You will always have memories, but the more they are not supplemented by current experiences, the weaker the friendship will be, inevitably. It's almost worse because now, you are close, and Mary clearly sees you as no different from the rest of her newer friends, friends who, apparently, you haven't formed any independent relationship with. That must be painful, especially since you have been relegated from a place of relative importance to just being one of the gang. Honestly, if you want to be one of the gang, then go for it to the extent you can stand it. Alternatively, you can invite her to smaller gatherings, just don't count on her showing up. At least you won't miss dinner reservations and be continually disappointed. No one needs or deserves that.

And yes, I concur with others who suspect that Mary might have a drinking problem, and that these other women are her drinking buddies. She enables them with money, they enable her by reinforcing the good times. So if that's the case, then one day, Mary might turn to you again and the friendship will evolve in yet another direction.

You can fail and won't be a lawyer. Which is really no worse than what you are already doing because if you don't take the bar you also won't be a lawyer. The difference is that in the latter case, you KNOW you won't become a member of the bar, but in the former, you DON'T KNOW, not for sure. So for you, apparently, certain defeat is better than uncertain victory.

Let me just add, are you sure you want to be a lawyer? Because lawyering is a profession where people have minimal control over what happens to them -- and need to walk into uncertainty and learn to deal with it, on their feet and in a flash.

You strike me as the kind of person who is always going to be asking for extensions of filing deadlines because you can't face the toughness of your cases. Just saying.

If a single woman has a child at the age of 16, the child is in high school by the time she is 30, and on the downward slope of time investment -- A woman who has a child at the age of 25 has a five year old when she is 30, which likely requires her to work fewer hours. I just wonder whether this particular study normalized for this kind of discrepancy. Wouldn't you really need to look at these two women when they turn 40 and each of them have children who are adults?

When I was in high school. I think it's really hard to generalize, except that it is likely the case that there are many lurking variables here that account for the outcome Males noted, some of which have already been noted -- instability of relationships and availability of services. For instance, my church helps fund a residential services program for single mothers that provides intense job counseling, day care and other services. No one can enter the program who is older than 21, and no one can stay in the program once they reach the age of 22.

And of course, I would add my voice to the chorus: what about the children of such mothers? How are they doing? A woman who has a baby at 16 and gets a good job at the age of 30 has a 14 year old who has been with her during some really rough times, where she spent a lot of time focused on something other than the child, even more so than many other parents do. The woman who had a child in her 20s might be making less money because she is making more appropriate trade offs to provide time and attention to her child. But where economic outcomes are the only outcomes that seem to matter, that interesting question was never investigated.

I agree 100%. But that's also why Rebecca's and Alice's experience should not be generalized to other women and their children. Forget about whether, as an adult, it's time for Ms. Walker to move past blaming her mother, only extreme narcissism could make Ms. Walker believe that her experience as the daughter of a mother who would be an outlier in nearly any generation could or should be generalized to other women simply because they share her feminist principles, but not her talent or her flaws. My guess is that Alice Walker has more in common with Augustus John, who is reported to have locked his children in the carriage during outings, so that he could get out and sketch in peace, than she does with me, a professional and a mother. Ms. Walker grew up the child of an ARTIST who happened to be a feminst -- not a FEMINIST who liked to write. I think the distinction is relevant and material.

But just to reinforce it: Rebecca Walker's raison d'etre appears to be to make a living off of her mother's name and notoriety. One wonders: if relations were friendlier would her work attract nearly so much attention? Why isn't she writing odes to Judy?

Like Augusten Burroughs and the rest of the professional narcissists who sadly comprise an increasing percentage of perceived authorial talent, Ms. Walker has her horrible parent to thank for almost everything, probably including her son (no doubt conceived in spite).