Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 36 Editor's Choice: 6
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The burden of low expectations
[Read the article: I say my son is stupid, but my wife says he's lazy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This letter forces us to upend a lot of preconceived notions about what it means to be a ‘good parent’. You see, a ‘good parent’ must offer unrelenting force upon their children to be all they can be. College may not be easy, but it’s good for you, like flossing and it doesn’t matter how much objective proof there is that not everyone is suited for college, that college isn’t suited for everyone and that it is absolutely untrue that any person can be an astronaut if they just try hard enough, a ‘good parent’ simply does not allow their child to drop out and run off to become a model. That some children will drop out and run off to become models is apparently neither here nor there.
There’s a fine line to walk between overwhelming a child with unrealistic demands and burdening them with low expectations. It’s not surprising that this young man’s mother probably feels as if she’s ‘failed’ in some fundamental way. The challenge is re-defining what it means to be a good parent. Sometimes being a good parent means accepting that, just like not every child will be a skilled athlete or musician, not every child will achieve academic excellence, or even academic competence.
To me, being a truly good parent means coming to understand those things that truly are your child’s talents, those things that engage them and allow them to be the best version of themselves. Then, assuming those things aren’t illegal or life threatening, giving them whatever encouragement they need to pursue those talents.
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All good things
[Read the article: Will you miss "The West Wing"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After being an obessively loyal fan for four seasons, I confess that season 5 drove me off the rails for a while.
I think that season was never really able to recover from the Zoe Bartlet-napping and President John Goodman. I actually liked that particular story line. It's just after it was over, everyone was just kind of staggering around dazed and confused.
The President & the First Lady weren't speaking. The only time you saw Abby she was pissed off. The prez and Leo were sniping at each other. It marked the permanent arrival of complete asshole Toby, which annoys me still. I always loved Toby, and enjoyed his crankiness, but his crankiness was always in the service of something. They've really robbed the series of something special by making his character so one-dimensionally pissy.
And then there was the endless dwelling on the whole Josh/Donna thing. Am I the only person on the planet who has NO DESIRE to see these two get together? If the last scene of the show is of those two making out, I'll throw something.
But after a year in the desert, I'm back to being totally enamored with the show again. Making this about a political race has been awesome. I'm sad to know this will be the last season, but it makes a nice circle. It's a relief to know that it will be going out on a high point creatively. I'm particularly relieved to be spared any awkward attempts to replace John Spencer with file footage of the back of his head as he walks out of the room.
It was a great show, and I'll miss it, but all good things must come to an end. This seems like the right time for that to happen.
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Strange Argument
[Read the article: Feminism after Friedan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I always think the whole “stay at home” vs “go to work” argument is incredibly odd. It completely removes circumstance from context, and in an issue like this, circumstance is all. It implies that once a decision has been made, that is how it is. A woman is either a “stay at home” mother or a “working” mother when in fact most women I know with children have had periods of both states. Many women I know also have no ‘choice’ in the matter. Whether it is for the salary or the benefits, they can’t not work.
There never has been a utopian state or social hell, depending on your point of view, when every woman in America had the ‘choice’ to stay home. My mother and my stepmother both worked full time. Not only that, both my grandmothers worked while raising my parents during the 50s and 60s.
Feminism has become so intertwined with the notion of working women that I think we’ve lost sight of its true power. The true power of feminism has never been encouraging women into the workplace. The true power of feminism was giving women permission to have dreams and goals and visions of their own life that weren’t the communities dreams or their father’s dreams or a husbands dreams, but were their own. They had the right to be responsible for their own life, and their own happiness. Years and generations later, we have no concept anymore of how radical that notion is.