Letters to the Editor
angelbug
Published Letters: 72 Editor's Choice: 11
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When this many innocent people are killed in Iraq...
[Read the article: University officials waited two hours to warn campus, students say]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]it merely merits a brief mention on the national news. No wonder the gravity of that situation escapes so many Americans.
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The shaming of childbirth
[Read the article: Ricki Lake's "awesome" vagina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My son was born after a 21-hour labor with a couple of hours of epidural at 6 a.m. after being in labor since 6 the previous evening. I had the epidural removed after I was completly dilated so I could push, and spent the next three hours screaming so hard that I had a sore throat for a week after the delivery, though I walked out of the hospital in otherwise total comfort hours after his birth.
My son was in my arms and nursing moments after his birth, and the medical staff respected all the decisions I made during the labor and delivery. I felt respected and well-cared for. But 17 years later, I still get crap from my ex about how I "couldn't do it without drugs," as if it's one of my major failures in life. My son is a practically straight-A student, very sociable with lots of friends, a talented classical musician involved in interesting extracurricular activities, and no tolerance for drug use by his friends. We get along great, and he's the best thing that ever happened to me. I consider that a better indicator of my mothering skills than whether I had a needle stuck in my back for three hours almost 2 decades ago.
I think it's awesome if a natural home birth works out. I have plenty of friends who have had great experiences with it. I just don't like being judged so harshly because I made a different choice. My advice to pregnant women is, be flexible about your birth plan. Nothing else about raising children is amenable to rigid expectations, so get used to it.
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If I remember correctly...
[Read the article: Should I stay in my marriage?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe Cary has no children. It's easy for people without children to suggest that those in unhappy marriages stay together for the sake of their kids, but sometimes the marriage is so toxic the children are better off with parents who don't live together. That way they can enjoy a healthier environment, preferably sharing time with both. Often two people who are a disaster together are decent people separately. I'm not suggesting that divorce doesn't have profound effects on children. I'm the product of divorced parents myself and I know that when handled poorly, there are lasting repercussions. But I also know that I didn't want my own child growing up in a house where the mother was called a "stupid goddamn bitch" for simply forgetting to make a phone call to get information on possible plane reservations, or called names for dropping things, or constantly criticized in a nasty tone of voice for unimportant things like not wringing her own washcloth out hard enough (why was he even checking that?) or buying bananas that weren't exactly the precisely correct stage of ripeness. The kind of tension that that kind of constant haranguing produces can't be better for a child than a peaceful home with one parent. And I don't want my child to think that if he treats a woman that way, she'll stay with him; that she is to be respected, or she'll leave.
LW should try therapy, again (some therapists stink, others are incredibly skilled), and if he truly is miserable, consider carefully whether the home life is worse for his children than a divorce.
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Life is too short, or too long?
[Read the article: I'm younger than that now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've had to smile at all the 20-somethings' vitriol in these letters. I lost my mother when I was 24 and she was 60. The last few years of her life were filled with endless complaining about endless health problems. My dad made it to 80, but joked that he was the "6 million dollar man" because that's how much Blue Cross had probably spent to keep him alive through all his various cardiac and vascular problems. And I used to think all their whining was just a self-absorbed pity party. Like other writers, my parents were "old" when they were my age (almost 53). They could never have kept up with a teenager on a bike ride, or tried anything new, it seemed. Their zest for life had been replaced with deteriorating health and depression.
But, as I reach the age at which my mother had her first heart attack, and find myself slowly but surely being limited by the inevitable decline of my mind and body, I realize now what my parents went through, although I have yet to suffer any problems as serious as theirs. But I refuse to complain to my son about it. There is no way a younger person can understand or sympathize with aging until they feel the losses themselves. So I don't feel anything but amusement at those letters. Their day will come, and then they'll understand. And hopefully realize, as I have, that I was more self-centered when I was in my 20s and had no interest in or sympathy for what my parents were going through, than I am now that I actually have something to complain about.
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Do what's right for you
[Read the article: The other mothers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The bottom line is, no matter what mothers do, the other side in the work vs. stay-at-home war will vilify them. Why all the concern about what other people think? It's your child, your family, and your choice. Yet mothers continue to be consumed by guilt no matter what they do. They continually look to studies and magazine article that validate their choices and "kick their heels in the air" when they find it, as if their own opinion isn't sufficient to justify their choices.
I knew what felt right for me when I was raising my son, and the confidence I had in that decision left me unapologetic and immune to anyone else's opinion. No one is a perfect parent, and today's parents are too wrapped up in producing the perfect child, which does nothing but cause anxiety for the parents AND children.