Actions of life-wrecking mother need daughter’s attention

owner and even a teenage girl who started rumors about a boy’s sexuality.

She went as far as passing herself off as a male baseball fan to become good friends (on social media) with my brother’s best friend so she could find out whether they were just friends or in a sexual relationship.

She has asked some of her friends to call my husband to flirt with him to see whether he is faithful.

We had an argument about her getting involved in people’s lives. And she said, “Please, don’t start trying to be more moral or kind than everyone else.” Then she said, “You wouldn’t want someone to start a rumor about your son using drugs or having serious psychological problems.”

My son is in college and uses social media.

I’ve tried to warn some friends and family about this, but everyone dismisses it or says it’s the others’ fault for letting someone influence them on social media. I’m concerned that she has already befriended my son’s friends online. Should I take it lightly?

Your mother is a shockingly terrible person.

I’m sure there are ways for me to present this opinion gently, but your account suggests that your mother stands naked and unapologetic in her evil — so the only appropriate response seemingly is to call it out in kind.

As her child, your position here is complicated at best. Depending on when she got this way and how it affected you, therapy might be useful — or essential.

There is no place, though, for taking anything here lightly. Your primary choice is whether, with certainty in hand (I assume) of your mother’s evil, you have anything to do with her ever again.

Isolation is the just deserts of anyone who takes pleasure in causing pain.

If her exploits represent a recent and uncharacteristic turn for the nasty, then you can pursue this as a conversation about her deteriorating mental health and ways to get her the help she needs.

But if her position has long been that everyone is hateful, vicious trash — and, therefore, anyone attempting to be moral or kind is a poseur worthy of her scorn — then you (all of you) are long overdue to attach consequences to her little hobby of wrecking lives for sport. Sound the klaxon to warn everyone about her, then get off her sinking ship. Let her rumors drift into a void.