Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 6
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Common sense when dining out
[Read the article: Should cafes be kid-free?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems pretty obvious that responsible parents have to ride herd over their offspring in public places, or limit meals to an age-appropriate duration. We took our daughter to restaurants where we were regulars--cafes, not the fancy places--from infancy. She was charming and low-key. But when she reached the unpredictable toddler stage and we couldn't count on her to behave, we ordered take-out. It is way more stressful to me as a parent to worry about an exploding child moment than it's worth in convenience to eat out.
From age 4 on, our daughter has had lovely manners and stays put in her seat. Our neighborhood Thai restaurant gifts her with extra carrot flowers (it's nice to be a regular). Unfortunately, we now have a toddler aged son, so we don't eat out a lot at present. There are a few family places with reasonable high ambient noise levels that we can go to. A coffee shop wouldn't fit the bill. When he's properly socialized to keep his voice down, stay seated and not drop the silverware, we'll be back at the cafe.
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When is it time to stop printing these lame faux-provocative articles
[Read the article: When is it time to stop "canoodling" with our children?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I feel like Lori Leibovich is yanking our chains with her intentionally provocative use of lover-like language. "Canoodling" with her kids? Give us a break.
Private hugs, kisses, etc. are fine per se. One of the joys of my life is coming home from work and having my not-quite-six year old daughter fling herself on me and shower me with hugs and kisses and cries of "Mommy's home!" Publicly though, the ongoing nuzzling, kisses, etc. must be limited out of a basic sense of decorum. That's for any relationship -- platonic, romantic, whatever. Have some manners, people.
But quit trying to turn affection into some perversion. It reeks of a fake story angle. By the number of pages of letters I can see why these stories are irresistible to print, you get a huge response. (By 'these stories' I mean the bad parenting stories -- kids running amok at the cafe was another recent tempest) It's a cheap trick and gets old. Would most people consider their affection for their kids 'fondling' and 'canoodling'? I very much doubt it.
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oh goody...
[Read the article: Ringing up baby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...another article about witless spendthrift consumers. Who says you have to buy into all of this fancy crap. We still use the free black vinyl diaper bag we got at the hospital, and our baby hasn't noticed. I got the direct mail offer of a free issue of Cookie magazine and enjoyed laughing at the pretentiousness -- no thanks. We spend something a lot more valuable with our children: time. Lots of it. The rest is all ego-tripping for the parents.
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kids and parties
[Read the article: Does a 6-year-old need 25 birthday presents?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I had mixed feelings about Emily Bazelon's article. I can identify with the desire to limit the loot, but I think it's being too controlling. I agree with the multiple opinions about limiting the size of the parties.
My daughter recently had her 6th birthday party; we'd intended to limit it to about 10 children and it ended up at around 14 (some siblings came along too). We certainly didn't try to dictate what people brought as gifts. We buy lots of books for her during the year, plus go to the library frequently; birthdays are the occasion for her to get the plastic toys that we don't seem to buy. And she adores them.
One iron-clad rule we've enforced for the past 3 years: none of the presents gets played with until thank-you notes are written and mailed out for all the gifts. That gets them done quickly, usually within a few days.
I think that parents need to ease up and let children enjoy childish things.
My mother was a snob about things like amusement parks and carnivals and bowling alleys. We visited relatives in Los Angeles when I was 10, and instead of going to Disneyland, we were dragged to the Getty Museum. I resented the hell out of it.
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re: Hillary
[Read the article: The Fix]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for posting Susan Sarandon's comments about Hillary Clinton. She clearly expressed my own discomfort with Clinton -- someone carefully scouting out the center point in a political climate that has shifted right, rather than holding firm to what is ethical and true.
It's too bad, really. Gore and Kerry were also very capable politicians too preoccupied with being the least offensive to the greatest number of voters, to their detriment at the polls. I'm so sad that Hillary is charting the same course.
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I agree with Cary
[Read the article: Who should be guardian? Family or friends?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This was a very hard decision for my husband and me to make as well. Initially we named my older sister and her husband as guardians. Over time as we saw how they parent their two sons, we had doubts about their suitability and asked my good friend and her husband to be named guardian of our daughter. But in the ensuing years, we've had a second child, and our friends have adopted a third. They also live four hours away, and we've seen a lot less of them over the past three years. So we now are changing our guardianship papers to name my younger sister and her husband. She wasn't married when we first had to make a decision, but now she is, to a very kind and decent man. And she's just had her second son, so we can see what kind of parent she is. In the long run, family ties are stronger, certainly for the kind of life-changing obligation this entails.
The LW should get to know the fiance, and see how things go. As my example shows, you can name someone and change your mind later. But as long as she is close to her sister(s), there is a greater likelihood that those bonds will withstand the test of time more than friendships if people move to another part of the country.