This email sent by Nick Crews to his three adult children back in February expressing his disappointment in how they have lived their lives is now going viral. Only Crews’ 40-year old daughter Emily (who made the letter public) still speaks to him, his 35-year old taxi driver son and 38-year old daughter who is a single mom of two want an apology.
Dear All Three,
With last evening’s crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch.
It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of you has in your own way dished out to us. We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages at the same time we see the advent of a fifth.
We are constantly regaled with chapter and verse of the happy, successful lives of the families of our friends and relatives and being asked of news of our own children and grandchildren. I wonder if you realise how we feel — we have nothing to say which reflects any credit on you or us. We don’t ask for your sympathy or understanding — Mum and I have been used to taking our own misfortunes on the chin, and making our own effort to bash our little paths through life without being a burden to others. Having done our best — probably misguidedly — to provide for our children, we naturally hoped to see them in turn take up their own banners and provide happy and stable homes for their own children.
Read the rest of the email in its entirety after the jump.
Photo: ABC News
Fulfilling careers based on your educations would have helped — but as yet none of you is what I would confidently term properly self-supporting. Which of you, with or without a spouse, can support your families, finance your home and provide a pension for your old age? Each of you is well able to earn a comfortable living and provide for your children, yet each of you has contrived to avoid even moderate achievement. Far from your children being able to rely on your provision, they are faced with needing to survive their introduction to life with you as parents.
So we witness the introduction to this life of six beautiful children — soon to be seven — none of whose parents have had the maturity and sound judgment to make a reasonable fist at making essential threshold decisions. None of these decisions were made with any pretence to ask for our advice.
In each case we have been expected to acquiesce with mostly hasty, but always in our view, badly judged decisions. None of you has done yourself, or given to us, the basic courtesy to ask us what we think while there was still time finally to think things through. The predictable result has been a decade of deep unhappiness over the fates of our grandchildren. If it wasn’t for them, Mum and I would not be too concerned, as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashes from one cock-up to the next. It makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven, and then helplessly to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you, their parents.
I can now tell you that I for one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children’s underachievement and domestic ineptitudes. I want to hear no more from any of you until, if you feel inclined, you have a success or an achievement or a REALISTIC plan for the support and happiness of your children to tell me about. I don’t want to see your mother burdened any more with your miserable woes – it’s not as if any of the advice she strives to give you has ever been listened to with good grace – far less acted upon. So I ask you to spare her further unhappiness. If you think I have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change my mind. But you won’t do it by simply whingeing and saying you don’t like it. You’ll have to come up with meaty reasons to demolish my points and build a case for yourself. If that isn’t possible, or you simply can’t be bothered, then I rest my case.
I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
Dad
Mean old man or tough love – you let us know in the comments section.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This^^^^^^^ is likely why his children are “unsuccessful.”
And I disagree with him. Children who grow up to be gainfully employed productive adults are successes. Everybody can’t be Mark Zuckerberg.
this guy is a douchebag and his kids deserved better parents.
Damn!
if he raised three kids and none of the three kids did anything positive then he probably needs to do a little soul searching. Maybe he should have instilled these expectations earlier in life.
He’s mad because he doesn’t feel like they’ve done enough so he can brag on them? GTFOH! I wouldn’t want an apology. I’d peace out.
I’d love to read one of their responses
LOL…poor guy…
I mean, sometimes you’re disappointed in others… he’s entitled to an opinion of his kids, right?
I’m rolling with pops. He probably set up a good example but kids today think things should be given to them as opposed to working for it.
My mama says worse shit than this all the time. At least his was well written.
wow i understand this old man,sometimes parents laydown the foundation and the kids do whatever.
i see nothing wrong here
Well children’s success in adulthood is reflected on the parenting and the support that they received in their rearing growing up. Its kinda like that NBA team this year that is like 0 -18.. its most likely due to poor parenting :\