Messages By: errosmom

This mom basically wrote a letter comparing her "three equally great boys". Landon is the smart one, Griffin is the nice one and Dalton is the good looking one (how can this be, they are TRIPLETS!). Siblings are competitive enough without the parents comparing them. They are all equally great boys. They are all smart, nice (and maybe not so nice sometimes) and good looking, all three of them. I agree with Dr Phil and other writers about not continuing to dress them alike. Let them find their own likes and dislikes. They need to be individuals as well as triplets. I love their names, trendy but individual. They really are adorable kids.

I have been in a similar situation and my personal rule is to never give up. A few years ago, my brother, who has been distant from everyone in the family (but especially me) since his marriage 21 years ago, had a family reunion. I was invited through someone else (not directly) and was very nervous about going. The last time I had seen my brother, he was screaming at me. I went. It wasn't perfect. I had very short surface level conversations with my brother and his wife. But I had an awesome time with my niece and nephew, who had heard terrible things about me. We had lots of fun and I sent them an album with all of the pictures from the day. Things are still not great with my brother but I believe that seeds of relationship were planted. It was hard for me but I am glad that I went. If you do call your brother and decide to see him, make sure you get a lot of support from your circle of people who love you for who you are. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Because we are all different, there is a good chance that we are all annoying to somebody. There are annoying habits (like blowing your nose in the shower and leaving it for someone else to clean up) and then there are annoying people (who don't alter their behavior so that other people are comfotable around them). We all have the ability to be annoying and we all have the ability to manage our own behavior. We all also have the ability to understand that others don't always do things our way.   

   

In high school, my son had an annoying habit. When his alarm clock buzzed, he slept right through it and let it buzz. My room was next to his and he would hit the snooze button when I banged on the wall. Ten minutes later it would start all over again. And again, ten minutes after that and again ten minutes after that, etc, etc, etc. Buzzing, banging, quiet, buzzing, banging........He grew up and moved out years ago. I tell this story with affection because I actually miss that annoying habit (and my son living at home).  

   

A lot of the stuff from this show and the message boards is really about annoying habits.   

   

Annoying people don't pay attention to the people around them and how they are reacting. It is pretty easy to read the room and see who is having fun and who is not. I think it is rude and even mean to push people out of their comfort zones, especially in a crowd. Just about any kind of behavior is acceptable (non abusive, of course) with the right company but some people just don't like it. I have do not have a personal problem with swearing or off color jokes but don't find it acceptable in front of my parents, any children or in the workplace. The same with personal issues. Keep the conversation away from a crowd.  

   

But.....life doesn't always work the way we want it to and sometimes people ARE annoying. It comes with the territory of living so get over it and TRY TRY TRY not to be anoying yourself!  

   

I think that Matt should relinquish his parental rights to baby Elizabeth. If he doesn't want to be a father then he should allow Lauren and Elizabeth all of the legal rights to move on with their lives. The child support issue belongs in the courts. Let Matt spend his daughter's childhood and a lot more money over the years than he will ever pay in child support on lawyers and court fees to stand up for what he believes in. More power to him. Nobody has to agree with him. He is the one who loses by not taking the opportunity to be Elizabeth's daddy.   

Lauren should just walk away with her daughter and not look back. She should let the courts handle her child support issues. Even better, if she doesn't really need the money, she shouldn't  take it or take it and put it into trust for Elizabeth so that when the time comes that this horrible situation has to be explained to her, it can at least be said that her father provided her with something (a bank account) because he had nothing else to give. If, due to financial circumstances, Lauren does need the money, she should document every penny to protect herself and again to explain it to Elizabeth someday.  I think it is very important that Lauren protect herself and her baby because the last thing that she wants is for Matt to have a change of heart ten years from now and want unsupervised visitation with Elizabeth, who won't even know him. By then, Lauren may have moved on with a man who loves and cherishs her and her daughter.   

Yes, the ideal is for children to grow up with a loving mother and father. The key word is LOVING.  Elizabeth can have a wonderful childhood with her mother who loves her. Let Matt go and do his own thing. I hope that every woman that he gets involved with watches a tape of this show before she shares herself with him. Where are Matt's parents in all of this?  If I was his mother, I would pay the $500 a month myself before I would ever lose contact with my own grandchild. The focus here seems to be about money. Money is nothing, a relationship with a precious child is everything.   

Lauren won't have to explain anything to Elizabeth. Lauren's responsibility is to raise Elizabeth in a loving environment. Elizabeth will eventually ask questions and they can be answered in a way that is appropriate for her age. All of the explanation will eventually come straight from Matt when Elizabeth is old enough to watch the tape of this show.

The stay at home mom topic is such an interesting one. Actually, the stay at home vs working mom topic is sometimes an out and out battle that has been going on for a long time.  My kids are grown. My daughter is now a college educated 31 year old stay at home mother of a beautiful six month old baby boy. I was a working mom for most of her life and a single working mom from the time she was 6 and her little brother was 2. I worked to keep a roof over our heads. I stayed home from work on the first day of school every year so that they had one day a year when they came home to a mom at the door. I would have loved to stay home and I think I would have been a great stay at home mom. Life didn't turn out that way. I worked full time and still did all of the things that the stay at home moms say that they do except that my house was a wreck. I still fed them, read to them, had birthday parties, sleepovers, took them to dance class, baseball pratice (and everywhere else including work sometimes), did laundry, taught them to drive (stick), cook, write thank you notes and EVERYTHING else. My son once told his 10th grade class as they discussed ethics that he got his values from his mom because I always held the door for other people and never ran red lights. People often remark on how close we are as a family, even now. My point is that all mothers should be honored; the stay at home moms, the working moms, the single moms. We all love our kids and we are all doing the best we can with the circumstances that we have. We should all be providing support to each other and helping with each other's kids. And...things change; the stay at home mom of three toddlers may end up going back to work. The cute four year old who loves having Mommy pick out her clothes and follow her everywhere will be 14 someday and that 14 year old will be 24 someday. Kids outgrow moms (and dads) and empty nest can really set in. I have known a lot of stay at home moms who have had a really hard time when the kids get older. Being totally supportive of other people can get old after 15-20 years. All of the single moms should look really deeply into themselves and do something just for them. Take a class, learn photography to take memerable pictures of those precious little ones who change so fast, work out, join a reading group, organize a group for other single mothers, babysit for a working mom (money can be good too), take a dance class with your sweetheart. The posibilities are endless but the point is to do something that takes care of you. It is good for you but also good for your kids and your relationship with your spouse. I found that no matter what choices you make as a mother, SOMEONE will find fault with it. I learned that my own instincts were the best guide. That is what I tell my daughter now as she finds her way into motherhood. One thing I wish everyone would stop looking down on and that is daycare. My kids went to a wonderful daycare from an early age and were perfectly happy and well cared for. I still see day care workers who cared for my children years ago and they still ask how my kids are doing. It really hurts to hear the day care slam when you are a working mother and have to trust your children to someone else. As I said, my two are grown now and I am enjoying the wonderful life of being a grandmother and it is just as wonderful as they say it is.  They grow up so fast!

My brother and his wife used to call me and other members of my family "you people from.......(naming the state that we live in)"  Nothing we did was right from the moment of their engagement.  The strange thing is that I actually liked her. I was thrilled that my brother was so in love and had found someone to share his life with after a difficult (and very young) marriage and divorce. He had a child and she had a child. We all welcomed her with open arms and immediately accepted her and her baby into our big and blended family. Twenty five years later, I still have no idea what happened. Neither of them were ever happy with anything that we did. They stopped coming to family functions long before they moved out of state. They didn't like the gifts we gave. My brother told me once that it "ruined" his birthday when I sent him a card. When my sister in law gave birth to their son (after 4 daughters), I was so happy for my dad that he received an announcement. But my brother and sister in law didn't send it, my dad's sister received one and SHE sent it to my dad. I have only seen my father cry four or five times in my life. Once was when my sister, my dad and I were having lunch with an old family friend. She was innocently telling us how much she enjoyed getting the yearly Christmas card and picture from my brother's family.  My father. sister and I had never received a Christmas card from them. My father is a wonderful man. There is no drinking or abuse in our family backround. We are a large extended family. I have a stepmother, four step siblings and lots of nieces and nephews. My kids grew up near both of my parents and adore them. We have large family gatherings and small family gatherings with lots of pictures, conversation, laughter and opinions. The opinions are where the problem lies. My brother and sister in law cannot/will not tolerate the expression of any opinion that is different from theirs. I am not talking about advice. I am talking about a simple opinion, on any subject. After they got married, they systematically isolated themselves, eventually moving away. My niece from my brother's first marriage got left behind and is very close to the rest of us. All these years, I did the best I could to keep in contact. I always send Christmas cards and occational remembrances to the children. The saddest part of all this is that my sister in law has now left my brother (and the kids) and they are headed for divorce. My brother has turned back to my dad. I don't think my father will ever understand what happened but I can see that he (now in his 80s) is so happy to have his son and grandchildren in his life again. All of this talk about boundaries makes me uncomfortable. There are always several sides to any issue. Families need each other. The grandparents need the grandchildren. Kids need aunts and uncles and cousins. Sisters in law need sisters in law. People should find a way to get along

I certainly hope that Dr Phil contacted Child Protective Services as soon as he saw that video.  As much as I like this show and as much as I believe that bringing these stories to the public can educate people and change lives for the better, this one child's life is more important than ratings. Kaylee needs help. She needs evaluation. She needs protection while the truth is being discovered. I am particularly disappointed that Dr Phil leaned on Krista the way he did. She is 20 years old and believes that her child has been molested. She tried and tried to get help and to protect her child. Even with that, she had to continually hand her child over to the person who she believed was molesting her daughter and THEN she is critisized for being hysterical. Who wouldn't be hysterical? Everyone in the message boards are just about jumping through their computer screen with emotion. Krista obviously did the best she could in a horrible situation. She did report it and if Dr Phil does not understand that CPS does not alway respond in an appropriate way in a timely manner then it is time to GET REAL.  I don't think I will every understand how a child could get hospitalized for a tear in her labia and not have it investigated. I believe that Kaylee will now get the help that she needs. My heart goes out to Krista, her mom and to Danielle who now has to face the truth and protect her own child.

Sanjay and Jacqueline are both gorgeous. They met on sugardaddy.com and they both seem to have found EXACTLY what they were looking for. This is the oldest story in history, the rich man and the beautiful young woman. It remind me a lot of Pretty Woman (I am NOT saying that Jacqueline is a protitute like Julia Robert's character ). This is absolutely not any of Mike's business. He was incredibly rude to Jacqueline on the show and the fact that Sanjay did not stand up for her is a huge red flag. Jacqueline is the vulnerable one here. Sanjay is old enough to know what he is doing. Jacqueline may look like a woman and may legally be a woman but she only has the life experience of a high schooler. I would be interested to to know how her parents feel about all this but the bottom line is that it is Sanjay and Jacqueline's business. Leave them alone.

I am not the kind of person to fall for a scam like this but I can understand how it could happen to some people. The Dr Phil Show itself makes it seem like Dr Phil and Robin are accessable to the public. In reality, there must be thousands of people who call or write the show, trying to have a conversation with Dr Phil or Robin. I am one of those people. Several weeks ago, I wrote to Robin, using the form on the website. I believe that I filled out the form correctly but I have never received any kind of response including a receipt that my email was received. I did not really expect to hear directly from Robin (okay, maybe I was hoping) but I did expect to have some kind of response that my email was received by the staff. This also happened a few years ago when I submitted an email to the Oprah show. I never heard anything so I never knew if my email was received. It seems like it would be fairly easy to have a system that gave a return receipt saying that the email had been received and was being reviewed by a staff member. Then it could say that not all emails would receive an actual response. There could also be a telephone number and/or address listed on the website so that people would know how to contact the show. Maybe these suggestions would help to eliminate the scammers ability to fool people in need.