Letters to the Editor
AKA Smith
Published Letters: 4698 Editor's Choice: 83
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I've snooped and been snooped upon.
[Read the article: My husband read my journal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I smiled a bit when I read the LW's story. Cary's advice is quite good. If you don't want people to read it, lock it up. I have a password protected Diary program on my computer. If I could remember what my password was, I would access it regularly. Also, the LW should know that there are nice document cases and brief cases that come with combination locks.
However, it could be much worse. Years ago I had a torrid affair by correspondence only. (At least it was torrid by the standards of that time. Now it would only be tepid.) I kept the letters well concealed and received them at a P.O. Box under an assumed name. All was going quite well. I thought I was getting away with something. However, I kept a journal in which I wrote in code. My then-husband cracked the code. I knew I had a problem when he began referring to himself by the code name for him that I had used in the journal! In the journal I had detailed the passion I felt for my correspondent, an intense emotional connection that I had never felt for my husband.
This must have been karma coming back to me, for when I was a teenager, I babysat for a young woman with a two year old child. The woman was only a bit older than I was and lived in an apartment that had a kitchen, a tiny bathroom, a bedroom, and a cramped foyer where she actually kept the child's potty so that the first thing that greeted me when I entered as the odor of urine. It was obvious that they were quite poor. There was no television, no radio, no books, and no magazines. After I put the child to bed and finished my homework, I noticed that I had brought nothing to read. The only place to sit was the bed in the bedroom and there was a small night table next to the bed. Upon the table was the woman's teenage diary. Dear readers, I read it.
The idea of passing a long evening with nothing to do was more than I could bear. Detailed in the diary was the woman's sad history. She talked about her obesity, her struggles with food, being bullied at school, her sexual victimization, her having had sex for love, sex for money, and sex just to have someone hold her. She had been pregnant three times. The first time she gave the baby up for adoption. The second time she had an abortion. The third time produced the child I was then babysitting.
Reading that diary changed me forever. I vowed never to need anyone as much as this poor woman did. I would not be a victim of my own loneliness and lack of confidence. At the age of sixteen, I did not excel at empathy, but I felt it then. I looked into someone's soul and saw a crying, desperate need for love and approval. I actually shivered in fear.
Those who snoop and those who are snooped upon share a strange bond. The chemistry of that bond cannot be easily predicted. LW, assure your husband that you love him and then ask yourself why you gave him access to your soul.
Perhaps this too shall pass. Or not.
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Hi benw-sf,
[Read the article: My husband read my journal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do not underestimate kind and loving people. They are kind and loving precisely because of all the opposite attributes that they possess and yet suppress. (In some circles this suppression is characterized as good manners.) Apparently, the LW expressed those opposite attributes in her journaling.
I sometimes wonder if nasty and rude people are journaling sweet, affectionate thoughts that they just can't bring themselves to openly admit.
How about you?
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Prisons are Big Business in Texas
[Read the article: Kiddie prisons]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am living in Texas and am aware of this story.
Children of detained people should not be in such a facility. Unfortunately the foster care system is appallingly underfunded here, so options do not abound. More worrisome is that prisons in Texas have expanded to rural areas where local communities have become quite dependant upon prison systems for local employment.
If you want to check out another horror, look into the Texas Youth Commission scandal that originated in Pyote, Texas, where the Ward County district attorney delayed prosecuting a principal and assistant superintendent at the school (prison) for sexually abusing the students (inmates) in their care for almost two years while they continued in their positions.
Pyote is a tiny town with little remaining industry. I suspect District Attorney Randall Reynolds' motive may have had something to do with the fact that his office is an elected position in an area that desperately needs the jobs that the youth prison provided.
So if this sort of thing can happen in prisons designed to hold youthful lawbreakers, imagine what can happen if we start imprisoning the children of illegal immigrants. Perhaps worse things than being told to stop crying.
This is a problem that needs funds and energy directed toward it immediately. If the idea of housing these children in prisons spreads these sorts of facilities will become economically entrenched in small towns that need the money.