Letters to the Editor
Sandra M
Published Letters: 577 Editor's Choice: 139
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Families are not hothouses, children are not flowers
[Read the article: My kids are wrecks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It was interesting that the LW cited her daughter's stellar high school career and acceptance at an Ivy League school. I wonder - did the LW and husband feel any pride in the accomplishments, any sense of 'we must have done a good job, look at these results!" ? While it would be fairly typical to think this way, it is just as fallacious as to say "my sone started doing drugs at 13 and no matter how many good things we did for him he just wouldn't stop, he turned out badly". If you accept responsibility for the good fortunes of your children you must also accept responsibility for the bad.
Most parents want to believe they are having a positive effect. But even seemingly benign actions/ attitudes can have devastating consequences - kids aren't the same. Some are born very senstiive. Some not. Who knows why one child thrives in a household where the parents urge him to succeed, going on to 'the best' schools and an investment brokerage job, while another child in the same household feels unloved, pressured, unaccepted, and turns to Marilyn Manson and a fascination with guns to deal with the pain and loneliness?
To the LW I would say, have you asked your children to tell you how *they* felt about their upbringing? Did they feel loved, cherished, accepted? Listen to what they say; accept it without trying to 'understand'. Know that you did the best you could given the circumstances you had. Let your kids know that you're behind them 100%. And also know that the statute of limitations on our childhood grievances runs out; sooner or later your children, as adults, must figure out how to deal with whatever 'wrongs', real or perceived, their parents deal them, and then construct a life in which they take sole responsibility for their happiness.
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Happy to comply...
[Read the article: Holy "Handmaid's Tale," Batman!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...as long as any prospective male sex partner can show me that he has kept his number of partners low, always worn a condom (these precautions protect me from 'silent' STDs and their long-term effects on my reproductive health), keeps his drinking to no more than the recommended average of 1-2 per day, doesn't smoke or do drugs and restricts his intake of saturated fat (wouldn't want my unexpected papoose to grow up w/out a daddy now...*that* is *such* a preventable trauma!). Also that he regularly wears a seatbelt and does not come into contact with dangerous chemicals.
A baby inherits TWO sets of genes (and TWO parents), not just one, so I see no reason that men should not treat their sperm as "pre-pregnifying". Ya know?
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A valentine for Stephanie Z
[Read the article: "The Da Vinci Code"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What a hilarious review. "The Da Vinci Code... is a flying meringue pie headed straight for the church's kisser." Indeed.
The only thing I disagree with - I don't think Dan Brown's imagination is all that vivid or active. "Creatively bankrupt" is more like it.
I have to get to the library, fast!
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Pimpfants - now there is a word that's long overdue
[Read the article: Who wants to be a MILF?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You gotta love a company that calls it like it is -- and pimpfanting is exactly what many yuppie parents are doing nowdays. The baby beater Ts are execrable - that goes without saying. But no more so than the MILF acronym itself. There's nothing cute, fun, complimentary or harmless about it - it's just a backhanded way of keeping alive that ol' Madonna - whore canard, using the sly device of singling out mothers one would *like* to fuck to highlight the more prevailing pop culture belief -- that any such women are exceptions to the rule that women who are mothers (in other words, off the market) are inherently unfuckable.
Oh well - it's not like "SYSILTF" (Sexy Young Starlets I'd Like To Fuck) have it any easier - witness the gross spectacle of Paris Hilton vapidy yucking it up while her boorish rich-boy date yatters on about the color and smell of Ms. Lohan's genitalia. It's just another flavor of the misogynist bullshit that spawns terms like MILF.
Sometimes I think venues like Broadsheet, in a well-meaning effort to respond to/stamp out this crude tripe, actually keep it alive. Mabye if we all started just staring at misogynists blankly when they come up with this crap, then blink and go back to our business, it wouldn't sell so well.
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How 'bout pink onesies emblazoned with "MILF in training"?
[Read the article: Who wants to be a MILF?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now, THAT Is both funny and offensive on so many levels, it makes my head explode.
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Karen was the saving grace of that show
[Read the article: Series wrap-up: "Will & Grace"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My friend Kathy said it best, so I'll just quote her directly:
1. Grace is not hot or interesting or funny. She is not Lucille Ball, even with red hair and slapstick showboating.
2. Will is not hot or funny or interesting, but he is slightly less not hot than Grace.
3. Jack is a bitch, which makes him mildly entertaining, if only in the gay guy next door sort of way.
4. Karen rocks, but she’s still a one-trick pony. Just because she’s the best part of that show doesn’t make it worth watching.
5. When sitcoms have dramatic storylines – they jumped the shark. Cancel their asses before we have to suffer through sappy retrospectives and cast farewells on Oprah.
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Do the brainless hussies of Traister's article get to use it?
[Read the article: Do women want a sex-drive drug?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]