Hoping this is a fake letter

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: I'm a 51-year-old mother and grandmother whose kids don't talk to me. The reason: My son, "Aaron," was sexually assaulted by his friend, "Eli," and I told him his friend was no longer allowed to come over. I spoke to Eli's mother. She told me she'd take care of it and agreed the two shouldn't hang out. They were both underage at the time. (Aaron was 10, and Eli was 13.)

A few months later, Aaron told me that it wasn't Eli but his own uncle "Joe" who sexually assaulted him. I knew better. I talked to Joe and, of course, he knew nothing. I told Aaron to stop lying about his uncle and that Eli still couldn't come over.

Aaron is an adult now, and he's got his siblings believing him about his uncle, and he's still friends with Eli. My husband and I moved next door to Joe, and now all the kids have blocked me from their and their kids' lives. When I tried to talk to Aaron about the situation, he blocked me completely. Joe knows nothing about what's going on. How do I get back into my children's and grandkids' lives? -- TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

DEAR TURNED: Could the boys have been experimenting with getting familiar with their bodies when all this occurred? Did you see something and confront your son and he admitted it? Aaron may have blamed Uncle Joe because he wanted to continue seeing Eli. Or ... was his accusation TRUE? You will not be able to heal the schism in your family until everyone is in agreement about what really happened when Aaron was 10.

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Comments

[conuly]

So, I don't know why Aaron originally said that Eli had assaulted him, but it's clear to me that it was Joe the whole time and either Eli is wholly innocent or, at any rate, was forgiven because it happened when he was quite young, whereas Joe was already an adult.

LW knows perfectly well why their kids won't talk to them, but let's add a few things - no matter what happened, as soon as Aaron made that second accusation (or, ideally, as soon as he made the first one), he should've been parked in therapy. Even if you think your child is making up malicious lies about family members, surely you want to know what's prompting this bizarre behavior?

And now that all the kids are adults, LW still thinks, what, that her son is just continuing a lie he started telling as a teenager? And their only concern is when they'll get to see the grandkids, of course.

LW, you blew it, and you're continuing to blow it, and at this point I don't think there's any way to fix it. But let's be honest, LW isn't really interested in fixing anything, not if it means changing their own behavior.

[ashbet]

I wonder if the "initial accusation" was the LW asking a bunch of leading, accusatory questions about Eli -- I have watched my mother go off on an absolutely irrational tear where she convinces herself of some random-ass story that is wildly untrue, but she won't be talked out of it.

(I remember an incident where she was convinced that I was "on drugs" because I had been crying about a situation with my crush, and didn't want to tell her about THAT . . . I had never used drugs or alcohol, and even volunteered to be taken to the police or hospital to get drug-tested, and she was convinced that I had SOME WAY OF GETTING AROUND DRUG TESTS. At age 14.)

So, yeah, I'm not at all certain that "Aaron" really accused "Eli" in the first place, but I do think it's pretty damn likely that Uncle Joe abused him.

And the LW shouldn't be allowed around children at all, period.

[mrissa]

Even if LW believes that her son's friend assaulted her son, does she think there's a rule that only one person can ever sexually assault a given person? because tragically there is really, really not.