This is regarding the caller who worried she'd regret not having a relationship with her mother.

My parents were divorced when I was very young (less than 1). My father remarried when I was 2. He and my momma and "maternal" grandmother raised me well. (Funny note: Dad called Grandmother, "Mom."  I always she was his mom.)

I met my birth mother around 10 or 11 and moved in with her (worst mistake of my life). She was a horrible excuse for a mother or even a woman.

Moving right along, when my children were 2 and 3 (1988), she told my son he was going to be a bastard like his father. She was a 24/7 alcoholic (alcohol in coffee in am, all day and all night).  I told her when she decided life and family were more important than the alcohol, she should let me know. I only heard from her at 2 am every 6 months or so. My children would ask questions and I would tell them the truth. She liked her alcohol more than she liked family. She died in her sleep in 2009. We just knew it was going to be alcohol related but, it was ischemic heart disease. DR. LAURA, YOU WERE CORRECT! It was a relief not to have to worry about 2 am calls, get griped at and hung up on. She did enough damage to me and my family all the way around. Damn this feels good to say to someone. It feels GREAT not to have to worry what is coming next. She showed up at my daughter's graduation drunk and fell down the bleachers. There are lots more stories like these. All I tried to do was shield my children like my father, mom, and Grandma did for me. (Note: Grandma was HER mother.) Gram is now 86 and lives with me with short term memory loss and says she doesn't know what she would with out me. That tells me, I didn't turn out like the birth mother. I have always stressed about being like her or acting like her (it almost eats me alive to keep from being anything like her).

Thank you Dr. Laura! It's nice to tell someone. I truly do believe she (your caller) will have relief someday as I do now.

D.