This man is selfish and childish. Someone who truly loved you would not ask you to sacrifice your daughter's happiness and your own personal stability in this way, and would not be putting this ridiculous "seeing other people" ultimatum in front of you. Not only shouldn't you move, you should dump the controlling jerk NOW before you find yourself enmeshed in the role of nursemaid/caretaker again to this Boy Artiste. Yeah, sure, neurotic people are fun to screw and exciting to talk to, but in the end, plain old boring things like sanity and responsibility and attentiveness to other people are what makes love work out. You and your daughter both deserve better than this guy.

the relationship between children and their parents IS fragile, especially in the preteen years. If LW chooses in favor of the self-centered boyfriend, the daughter may have a very tough time forgiving her for it. It's not the practical fact of being moved--it's the underlying message that boyfriend's needs are more important than daughter's needs.

The daughter justifiably wants feel that she is her mother's first priority (not the ONLY priority, just FIRST). That's not to say that the mother should abdicate her power as the authority and decision-maker in the family, or sacrifice her happiness entirely, or never do anything that upsets the child or requires a change. It's obvious that children need to learn that things can't always go their way. But this is not, not, not the appropriate situation for that kind of lesson.

(I'll admit I'm perhaps oversensitive on this topic. We were never physically abandoned by our parents--in fact they always ensured their children were well-fed, well-dressed, well-educated--but both my mother and father consistently put their own emotional needs ahead of ours, in all sorts of subtle and blatant ways. It cost plenty, all around, and even with them in their 70s and us in our 30s and 40s, the repercussions continue.)

You were obviously having too much FUN during grad school! It's a type of error one sees and hears all the time, even more often than "between you and I" (yuk!), so no wonder you missed it. I believe the official term for it is Misplaced Modifier. Strictly speaking, that sentence should begin, "As a writer, I...". A modifying phrase should be followed immediately by the thing it's modifying.

But hey, the only reason I know this kind of thing is that I think grammar is FUN! No, seriously. We had a great teacher in high school. Mr. Ron Schachter, who taught us this stuff via a contest to write the best Misplaced Modifiers and Dangling Participles(look it up, folks). So we'd work hard to create absurdities:

"Burned to a crisp and covered in grease, Grandma was not interested in eating the roast chicken."

OR

"Tighter than words, Mary simply could not get the peanut butter jar open!"

OR

"Slathered in butter and liberally salted, the cheerleaders had trouble holding onto the corn cobs."

OR

"Mounting Mama's new couch and humping vigorously, Papa was completely exasperated with our new puppy."

I'm sure more creatively obscene minds can come up with better examples...but the point is, all that FUN really helped the lesson stick, for me. But hey, I'm not going to generalize from my particular situation. Different kids find fun in different ways, and frankly, I don't recall ever wanting or needing my parents, my teachers, the television, or the toys & games in my room to TELL me what was or wasn't fun.

Sandy Asirvatham

writer & musician

former Baltimore CityPaper columnist

(confessing real name for the first time)

but correct grammar might have forced a stronger sentence. To my ear, "As a writer, I care about words" is a more authoritative statement than "As a writer, words matter to me." As an added bonus, it's error-free.

I don't think there's any inherent conflict between good grammar and casual tone.

Sorry for the off-topic posts, people.

about the rhythm of the sentence and "words" being central to it. And I will also concede that "caring" is an overused idea. But I hope you will concede that grammatical mistakes (1) are mistakes, and therefore worth correcting (in writing--not when people are speaking, for that's just obnoxious), (2) don't necessarily have anything to do with tone, and (3) force some readers to stop and say, "wha?"...

There are still plenty of readers for whom words and grammar matter. Are they just being pretentious? Maybe they just have more FUN when they can read an article top to bottom without stopping to roll their eyes at shoddy copy-editing.

"Bruised, bleeding from numerous wounds, and screaming obscenities at top volume, Doctor Dangle tried his best to anesthetize the ER patient."

:-)

Sandy Asirvatham