Letters to the Editor
slavicdiva
Published Letters: 46 Editor's Choice: 5
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I don't blame him a bit!
[Read the article: Once the kids are gone, I don't want them coming back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I graduated high school at 16 and went straight to college. I returned home to live for one summer, between my first and second years of college, and determined never to do that again!
It wasn't because my parents were ogres--they weren't. True, they did tend to treat me like a child (which is, perhaps, understandable, since the "growing up" I'd done in the intervening year happened mostly out of their sight). But rather than whine and complain about them and their treatment of me, I made sure I had a job, an apartment and a roommate for the following summers, so I could be self-sufficient.
FWIW, said job(s) were far from glamorous--I worked a retail sales job during the week and had a weekend job as a church organist (I started working as an organist at age 14, and kept the weekend jobs throughout high school, college and graduate school). Was it harder to work a 7-day week rather than live at home and be blissfully unemployed and living off the folks during those summers? Sure--but for me, it was a matter of personal pride. My parents respected me for it.
I wonder, do this man's daughters have jobs, even little jobs? Have they ever done anything to provide for themselves, even if it's only spending money? Or is that another quaint notion that isn't relevant to our child-coddling society?
My parents had also made me a very generous standing offer that, if school or any of my jobs didn't work out, I was welcome to move home. I never did--not because I hated my parents, but because moving home after college would have felt too much like failure. My parents had helped me financially through college, and I felt it would not be fair to dump my failure on them. It was another point of pride for me.
I lived on campus for my first two years of college, then moved off-campus into an apartment shared with 3 other girls (we also shared living expenses). Afterward, I had a succession of apartments and roommates. In all the discussions and letters concerning this matter, I see little mention of roommates or sharing living expenses with persons not Mom or Dad. Do these 20-somethings expect to have luxury condos all to themselves? That's unrealistic.
I had a fractious (and sometimes combative) relationship with my mother for most of my adolescence (I was always closer to my dad). My relationship with my mother didn't improve until years after I'd moved out of the house and acquired some independence. Then, I started having an actual adult friendship with my mother, which would have been unthinkable in my early years. Astonishing! Unfortunately, it was cut short by her untimely death from non-Hodgkins' lymphoma only 13 months after my dad passed away from lung cancer. I served as Mom's caregiver for the last 6 months of her life, not out of guilt, but because she was my mother, and it's what you do.
For all of you who have vilified this man, shame on you! So he wants to be a man and a husband instead of a perpetual daddy; good for him! He expects his adult children to be adults--and this makes him a monster? I don't think so.
There are a million gray areas between totally disowning one's children and allowing them to be parasites. This father should set some reasonable boundaries, starting with "no moving in with Mom & Dad unless there's some catastrophic emergency." Sure, his children will probably resent that at first, but I'll bet they'll eventually respect him for it.
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Equal protection?
[Read the article: Treating women like girls?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As personally abhorrent as I find Judge Alito's attitudes toward women, as an attorney, I am even more bothered by his legal position on this issue.
If Judge Alito had his way, *married* women would have to notify their husbands when they want to have an abortion; single women would not. Does anybody else see this as a violation of the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law?
In this case, the equal protection argument cuts both ways. Alito's argument effectively imposes an additional (and undue) burden upon married women if they should want to have an abortion. Numerous people have asserted a husband's "right" to know what his wife intends to do about their fetus. Never mind that this is a flimsy and unduly paternalistic argument for creating an underclass of married women in the case of abortion; it effectively sayt that, once a woman is married, she gives up her rights to the integrity of her person. Many people, men and women, once espoused such views--but I thought we'd progressed beyond the early 20th century, when many cultures considered spousal abuse OK.
This argument also presupposes that unmarried men have no interest in similarly situated fetuses. Were I an unmarried father, I would be greatly offended by the assumption that I didn't care about a fetus just because I did not happen to be married to the partner with whom I conceived it. Where are all the men screaming about this particular form of discrimination? This argument just as surely creates an underclass of unmarried fathers, and essentially assumes that they are uncaring dolts.
Judge Alito can't have it both ways. Either all women must notify their partners (if known) when they intend to have an abortion, or no women must notify anybody but their doctors. That is the meaning of equal justice under the law.
The arguments that the law could be easily circumvented are shameful, at best. Laws are supposed to have a real purpose, and are not meant to be cosmetic, or to be used as vote-getters for unscrupulous politicians. A law that is enacted knowing that it can be gotten around with a little "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" is inappropriate, and its proponents ought to be ashamed of themselves.