As a current member of The Family International I just wanted to comment on a few things. I’ve actually have read one of your books once, I believe it’s called “"Self Matters"….Creating your life from the inside out” and rather enjoyed it as I’m someone who believes you are in control of your life and can change it at anytime. Reading your life story of your father expecting you to have a certain career and deciding to instead do what you want was interesting.

Compare to you though I have thought over the choice my parents made in raising me in The Family and whether or not I wanted to continue in it from when I was young. For the record I was never abused, my parents are the best, and I had a happy childhood. The thing is though we do live a different, unique way from most society and it’s a personal choice whether to stay or not. I have decided to stay as aside from the lack of abuse, I believe in how we live our lives. I am a complete person as I believe you would say.

I must say that I don’t agree with a lot of what the LaMattery family said. I am 25 years old and they way they described things just never happened where I was. Plus I think some things are just blown out of proportion. For example, I read somewhere that your son married an ex-playboy girl. I’m sure there could be someone to assume that if they have children together, those kids will be growing up with an difficult background knowing their mother posed nude for a men’s magazine. I would trust though that you respect your new daughter-in-law and believe that she is a perfect match for your son and a possible future mother. That’s why there’s two sides to every story. I just want you to see and understand why there are some like me who can see and experience the picture so differently.

I read this quote from your site:
My rule is always this: Your goal, any time you have trauma in your past, is to try to get emotional closure? What you do to get that closure is what I call the minimal effective response. What is the least thing you can do that allows you to get that closure. You need to do whatever it takes for you to say, ‘I am walking out of my history. I will not live in this another minute.’ And we?re going to get you some professional help and counseling and you can discuss that, and go through the options at that point and make a studied decision about what?s the best thing for you and your family at this time.

In all sincerity I hope you are able to help the LaMattery family find closure that won’t cause harm to themselves or others. It would be nice to hear of them finding their place in society as my own sister has who left the group as they did and is happily married with a child similar to many of my personal friends. If they can leave their past behind and start anew like you did, I’m sure they’ll find what they really want.

Michelle Dykas