When you buy a Geo, you suddenly begin to notice everyone else who drives a Geo. It’s a scientifically documented fact. When you’re waiting to become a parent, you might notice parenting advice and pregnant people, but when you actually become a parent, you’ll quickly focus on watching the parenting techniques of those around you, and if you’re clever enough, note the results.

I’m no exception. I’ve seen parents let their children raise themselves solo, providing no structure whatsoever, and ultimately coming to suffer a close association with rude, manipulative bullies of their own design.

I heard it said once or twice while living down South how important it is to teach your kids respect and smack them around a bit while they’re little so they don’t turn on you when they’re big enough to do real damage. The more conscientious parents season that by evolving it into a sense of the importance of teaching respect. Specifically, if they’re not taught respect while they’re small, they’ll come back and hurt you when they’re grown. Indeed, the very same advice is often given in the Southernmost parts of the country relevant to raising puppies into dogs.

Raising your children, or pets, by being mean and hateful toward them, but showing a constant lack of kindness or respect, can create offspring and animals that will eventually turn on you and strike back, bigger and stronger.

My parents have raised a child into a man watching their overwhelming fear, and often suffering as a result of the fears of the adults around him, observing how once-great people can drop and run away from their sanity without looking back. For my part, I think I’ve managed to escape the fear relatively unscathed, aside from a bitter taste in my mouth when I smell the fears of those around me.

But now, I’m within physical striking distance of the crazy people, the result of my decision to move close to my friends and family (not to be confused with relatives) when I divorced my ex-wife. Now, I’m close enough that they can actually go out of their way to spread fear and negativity over the people I love and care about most: my wife and children.

I’ve reminded my father once or twice that a man left with no legal recourse is left only with illegal recourse. I’ve learned that goons and lawyers in the same room will never intimidate one another because they speak different languages of dominance, and know that their language is the one that involves lawyers and money.

When an animal is backed into a corner, it will politely show claws and teeth before attacking to defend itself. Last week, I mailed a certified letter, a cease-and-desist letter demanding they cease all contact with my family.

Will they see the claws and teeth? Will they be clever enough to understand the danger of continuing to harass my family? Will they be prudent enough, at least, to sense the danger and leave us alone altogether?

I confess to being torn. I spent two and a half hours berating my father for not attempting to put his foot down to stop my mother’s unacceptable, childish, malevolent behavior, both now and in the past. It felt good to finally verbalize the terrible way I felt every time I’ve tried to keep things positive with them, and it felt good to finally accept the way things truly are, to embrace the reality that nothing good can come of someone so encumbered with their fears that they have to impose them on those around them. I’m torn between the hope that giving up and walking away will mean lasting peace, and the desire to engage, to exact some sort of retribution on behalf of myself and my family.

But what could that possibly accomplish, except to further spread their malice? Certainly, there is no way to undo any damage, only to make more. The frightening part is embodied by the words “will stop at nothing.” When someone will stop at nothing, and their path lies across a swath of damage in your family, then you have to choose to accept damage to your family, or moving unilaterally to put it to a stop. These are the circumstances under which nuclear weapons begin to seem just the slightest bit rational in their scope: when your adversary chooses not only to be an adversary, but also that they will stop at nothing to harm you.

Can they understand how much I just want to disengage with every rational part of me, and how much I just want to strike back for the hurt they’ve caused my family?