.

That would be a different situation altogether, and very sad.

Cedar

 

[Slimothy]

Gosh Cedar, you share the straight talk stuff. It helps. You have raised things that have got me thinking. I was thinking yesterday of my daughter’s life in terms of three decades (she is 31).

In the first decade, she lived alone with me for six years, and then me and my first husband and our baby son, for a couple of years, and then with me and my son as a sole parent again, for another year. During that time, my mother and her business were hugely influential. Basically, my mother snapped her fingers when she wanted my help and I came running. Her life motto was ‘shape up or ship out!’ My daughter was quite close to my mother, although did boss my mother around.

In the following decade I moved away and was in the church with my children. I became very righteous. I definitely went from the frying pan into the fire in regards to living according to manmade rules. For instance, as a woman in the church I was not allowed to speak and I was not allowed to wear trousers. I raised my daughter from the age of 9-19 (when she went to university), exposed to and according to these awful oppressive rules.

Being excommunicated from the church was tragic! My church ‘family’ had become my all. I had been to their weddings, family funerals, taught their kids Sunday school, totally invested myself in all their lives- they were told NOT TO talk with me, and to cross the street if they saw me, until I repented. My daughter was VERY CLOSE to a man in the church and she had worked cleaning a studio he has, every Saturday morning for years. After I was excommunicated, his relationship with her ended too.

This all went down only a few months after my mum died, and I knew my mum was right about them, and right to have tried to warn me away.

So my daughter had the first decade of her life observing me under my mother’s rule, and the second decade observing me under the churches rule, both which cost her- the loss of people she loved.

So I think you are right Cedar, in that my daughter has had enough of walking according to anybody’s rules. Not only that, Crohn’s make her vulnerable around her mental and physical health…how she looks, who touches her and why, what drugs she has to put into her body….and I think she is going all out that she is a rule unto herself now.

I can understand that.

In ‘the dungeon’ the most mind boggling things go on to induce pain. The client, when they can cope with whatever pain they have purchased no longer, has to use the safe word “mercy’ to signal the dominatrix to stop. I think she may well be drawn to having that sort of power over a man.

My daughter hated my former husband (the father of her two brothers)- because he had multiple affairs. She started to disrespect me in her teens; because she thought I was spineless by being nice to him. She hated that he had been with other woman. He left me for an air hostess in the end.

I had a lot of counselling to learn ways to cope with what my daughter was doing to me and my sons when she was a teen. She found ways to put me down every moment of the day. She thought my clothes were ugly, my food was horrible and I was the worst mother in the world. She stopped eating anything I made. She tried to override me when I disciplined my boys. She was also cruel and a bully to her brothers so I needed to supervise them with her. We were all ridiculed by her and this went on for a few years.

I think us all coming together to talk with the psychologist would be useful, but we all live at faraway places and it’s very hard for that to happen. Copabanana mentioned benefits in wider therapy and I know she is right. The next place we will all be together will be the wedding in November, and that could be a playground for my daughter to shock a lot of people.

I think the best thing for me to do right now, is to allow my own truths to drift back to my mind, even though they are hard to look at. I welcome them actually. I am in a safe space to receive them. More and more I think less (in terms of time) about my daughter’s behaviours and choices, and more about my own behaviours.

I know I can ‘sit on my lips’ in regards to sex work. I have asked her to not speak about my role supporting my mother in her brothel either and she has an essay about her grandmother being published by a gallery soon, and I hope she has honoured my request.

I think about us all Cedar….we must all have experienced the impact of stress to varying degrees. In the past year I have lost a lot of hair and have various other health conditions too. Nothing serious though. I think they are all stress related. I feel like I have aged about a decade in the past year. I really do get what you are saying, that your suffering made you blind to your enabling behaviours. I also have blamed myself mercilessly.

Not so much, now.

I think I am starting to see the bigger picture.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I was not allowed to speak and I was not allowed to wear trousers.

How awful for you, and for everyone.

I am sure you were still beautiful.

Beautiful women are a most special gift to the world, having to do with simplicity, and joy.

Being excommunicated from the church was tragic!

I am so terribly sorry this happened.

This is what I know about Shunning: Shunning is not just what happens at the end of something. It is not only a punishment enacted, but a moral system designed to establish and maintain power through fear of exclusion. You (and everyone) will have been kept strictly in line, from the beginning, through fear of exclusion. Threat of the Shun is a divisive, controlling, power-over dynamic fueled by our deepest abandonment issues.

I am so sorry.

You survived the worst they could do to you. How humiliating for you. I was humiliated for the longest time over being shunned by my family of origin. But here is the thing: Having been away from them has allowed me to heal. I have worked very hard to heal, but I think now that I would have healed anyway, once I was no longer under the pervasive and corrupting influence of that Shunning dynamic.

It's insidious.

Painful and frightening as it was at the time, you are better off for having been excluded. At the heart of it, when we are shunned, what it means is that we have refused to participate in hurting the others. The Shunning dynamic, which has to do with power and control, cannot maintain cohesion in the face of defiant kindness. It requires harsh and endless judgment, and ridicule progressing to victimization, to operate.

You will have been someone who displayed compassion.

Whatever they said, that is the why behind the shun.

Every time.

This all went down only a few months after my mum died, and I knew my mum was right about them, and right to have tried to warn me away.

Life works that way though, Slimony. Did you ever notice that? We seem to do just the worst thing for ourselves, believing it the right thing. We become fascinated, when something is foreign to us, and need to learn the truth of things for ourselves. When the constructed thing that we believed would save us falls apart and we see it for what it is, we are like: Huh.

That is why we must do our best we know and learn to hold ourselves with Radical Compassion. Then, maybe, we can help ourselves and one another see more clearly.

In ‘the dungeon’ the most mind boggling things go on to induce pain. The client, when they can cope with whatever pain they have purchased no longer, has to use the safe word “mercy’ to signal the dominatrix to stop. I think she may well be drawn to having that sort of power over a man.

"...with whatever pain they have purchased...."

Oh, my. My daughter has not explored this lifestyle. It must have been so hard for you to hear.

You must love her deeply.

"Those we love are simply...those we love." That is a quote from Anne Rice. Who also wrote, under a pen name, about this very thing. It has so little to do with sex, and so much to do with what it is to be human, and to have been hurt.

She found ways to put me down every moment of the day. She thought my clothes were ugly, my food was horrible and I was the worst mother in the world.

I am quite certain, according to my daughter as a teen and to my son now, as an adult, that in fact the worst mother in the world is me. Which is how, according to my son, I have gone on to become the worst grandmother.

There was only one thing to do: Dig out my high heels. So, I did. And when I did? I remembered who I was.

How sad that I cannot actually walk in them anymore.

:O)

In seriousness, I am sorry. Nothing hurts more than raising teenagers who are troubled. It destroys us, because we love them so.

I'm sorry, Slimony.

He left me for an air hostess in the end.

He must have been a handsome, charismatic man.

It seems to me that our marriages are where we work out our deepest questions about what is real, and about who we are. We all slip in ten thousand ways, and find ourselves in the strangest situations.

I do, for sure.

But it is one thing to decide to end a marriage or relationship and say so. That has to do with respect for ourselves. It is another to accidentally slither off with an air hostess.

How awful for you to have been through that, with all the questions it must have raised for you. You have had to be very strong. It seems you lost everything by which you defined yourself.

But here you are now, living your own beautiful life, everything so different.

Good for you.

She stopped eating anything I made.

Ouch.

The next place we will all be together will be the wedding in November, and that could be a playground for my daughter to shock a lot of people.

It could, but...does her behavior, at 31, have anything to do with who you are? I get into that all the time, too. I am appalled at something someone I love has done. (Oh man, is that the understatement of the year! My people that I love are so whacked out. And downright mean and always looking for someone to blame. Someone who will not call them out on their behaviors. Someone safe, like me.) They say the most awful things. But this is what I have learned: Whether I feel badly or not is a choice of perspective I am making. The question is: What is it about me that leaves me feeling terrible about the way someone else does whatever it is that they do.

What is it about me.

Then, I am back at the center of my thinking.

Maybe they have decided to hate me, now. I will not be able to change that, or it never would have happened in the first place. This is a really important piece. Whatever people do to one another? They do it that way because that is how they come back into balance, themselves. From the beginning, whatever did happen is what was bound to happen, sooner or later. If we know them well enough to know about the patterns in their lives, we will see that, sure enough, this is how they do their lives.

So, how does what they do have anything to do with our not being perfect enough to have prevented them doing what they have done, before, to others in their lives?

Huh.

So, feeling badly about myself turns out to be how I punish myself for disappointing myself for not having been perfect enough. Then, the question becomes how long I need to punish myself. For something someone else is intentionally doing.

To me, those dirty rats.

And the answer there, I am learning, is to change my hairstyle and manner of dress and pull out my highest heels. Whether I can actually walk in them anymore is beside the point.

We are talking about intention, here.

The answer is to sizzle a little bit, and to feel beautiful and strong.

That's the answer, when someone has decided to hurt us because we were not perfect enough for their tastes.

Nothing else works. And life is too short to suffer for things I haven't done. I have done enough bad things on my own. I don't need to be borrowing anyone else's bad stuff. It isn't that I don't wish with all my heart that everyone loved me.

Unfortunately, they don't.

Huh.

That is why high heels were invented, maybe.

Our own little way of saying, "F*** you."

***

Especially after Daughter's behavior at Family Dinner, the bride-to-be is aware of Daughter's potential behavior.

All decisions surrounding Daughter are out of your hands.

I would not know how to think about this, either. But I do know daughter's behavior cannot be controlled by you. Nothing about our adult children (or anyone else, for that matter) can be controlled by us. I do know being nice, doing the right thing, trying to understand and never condemn keeps us in a terrible emotional place. I do know that for us to say, "Why! Oh, why did he/she do this thing that was so costly to me?!? Where have I gone wrong, that they think so little of me?" is the worst thing we can do. We are seeing ourselves through someone else's eyes instead of our own, when we are thinking like that.

I have enough trouble seeing through my own eyes.

We need to get these people out of our heads.

When these things happen, we need to think instead: "What a feckless brat." And we need to say: "You were raised better."

They can think whatever they like about that.

Because the truth is they were raised better, or we would not be here wondering where we went wrong.

I am working very hard on learning that, myself.

More and more I think less (in terms of time) about my daughter’s behaviours and choices, and more about my own behaviours.

I am happy for you.

You are healing.

I know I can ‘sit on my lips’ in regards to sex work. I have asked her to not speak about my role supporting my mother in her brothel either and she has an essay about her grandmother being published by a gallery soon, and I hope she has honoured my request.

I hope so, too.

It might be wise to discuss this with an attorney. Learn whether and how you might protect yourself, and let daughter know that in this case, there will be consequences to her actions.

Slimony. You are not responsible for any of this. Would it help you to learn what your mother's choices may have been? It was a different time. Women were not allowed to work outside the home, except in near-slavery conditions for barely enough money to keep body and soul together. I read a book recently about a young woman whose only choices were to choose prostitution, or to live her life masquerading as a male.

She chose to masquerade as a male.

So she could work.

Maybe, your mom was too pretty to masquerade as a male. Or maybe, everyone already knew she was a girl. She may have had no other choice.

So she did the courageous, defiant thing.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23344356-the-gods-of-tango

I think about us all Cedar….we must all have experienced the impact of stress to varying degrees. In the past year I have lost a lot of hair and have various other health conditions too. Nothing serious though. I think they are all stress related. I feel like I have aged about a decade in the past year. I really do get what you are saying, that your suffering made you blind to your enabling behaviours. I also have blamed myself mercilessly.

Not so much, now.

I think I am starting to see the bigger picture.

You know what happened to me? Once I began seeing things differently? I found that I had been my own worst enemy, all along. I learned that I was raised to be my own worst enemy. That is why it felt right to show myself no mercy. Someone broke that kind of thinking in to me.

I felt so badly for myself, once I was able to know how cruel everything had been, and how hard. Once I was able to see myself, and to see that little girl, and that young woman I was, with compassion. I read something from Brene Brown that helped me very much: That we humans are born hard wired for conflict.

We can do this, Slimony. We can learn to see differently and come to cherish our own lives.

It is a most wonderful gift, to be alive. Just to breathe. Just to see things, and to feel.

And another:

Eckhart Tolle has been most helpful to me:

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/840520-the-power-of-now

And Maria Harris:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/893277.Dance_of_the_Spirit

And Anne Lamott:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7113.Anne_Lamott

Know I wish you well with all my heart, Slimony. The pain of this time will bring compassion. For yourself, and for all of us.

And joy.

And laughter, which is the best thing. Not the nasty kind of laughter, but the good, generous kind.

That is how it happened, for me.

Cedar

 

[Slimothy]

Cedar, You have stuck with me for days and this morning I teared up at your kindness and wisdom.
I had a lightbulb moment when i read your comments today , triggered by something you shared-


When my mother ran her brothel, at NO POINT did I ever attribute anything to do with her decision, to the way her parents raised her. Her mother was my mothers main carer and she taught sewing and cooking at a girls high school for 40 years. My mothers father worked on the railways. Nothing my grandparents did equated to raising a daughter who not only ran a brothel, but made it a family business which involved three of her adult children and (I lose count of how many) grandchildren.

My daughter was raised in difficult circumstances, although despite that as a young adult she wanted the highest education she could get to reach her potential. Hence nine years after finishing school she had two University degress and spoke two languages...she had lived in Japan for two years. This period of time was where my role in equipping her as an independant adult changed...dropped off. We became more like friends.

She knew that i know the sex industry inside out, and before she worked as a prostitute, she did a bit of research of her own. I asked her a few times WHY did she visit the 'Prostitutes Collective' and WHY did she want to know how Mum ran her brothel in detail, and my daughter told me she was doing research for an art project.

Humph...she was telling me half a story, and I got the picture!

Anyway, I figured if my grandmother had nothing to do with her daughter running brothels, nor have I had anything to do with my daughter being a prostitute.

This is so.
This is the truth.
I need to stop bashing my self up.
Perhaps i could even reward myself, knowng that I supported her to have OPTIONS, should she ever want to seek mainstream employment in the future!!

Also, my mother could be rather cutting and rude. I never thought that this was my grandmothers fault, weakness, poor parenting, lack of discipline either. This was simply my mother being rude.

My daughter has been rude. She has been disrespectful to her loved ones.

This is simply my daughter being rude and disrespectful

I am going to think this over for a few more days, and I am going to listen to the Ted talks and other things you have mentioned here.
I will let you know how i am doing in a few days time.

By the way, I so understand about heels. I want some kick butt shoes. I have seen some very nice fabric that would make a lovely dress...