Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 86 Editor's Choice: 7
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Helping vs Enabling
[Read the article: My brother is no good, and I've had enough!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW, I believe that your heart is in the right place, and that you love your brother and want to help him. But you're not really helping him - you're enabling him. I'm sure that you know this on some level. As long as he knows that Sister is always there to bail him out he will not grow up and take responsibility for himself. I don't think that you necessarily have to cut him out of your life completely, but you do have to quit cleaning up after him. now. Stop finding places for him to stay. Stop taking him in when he gets kicked out. Stop giving him money. Stop paying for the rent car (I agree with the others who have said that that's way too much of a liability). Do talk to him about mental health care; he could have some underlying mental health issues that are contributing to his problems. Most of all, he needs to grow up and act like an adult. He cannot do that if someone is always there to clean up his messes. I think everyone would agree that if your brother were showing some evidence of personal integrity and making progress toward stability, you should do all you can to help. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. He's being a bum, and your good intentions are allowing him to do so. Don't give up on him, just stop enabling him.
I speak from experience. My fiance and I went through something very similar with his younger brother, although we put a stop to it after the second unpaid loan - which we later found out he gambled away in hopes of making big money to pay off a shady business deal gone awry. After that, we told him 'No more - you're done!' We helped his wife earn a degree in office management so that she could earn her own money. We helped the parents recover from some of the financial problems he caused them. But we're done helping him - at least for the forseeable future. That decision felt kind of mean at the time, but we decided that "loaning" him money was only allowing him to continue his irresponsible behavior. Turns out, we were right. with no one to bail him out, he's actully gotten some job training and has held a steady job for a few months now. We're cautiously optimistic.
All the best to you.
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If the 50%+ of straight marriages that end in divorce haven't invalidated marriage yet...
[Read the article: Mitt Romney reiterates stance against gay marriage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...chances are that the 3% of the population who is gay won't undermine it either! They're just easier to marginalize because they make up a relatively small percentage of the population. Politicians are continuing to marginalize these people and they're capitalizing on the prejudices of others to do so. Frankly, it's despicible.
These arguments that claim that equal marriage rights invalidate the institution of marriage are at best ill-informed and at worst completely disingenuous. Someone else's marriage has nothing to do with mine. Mine has nothing to do with someone else. I also don't appreciate having my family declared invalid because I don't have kids. how obnoxious.
Seriously - I do NOT understand this obsession with other folks' sex lives. If someone cares more about whether you're kissing boys or girls than whether you have adequate healthcare and education, that's just fundamentally wrong!