Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 319 Editor's Choice: 34
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courageous post, Patricia, even if
[Read the article: A Duke case update]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]you only noted the obvious: that what the Duke boys should be held accountable for are their intentions and behaviors (which one of your debaters acknowledged as “despicable”) rather than legality or the ultimate location of their semen.
As to whether they are “idiot”, their behavior should speak to that. The suggestion that, in general, idiotic behavior or deficit in social functioning is somehow ruled out by college grades does not seem to be empirically supported.
Sadly, none of your commentary ultimately has merit, due to your alleged association with cannabis. If only your purported drug of choice, your gender, and your fraternal associations were different, your status might be something like “leadership material”, a significant improvement over fucktard.
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wondering about marriage
[Read the article: When marital advice trumps whale vomit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Marriage, like working for wages or being a citizen of a “country”, is purely a social construction, yet one that is so ingrained, unquestioned, and taken for granted that on a public scale we don’t seriously examine, analyze, or consider alternatives to it – we would never even think to, any more than we would think to seriously question “family” as a normative organizing unit. It’s part of what social theorist Pierre Bourdieu calls “doxa” and what Morpheus called the Matrix.
And marriage seems to work about as well for humans as . . . . . . . . . well, as do capitalism and countries. Everyone has some vague sense of this lack of fit, like an unexplained pain or sense of loss or lack of fulfillment that doesn’t go away and is never understood.
So we send the email around, metaphorically scratching our heads and asking each other: “WTF? Could this have worked better, been more satisfying? Is it just because we forgot to ask each other the right things? What am I signing up for and why do I feel anxious about it? We were meant to be in lifelong monogamous pairings, weren’t we?”
The email is a safe, but unproductive, way to attempt to get at the questions we would really like to make explicit, but are forbidden, like: “Why do we allow social pressure and an institution we never chose or created to force us into a single intimate relationship for the remainder of our lives? Why does that so rarely provide fulfillment? Why do we accept that? Why do we maintain an institution that fails so often? Why do we perpetuate, as something ostensibly supportive of a couple’s relatedness, a legal contract which evolved as a means for individuals to control each other’s resources and sexual behavior, as if a ceremony and contract could substitute for trust and trustworthiness?”
We email around safe questions in lieu of asking real ones that shouldn’t be asked and yet everyone is wondering about.
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you are not powerless
[Read the article: My stepson is impossible! What's a stepmother to do?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW,
You told us you’re worried about being judged a bad “Stepmother”. That’s a good place to start, with you. You’re not a stepmother – “stepmother” is a useless construction that carries obligation, guilt and other nonsense with it. You are a single, accomplished, independent, desirable woman who may or may not continue a relationship with a guy with some serious baggage. And who may or may not choose to engage with a ten-year-old boy in a relationship which may be fulfilling and helpful in the long term and difficult in the short term.
You said you love the boy, but you don’t. You don’t even like him at this point. It would be good for you to tell yourself that: “I don’t really like this kid at this point, and I may decide to do my best for him, but I’m not responsible for the problems his parents created.” Say it until you’re comfortable with its natural truth.
Your bf interacts with the boy in ways that don’t work for your relationship and which he needs to change in any case. He doesn’t seem to get that and may need reminders. If he values the relationship he’ll take responsibility (without escaping or blowing up) for changing his interaction with the boy. If not, then . . . . . . .
Cary gave you some insight on the boy. What you also need to know is something of a paradox and generally distasteful for most caregivers: he doesn’t need more structure; he needs a greater sense of control, specifically to be able to access the responsiveness of a consistently accessible caregiver WHEN HE NEEDS IT. When you, well-intentioned, decorated his room and “bent over backward . . . to entertain him, take care of him” he didn’t experience that as gaining the control and responsiveness he needs, but as your control.
Somewhere along the way, he wasn’t experiencing the control and security he needed – that put him in the state of reflexive demanding, hyperarousal and hypervigilance you find so annoying. He’s stuck, and he needs adults to create a space in which he can start over. The key is to give control and security back to him by consistently responding to his LEGITIMATE demands for attention, comfort, etc. while at the same time to consistently NOT respond to his reflexive demands that aren’t really needs or which violate boundaries (like your bedroom).
Tell your bf to stop bringing the boy to your home until the boy asks to come. Meanwhile take out all that decorating you did (for whom, really?) so you can ask him what he wants to do with his room, if he shows up.
You are far from “powerless to do anything about it.” You have all kinds of power.
If you decide to engage with the boy, you might do some reading on attachment theory and specifically on insecure childhood attachment.
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wonderful
[Read the article: Sin Destroyers' "Gift to the World"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I like the edgy, truthy Salon not afraid to put something like this right up in our faces.