Re: Theohumanity, aka Daniel Stacy Barron
Date: December 04, 2008 08:42AM
The following is a letter (sent 2 years ago) from my father, the husband of the leader of the North American movement. Now, I am liberating myself by sharing the insane ramblings of daniel. I do not believe my father wrote this without his wife at the helm, or daniel's blessing. I feel that by sharing it, anyone in ebe can read and hopefully see how cruel and hurtful this is. I have not heard a word from my father since:
Dear Daughter of cult member:
I am writing this because I can feel how if I don’t, I would
perpetuate the same level of inauthenticity and co-dependence that
was the hallmark of how I contributed to raising you, and what
ultimately became our family dynamic. I can’t undo the
past, but I can stop perpetuating it in a way that feels unhealthy to
me. I have great remorse for having contributed to creating it in the
first-place, and yet, out of my love for you, would rather set a
bench mark for something different. I am deeply sorry for not having
been able to do this sooner and how I parented you. I feel that the
best parent and grandparent I can be is to tell you what I see, what
is my truth, and what is in my heart, albeit late, but now nonetheless.
There was something you said on the phone the other day that brought
up a deep sadness in me, and had me realize my truth about our
relationship and your visiting me this summer and fall. I need to
finally tell you my truth about this.
On the phone, you said something like, "Well you know, I wish the
kids could be born at the age of 2" As jarring to me as these statements
are, there is a bigger picture that is indicative of why I choose to
stay away from you and Son in law of cult member.
There is something about the chaotic nature of your life that is very
troublesome to me and makes it impossible for me to find a way to
interact with you. Your on-again—off-again trips to the mainland,
to the Bay Area or to the Seattle Area are impossible for me to
follow; I am not a father or grandfather who sits around waiting for
you, with nothing to do. My life is full.
Most of the time when you call me, you are complaining about
something, or someone is ill, or something doesn't work out, like the
house in Seattle, etc. I feel like you use me to vent your
frustration with your life situation. I do not want to be used for
venting. Either we interact authentically, in which case you can
actually take in what I have to offer, or I can’t interact with you
at all. You don't seem to take any responsibility for your life and
what is happening in it. When I suggest something to you about it,
you just brush it off, like nothing is wrong, you become very
defensive, or you ignore me like I am invisible. When I say
something to you that you do not want to hear, you go into hiding and
I do not hear from you for weeks and in one case for months.
The most difficult thing for me to say is that I dread the thought of
spending time with you and your husband. His narcissism and self-
righteousness, not to mention his rage (sometimes suppressed,
sometimes not), are too much for me to take. I will not tolerate his
energy anymore. Life is not a Hollywood set, and your husband is not
directing it. I stuffed it when he raged at Gloria at the time of
the baby's birth (when she tried to offer the two of you a video with
up to date research in post natal care—do you have any idea how
arrogant it is to reject information that might illuminate something
that could make a difference in the life of your children); Gloria
cannot be with him anymore either. His indifference to the children,
as I observed it and you attested to, is too much for me to take.
Shutting his office door on Grandson of cult member, while I was there, not only
hurt Grandson of cult member, but also hurt me. It is no wonder Grandson of cult member takes out
his suppressed rage at Grandbaby of cult member, and some of the time, at you. He
cannot do it to his father, since he wants his father's love and
attention. You saw this yourself.
Three or four years ago, Gloria and I suggested to you that Grandson of cult member
might have Ansberger's. We saw that he was disturbed, so we read
books about Ansberger and when we brought it to you, Son in law of cult member shouted at
us, "There is nothing wrong with him." You both could have taken
that in and learned more about how to care for Grandson of cult member and perhaps
helped him, through better understanding and diet.
It appears to me, through our phone conversations, that most of your
parenting revolves around finding appropriate Nanny's for the kids,
finding appropriate activities for Grandson of cult member, or around having him in
a school that boost's your ego, and may not necessarily be the best
for him. You have a picture of who Grandson of cult member is, but I do not know if
you can feel what he actually needs. You also have some picture of
what a grandparent is supposed to be, but it is an old picture and
not what I am or could be.
I am sorry to have to bring this to you now. I sent you my calendar
2 months ago; if you really wanted to have the children in their
grandfather's life, you would have come to the Bay area for the
summer. You were going to come at Spring break, and you choose
Seattle over Berkeley, expecting me (and Gloria) to come to Seattle
for the week. I am not at your beck and call. Life is not a movie set.
This Fall is the last semester of my Academic career. With this, I
am turning more and more attention to my personal life, examining
more and more, who I am and not what I do. A part of this is my own
examination of my self as a parent. I do have a lot of remorse
around my own parenting. I described some of this to you in Hawaii
last September, and I am truly sorry that I wasn't there for you at
crucial times in your life. More important than being there however,
was the way that I wasn’t there. I couldn’t feel nor deal with your
emotions and the difficulties you had with your mother. I am not very
proud of this; and it hurts even more to see how you do this, in an
energetic way with your own kids. But, the only way that I feel I
can stop the cycle is to start telling the truth.
I see now that it isn’t a child’s job to take care of a parents
needs. I let you take care of my needs when you were small and when I
feel into this I am deeply sorry and ashamed. I took you to UCLA
games so I wouldn’t be alone. Of course, it was a way to spend time
with each other, but it was one of the only chance you had to be
alone with me, rather than me joining you in things you wanted to do.
You ended up going with me because your brothers did. That I let you
take care of my needs has left you unable to advocate for yours in
some way, or else I can’t imagine why you put up with Son in law of cult member’s
narcissism, constantly complaining about it, but living with it non-
the-less and not expecting more from a man than crumbs. Rather than
going, just for the fun of it, I needed a companion and you needed my
attention. Can you see how this imprinting gets carried out from
generation to generation?
I need time to digest all of this, as I am sure you do. When
Grandson of cult member and Grandbaby of cult member are old enough, I would love to have them spend
time with me for as little or as much time as we can, just like
other grandsons are doing this summer, free of their parents, so
they can be themselves, and I can give them my full and undivided
attention and, most importantly, my love.
I send this with a heavy heart but with love in that heart.
Dad