Were you raised in a dysfunctional family? If so, how do you overcome your upbringing and be a good parent to your children?

My late great-uncle, may he rest in peace, always said this to me: "Kid, you're the smart one. You got out. " I have a sibling with a very successful job, still single at 36, who doesn't technically live with my parents--it's always been 10 minutes away from them--but practically does for about 50% of any given week.

They moved out of the house we grew up in, and the sibling's new apartment is just as close to their new pad as the old one was. People who have never met them before can't believe some of the stuff that comes out of their mouths--I tell people that everything that they say rolls off my back, I'm used to it. I went away to college, a new environment , and totally re-created my image.It was a new place where no one knew me or my family, only three hours away, but I never went home--almost.

I went home during breaks and the summer after freshman year, but returned to school sophomore year and hardly went home, year-round. I had a student job with the campus housing administration's offices, actually several different concurrent positions, so I could stay in the closed buildings during Winter break and Spring Break. I had a radio show--and I loved it.

I worked for their conference housing division in the summers, and had been promoted to management, eventually working there year-round, too, so I never spent another summer home. I was hospitalized six weeks before graduation and spent 2 weeks home while I recovered and underwent testing. I'm not sure who was going crazier, the rest of my family or me.

I returned to school, took an "Incomplete" in all my classes, and worked again that summer while I finished school. I think I went home for six weeks that September while I was job-hunting.An offer was already on the table in a major city near my college town. I moved right into a place near the school--in the suburbs--and so I moved back to the University's area and began my career downtown.

Seven years later, I moved halfway-across the country to follow my girlfriend--who first met my family in the emergency room that day I got sick--when she moved to her home town. We got married, had a son, and in all of 7 years we're divorced, but we were never nasty to each other. My parents and sibling, I'm told, don't understand it.

I see my family once or twice a year on average--except for a couple of times I flew there when my grandmother was sick or once, I left a vacation in Florida to attend a funeral--for the Uncle who said I'm the smart one, and in .2006, when I had neurosurgery 5 times, they came 4 of them. With those exceptions, if they've wanted to see me, they've come out here ever since our son was born in 2004 I think that it wasn't so much my family I was walking away from as it was my hometown. There was no love lost for the place where I grew up.

It's been almost 22 years since I graduated high-school, and I didn't go to the two reunions the class has had--12th or 20th. We-both constantly tell our kindergartner son--he's our only--that we love him and that even if we're not together, we're still his mom and dad, and that he can tell us anything or come to us any time he has a problem. At 5 years old, the only part of it he picks up is that we'll be calling him "Our Baby" forever.

I don't think I know any functional families. Every family probably has some level of dysfunction. I suppose the key is if the dysfunction is debilitating enough to cause you to be a problem to yourself or others.

Mine was an abusive step father. So, the key for me was to not marry a drunkard or a policeman (sorry to all of you with great policeman husbands - no offense intended - just my personal issues). My father, who divorced my mother when I was very young, was a truck driver.So that became a - don't marry a truck driver vow.

I stuck to those but maybe because I found someone who was none of that. One family's level of dysfunction is another family's normal.My mother was a good role model, so I can use her example when parenting children, except for her issue with picking lousy men. That will have to be taught to my daughter so that she avoids the cycle.

Mine was your typical dysfunctional family, I guess. There was an alcoholic mother, a father who was never around and then came the divorce. My father never fought for custody just took off and left us with my mother who was drunk all the time.

I guess he was too busy with his new girlfriend to give us much thought. My first attempt to get out and away from my mother was my first marriage which turned out wrong because of abuse. Ironically enough my mother's first marriage before my dad was an abusive relationship also.

I realized then that I had to break the chain and change my life for the better for the sake of my children. My second marriage my mother strongly objected to and hated the guy so, I figured he must be a pretty good guy. LOL He has been wonderful and we've been together 15 years and we have our nine year old son.

He just stepped up and took me and my three children with out a doubt and he's been more of a father to them than there own father was. How did I overcome my upbringing? I'm still struggling with it and the effects of my first marriage.

I don't drink hardly at all; maybe a glass of wine or a beer now and then but I am very conscious of how much I drink because of my mother's problem.

I was raised in an extremely dysfunctional family. There were divorces, custody battles, abuse and so much more. If you've seen it in a Lifetime movie, than it happened to me.

I learned how to be a good parent from knowing the life that I didn't want to offer my own child. I knew what it felt like to be thrown away, and broken. I never wanted my child to feel like that.

I wanted to give them all the love and support that I didn't really have. I knew, that if I found my own way in life and coped with what happened to me, I would be able to raise my child to be a strong and compassionate young man.....which I'm proud to say he is steadily becoming. I just can't stand when you see these adults on talk shows, blaming their misfortune on what happened to them as children.

Yes I know it's hard, and yes I see the pain. I've felt it, I've lived it. But that doesn't give anyone the right to abuse others, become crack addicts, or break the law.

You have to stand up for yourself at some point and look at the bigger picture. What are you gaining from dwelling on the past.? And where would you be if you took control of your own life. Thankfully, when my dad remarried, my stepmother came into my life.

She raised me, and taught me that I could depend on myself, that I was worth it, and that I did matter.

I promise to not let myself act like my parents. I know how to be a good parent, and I VOW to not be like them. I will do what I wanted them to do.

I will do what they did not do. I will not let my son grow up like I did... I will do everything in my power to not be like them.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.