LIssett, I am having an attack of the 'domestic goddess', which mercifully doesn't happen very often, but I baked brownies and parkin [which for those of you Stateside is like flapjack, but less sweet and more yummy]
Now, I am not a psychologist, but I have read Silent Sons. My take is that the real potential disaster is when both parents are emotionally unavailable, and where there is no emotional connection with another adult. I would look at Puffy's mom. She may not have emotionally been able to suport Puffy, which perpectuated the cycle.
The problem with my h was that his father was emotionally unavailable, and his mother felt that she should support her h, rather than her kids [I think she now regrets this, but it is something she finds hard to talk about]. Sadly my h's only uncle had paedophile tendencies, and was kept away so there was no male support. H says that he was never molested, but frankly, I become less and less sure that this never happened. But that is another story. One of the reasons I got so cross about Puffy's denial with his half brother. Sadly people with these tendencies are cunning and manipulative, very often.
As with so many dysfunctional families, there were no close family friends to take a real interest in my h. Because he was very clever he got a lot of support from teachers in High School, and shone at college, but of course he felt he had to 'earn' that.
I think if you are the loving mom you always have been, and your kids get lots of emotional support from male friends and relations they should be just fine. [Though of course family counselling is great too]
