PARENTS' RIGHTS

My friends Mary and Art have an only child, Christine whom they have boasted about to anyone who would listen for her immense talent, beauty, wisdom and intelligence since I met them about 6 years ago. Christine is indeed a beautiful marvelous child who rarely put forth any special effort to achieve anything and because of that did not excel at any of the things her proud parents exposed her to, such as piano, voice, dance, gymnastics. She was good. She had talent. But always according to Mary, she could have done better.
To my surprise, perhaps 2 years ago when Christine was 16, Mary called to tell me that her model child had a severe eating disorder, was addicted to several kinds of dope (speed? crack? I am ignorant about these matters) lying about her activities and failing school. Mary began to search her child's room, check her cell phone for messages and calls, drive her to school and monitor the child as if she were a criminal .....but all to no avail. Christine managed to get the substances she wanted, experiment with sex, ignore school and mutilate herself with self induced piercings, cuts and bruises.
There were other hints that trouble was afoot with Christine. Mary was so worried that she wouldn't be accepted at a premium college that she hired a specialist to find the right school and pave the way for Christine to get into a "good" school even if she didnt have a good grade average. Then suddenly whatever bubble there was burst and Mary sent Christine to a full blown addiction rehab program at Kaiser that failed. We spoke several times during all this and then she sent her daughter to a full time facility in Scotts Valley. After a few months there, Christine was sent home because she had purged when all that instiution dealt with was drug addiction.
There was no doubt that Mary was and is very angry at Christine for taking so much of her time and making her go to parental counseling, travel all over the state and now country to visit her and in general monoplize all of her energies when Mary is very devoted to her business and is a creative high powered exective in the firm she created.
Mary often showed me Christine's letters and they all sounded as if the child was brainwashed reciting the accepted phrases: I am responsible for all this; I made poor choices; I love my parents; I am sorry; I have the power to stop taking drugs; I want to be well.
Christine was sent to Vallejo where I visited her and I saw a wasted, unhappy, trapped child. I don't believe I have ever seen anything quite so horrible to me. Here was a human being not allowed to walk outside, not allowed to wear shoes so she wouldnt run away, not allowed to contact any friends she had made, forced into a children's ward with no music, no books and no life.
Mary hired a special expensive firm to find the "right" place for Chirstine where she could be rehabilitated and make up her high school credits so she could go to college and she found one in Texas where Christine is now. No one can write her but Mary visits her once each month. When Christine turned 18 she tried to leave the place and everyone, her parents, aunts, grandparents, the school authorities and personnel swooped down on her and talked her into staying the remaining year of this 18 month program. Because she was afraid she would forget her promises to all these insistent people who knew what was best for her, Christine stopped wearing conventional clothes and is now wearing the orange jumpsuit the school requires when they first arrive so they can be apprehended if they run away.
Again Mary showed me a letter from Christine telling her how happy she was, how much she loved everybody and assuring her mother that she trusted in God and was achieving all the wonderful things Mary had wanted for her. She is singing in a choir, she is marvelous at debate, her grades are superb ; she is beautiful ;she loves where she is ; she is grateful to her parents etc etc.
I came home from this last status report and I realized that Mary and that school's regime have erased Christine and are now determined to model a clone of the real child into what they want her to be.
My question here is do they have that right?
Once a child is formed do parents have the right to mold that youngster into what they believe is an acceptable personality?
Christine was obviously destroying herself. She obviously needed help. But to me what she needed most is motivation to live her own life and a definition of her own as to what that life should hold.
I have no answers here except the uneasy feeling I have that Christine's inalienable right to be herself has been violated somehow and that a lot of people are playing God with her forcing her into their mold of a "good girl".
What happened to love? What happened to accepting a person for what she is because what she is, is unique and beautiful.
Love is a word I hear over and over again from Mary and in Christine s letters but I don't believe either one knows what that involves. Mary has decided to mold Christine into the child she wants to be her daughter. Christine wants to ease the pain she feels and is parroting the right mantras but I wonder if any of this is her own truth.
Have they found the right answer?Is this what you do to people with addictive behavior?
I just dont know.