Letters to the Editor
Anne in NYC
Published Letters: 337 Editor's Choice: 37
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I don't get it
[Read the article: What's so wrong with a pregnancy pact?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“All of us in that group are now in our mid-30s, and almost all of our children are now older than we were when they were born. Every single one of those kids turned out magnificent. If I regret anything, it's only this: I would have really liked to raise children along with Alice, Alexis and the rest of my then-childless friends who helped me to raise my own daughter. “
If it’s so fabulous why not encourage her daughter (and her friends) to have kids?
And if Alice and Alexis had wanted children they’d have had them. Honestly – the author’s pregnancy was probably one of the reasons these young women decided to wait. I know that the girls I knew in HS who got pregnant (even the really smart girls with a workable plan and good support system) served as a cautionary tale for every other girl at school.
If the girls we’re talking about are all filling out their ‘family housing’ university forms together I take it all back and I guess they’re on top of things. But I suspect it’s more likely they’ll be on public benefits - and that can be an impossible trap for a small town woman with a high school education to work herself out of. I feel really sad for these girls – I don’t think they’ve got any idea how hard this is going to be and what they’ve almost certainly given up.
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“If there's nothing to give up, their actions make more sense.”
[Read the article: What's so wrong with a pregnancy pact?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah. I know how they could come to feel that way. And that’s sad to me. Because you always have something to give up – in the immortal words of Cinderella (the other Cinderella): you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I have an awful feeling that these girls are going to discover that their freedoms and future WAS wide open, and they did have other choices, only when it’s too late.
And my understanding is when these girls went to the nurses’ office to take a pregnancy test the news they were not pregnant was meet with tears and disappointment. To me that sounds like at least some of these girls planned this together. I know these girls are singing a different tune now – but I’m more inclined to believe a nurse then a group of teenage girls who have every reason to cover it up.
And I further agree with the posters who say this privileged author has little in common with the girls we’re talking about. I feel like this case in MA has us talking about a problem that’s been going on in our urban public housing for years (the welfare cycle) and that’s the apt comparison – not some wealthy woman with so much support and so many choices.
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I’m not upset
[Read the article: What's so wrong with a pregnancy pact?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it’s great that Benfer’s parents were there for her! I couldn’t have gone to school without my dad’s help and I was only looking after myself. I also think Benfer sounds like a really wonderful mom (I read some of her other articles for Salon just now so I do know a lot about her individual situation). I’m sure her daughter is very lucky to have such great people around her.
I just don’t think her story has anything to do with those MA teenagers. Those girls don’t have the benefit of all that education and support. It seems very out of touch to suggest these two situations have so much in common.
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Cancer Stinks
[Read the article: Woman's best friend]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I saw this on PBS (think it was NOVA – but can’t remember) about 15 years ago – I was fascinated then and I’ve been disappointed not to be hearing about this all the time. On that show they were experimenting with skin cancer. They used people who they knew had the cancer and the dog would sniff it out every time – in one instance the dog kept pointing out a mole that the doctor’s had checked out as ok – but wouldn’t you know months down the road they discovered it was in fact cancerous. They spoke to lots of nurses who swore up and down that the cancer ward has a particular smell too.
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we're all consumers
[Read the article: American Girl power]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I’m just a little too old for AG dolls – I was fascinated with the magazine ads but I don’t recall knowing anyone who owned one. But I do remember my mom scrimping and saving for a Cabbage Patch doll for my little sister that first Christmas they were such a big deal. Mom paid $100 for that doll (a ton of money for us at the time) and I knew my stocking was going to be lighter for it - but when it comes to kids, especially poor kids who don’t get these fancy gifts as a matter of course, you do occasionally need to splurge. I know that gift made my sister feel so special and I was happy to be in on that. Who cares if it was an ugly, overpriced doll with a dumb story?
So rather then making me look down on AG dolls this post has me wanting to buy a few this Christmas to put in the donation box. I’m sure that creepy, beady eyed doll would make some little girls’ year.