Dear Stephanie and Mike,

I come from a pretty chaotic and poor family. I’d say that most of my immediate family have dropped out of high school, don’t work, have children, are on welfare, and have an addiction to “illegal” substances. I grew up in one of these households with a divorced mother and two sisters.

There is plenty of fighting, bad communication, and passive aggression in my family. I have come to realize that I can do without almost everyone in my family with little inner conflict, but I want to stay close to my mother, grandparents, sisters, and especially my 3 year old niece.

Except my grandparents, my mother and sisters aren’t working and are raking in different kinds of welfare payments. There is plenty of bad communication and guilt tripping going on amongst them, some light substance abuse (cigarettes, pot, pills) and I would like to … help them, especially for the sake of my niece.

I don’t think they would take too well to the idea of libertarianism, non-violent communication, and self-reliance too quickly — but I was wondering if maybe you could discuss how to save a child essentially from a train wreck of a household, and improve the lives of people I grew up with and care about.

http://healthymindfitbody.com

http://www.cnvc.org

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2009/08/23/stefan-molyneux-the-against-me-argument