Letters to the Editor
Todd McAdam
Published Letters: 10 Editor's Choice: 2
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If you need a cup of dandelions...
[Read the article: Opus day!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Welcome, Mr. Breathed, to my back yard. And thanks for taking steps to allow me back into yours. (Well, metaphorically, anyhow.) I've missed a consistent supply of gentle and not-so-gentle satire.
I have to admit I'm amused by the critiques of Mars Needs Moms. People who post seem to either love it or hate it, which I hope is more a comment on the polemic nature of letter writers than actual feeling.
As for me, I certainly don't hate it, but didn't find it the best Breathed work. It lacked the magical, and lyrical, nature of Goodnight Opus, or the satire of Last Basselope or deprecating humor of Edwurd Fudwupper or Red Ranger.
Perhaps, I think, it *is* the message I find fault with. I'm a stay-at-home dad (read: broccoli Nazi), and I'd gladly walk in front of a bus if it would make my son's life better. (And given that I live 40 miles from the nearest community with public transit, that's saying something.) I don't need to be reminded of how much I love my son, although I do sometimes need to be reminded on the nature of giving, or the importance of honesty and love, or the need to depart from the text.
And I'm not sure if I care if my son ever knows or understands that's how much I love him. I'd hate to give him a guilt complex simply by reading to him. (But he's only 2 1/2; ask me again when he's a teen-ager.)
Still, Mr. Breathed, I welcome your work (and you, too, I guess) into my home in any way you see fit to grace it.
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Disappointing advice
[Read the article: My 13-year-old singer wants to quit piano lessons]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cary seems to have missed *the* problem here. The writer reveals a compulsive streak to control her daughter, and admits (albeit indirectly) that she's trying to make up for her own failings as a youth pianist. Not once did the mother discuss what the daughter wanted, or what the problem with the piano is.
And Cary lets her get away with it. Rather than focus on the mother's clear domineering streak, Cary, in fact, helps the mother along the road to further dysfunction. He asks a number of excellent questions regarding the lessons, the desires, yada yada yada. So what? Those are questions for the daughter, not the mother, and it's disappointing that the mother can't think to ask them herself before she consults an advice columnist. And it's *really* disappointing that Cary doesn't strongly suggest she ask the girl what her beef is.
So why does the mother feel this need to push her daughter so?
The problem here isn't motivating the daughter -- the daughter will decide what works with or without mommy's help. The problem is the mother's compulsion.
And I'm afraid Cary seems to have missed that.
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Missing the point
[Read the article: Mom's a pothead]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The substance is unimportant. She could be addicted to lime jell-o, for all it matters.
The issue here is behavior -- of both mother and son. (And father, too, for that matter.)
Mother demonstrates many of the basic signs of an addict: manipulative, defensive to the point of paranoia. That she smokes for years, and *then* gets medical certification suggests that the back pain may well be an excuse. It seems like she'll do anything to preserve her high.
And son has called her on it. Is he being moralistic? A prig, perhaps? A jerk? Of course, he's 15. Look up jerk in the thesaurus: It says "see adolescent."
There must be more here than the LW knows, because as other writers point out, their families had drug-using parents and kids who went through DARE and survived just fine.
Still, the son is forcing a choice: The pot goes, or he goes. And he does have a point, if descriptions of the mother's behavior are accurate.
As a parent, which would you rather keep? And don't think he's necessarily bluffing. Show him the door? He may not walk through it for a year, or two or three. But he will walk through it, and he won't come back. (This is the point where I start going metaphorical; forgive me.)
This family has some big issues going on, and discussions about the propriety of drug use are off the real topic.
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Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences
[Read the article: Who are you, Anonymous?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a former reporter, I rarely used anonymous sources. Readers don't trust someone they can't put a name or face to. It's too easy for a source to deny later what he said, or to lie outright.
I have the same standard for comments posted here. I just don't give the same respect to an anonymous comment.
Are good, useful comments made under an anonymous banner? Sure. Are they honest, accurate representations of opinion and fact? Harder to say. Either way, I have greater respect for people willing to stand up for what they believe.
Certainly, the nom de plumes that people use, for the most part, are ample protection from all but the savviest investigators. The only real threat eliminated by posting anonymously is criticism. I'm afraid I have little respect for people who can't accept disagreement.
A free society, with free speech as a founding principle, requires courage: the courage to express one's opinion and present one's facts and still face what repercussions may come -- be it criticism or violence.
John Hancock, if one believes the childhood histories, signed his name at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence so large to match the strength of his support and his willingness to accept the consequences of what would have been treason had the revolution failed. Do you remember any of the other names signed that day?
So when you look down, you'll see my name. It's not anonymous, it's not even a pen name. But it's the only way you know that this is my opinion.