This is the kind of person who you can't help but secretly wish her husband would go have an affair with a prostitute. Maybe bring her back a good dose of crabs.

Oh , I know, I'm lacking in compassion myself tonight, but, really, LW, you need to go serve lunch to the homeless and , yes, sit down and EAT with them. Every single day for a year.(See yesterday's letter).

Cary was way, way too nice to you.

The thing is, LW, the path to happiness that was apparently laid out for you... wow! It actually WORKED for you. You're lucky! Try being GRATEFUL for your happiness rather than SMUG.

For other people, it doesn't work -- the path is laid out but it makes them miserable, so they take a shortcut or a side road and end up stuck in the muck. Or , perhaps, no one laid out the path so clearly and they never found their own way to it. Or perhaps they were simply unlucky and got a bad dose of herpes from a boyfriend they believed was loyal. Any number of things can lead to bad situation-- some are choices, some are not.

Haven't you ever spent any time with someone who truly came from a different background? Spent a little time really trying to listen to someone, to really put yourself in their shoes?

As they say-- until you walk a mile in someone else's moccasins, you should not judge.

Does anyone else notice that while letters are running about 4-to-1 in favor of "get a life, loosen up and learn humility", nearly all the "editor's choice" letters are "right on , girl, the world is full of idiots, you just need to learn to hide your scorn a little better"?

Maybe the editor wrote the letter and doesn't like all this tsk-tsking.

Really, Bad Son, you should relax about this. When you have kids, you'll understand. I'm in the same situation-- way-left Dennis Kucinich liberal, spawn of by-your-bootstraps Republicans. Even worse than my father is HIS parents (my grandparents) who are still alive (just barely). They are atrocious -- racial slurs at the Christmas dinner table, nasty and malicious insults directed at me for my politics, constant implications that I"m ungrateful and evil for failing to "respect" my father's views, yada yada. (Somehow they think that by voting for Democrats, I'm disrespecting my heritage. Voting Dem is a slap in the face to my poor, ailing grandfather- can't I see what I"m doing to him? Don't I respect his sacrifice in World War II?).

Anyway, I used to fight it a lot, and wouldn't hang out with them, in particular my grandparents but even my parents for a while , back when I was young. If I was forced to be in their company, I'd sometimes goad them a bit, instigate things, etc. It was sort-of fun, really, and I probably deserved at least some of the maliciousness directed at me.

After a while, after I hit 35 and went all conservative with a brain (yeah right), I started to understand that part of my liberal politics has to be a more acceptance of all beings , even the ones whose beliefs I have a hard time with. Have some compassion and understanding for your parents.... they are a product of their upbringing and background, just as you are.

The real Christians know that Jesus first commandment is: Love. This is the first commandment of most religions, and any basic system of morality. Love. IT's really very simple. But that includes loving those who support a deceitful terrible government. Love them in spite of it. That's all you can do. It's hate and lack of compassion that got us to where we are in this world and more hatred /lack of compassion will just dig us in deeper and then you're every bit as guilty as they are, right? So just love them anyway-- afterall, they've been good to you -- and maybe someday it will all make sense.

My question to you is: How is your sister in law? Does she think your brother is an asshole? Does she need help? IS she one of those stressed-out new moms others have mentioned, or is she in new-mom blissland (like I was)? Is there anything you can do for her? Since she is like a sister to you, and since the break-up was amicable, your brother can have no argument if you go to her and ask her these questions: What do you need? HOw can we help?

It's impossible to answer that question until SHE tells you. She might be just fine. Some women are.

I agree with you most. Well said. Not every young marriage is a bad marriage; not every teen mom is a bad mom; and most of all, 16-year-olds are going to find their own way in life, one way or the other.

I hope your cancer threat clears up.

I agree with you most. Well said. Not every young marriage is a bad marriage; not every teen mom is a bad mom; and most of all, 16-year-olds are going to find their own way in life, one way or the other.

I hope your cancer threat clears up.