Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 132 Editor's Choice: 9
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Be open.
[Read the article: I'm 18 and afraid it's time to break up with my first boyfriend]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can say with pretty good certainty that there are a lot of people in your position who choose to stay in their relationships not because they're happy, or even content, but because they're too afraid of the unknown, of what they'll encounter when they throw themselves back into the dating pool. But you know what? Most of them aren't lucky enough to be 18 years old with decades of excitement and adventure ahead of them. Most of them, sadly, have stayed in their boring, stagnant relationships long enough to get married, buy a house, and have kids. They've put up with mediocrity for so long that a lot of them don't even remember what real happiness feels like. But you do, and you know that you have less of it than you did when this relationship started. And that's about as straightforward a reason for breaking it off as I could ever imagine.
If this guy doesn't feel much of anything about anything, then he probably won't feel much about your breaking up with him, either. That doesn't sound like a person you belong with. Find someone dynamic and interesting who's ready to jump headfirst into life with you, and don't look back.
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It's not a puppy!
[Read the article: I don't want more kids but my wonderful husband does]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously, this isn't sounding too much different than "Well, all right, if you promise to take him for walks and clean up after him."
Responsibility for a child in a loving household rests with both parents, regardless of which is the "primary" caregiver. The LW wants a reprieve from child rearing. She's not going to get that even if her husband devotes his full schedule to childcare. She might be able to pursue a 9-5 career, go out with friends once in a while, and so forth; but the child, at least for the first several years of his/her life, is going to consume the vast, vast majority of her time at home.
When the kid comes running inside crying with a skinned knee, is the LW really going to be free to say "Go tell your father, dear, I'm busy having a glass of Chardonnay and reading the new Malcolm Gladwell book"? Of course not. Unless she's willing to be a bad parent, and if you're willing to be a bad parent you shouldn't have a kid.
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"Timelines send the wrong signal to our troops in the field"
[Read the article: White House rejects timetable concessions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, the "wrong signal" that they might be coming home sometime soon, with all their limbs intact. Gosh, if I were a soldier I'd be crushed to hear something like that. Thank goodness the administration is looking out for those poor fellows.
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The most pernicious part of all of this...
[Read the article: The marriage industrial complex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...is the institutionalization of the idea that it's okay for weddings to be incredibly expensive. Usually, only high-end manufacturers and providers can get away with encouraging their clientele to spend lots of money; everyone else reels you in by promising savings. Hell, these days even BMW and Mercedes are touting their affordability. But the wedding industry has successfully convinced pretty much every marriageable person in America that their wedding is going to cost a lot. And if you try to save money, stick to a budget, cut a few corners... well, you're a churlish scrooge who doesn't understand how important this day is.
Don't get me wrong; I would see nothing wrong with a couple spending $100,000 or more on a wedding if (a) they could afford it and (b) they would truly enjoy it. But it seems like most of the time neither of those things is true. Especially the second part -- and usually, the fancier the wedding, the more stressful it is. Not that cheap weddings are necessarily problem-free, either; but if the "happiest day of your life" is really more likely to be a 12-hour daze of photographs and ill-fitting clothes and saying polite hellos and thank yous to people you've never met (and, from what I can tell, that's exactly what it's like for most people), then why should you have to bankrupt yourself to make it happen?
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A feminist Muslim?
[Read the article: Stone Age women "created a future"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And she's dating the architect of the war against Islam? (Who also happens to be a loyalist member of the anti-feminist party?)
Self-loathe much?
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Oh well.
[Read the article: Playing chicken]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In fact... no, not "oh well." This really fucking pisses me off. As much as I didn't want to forgive my party for supporting the war in the first place, I thought at least they'd partially redeem themselves by reassuming power and bringing it to an end. I guess they have no plans to do that, and instead are going to go right ahead and kowtow to a president who doesn't even have the support of his own party, let alone the majority of the country.
The passive-aggressive "let them dig their own grave" approach might have ended up working for the Dems when they were the minority. But they can't very well try the same goddamn strategy now that they're actually wielding power. They won over a good chunk of the Republican vote on a platform of ending the war, and already it looks pretty obvious that all those votes are going right back into the red box in 2008.
I honestly believe that the Democratic Party of today is perfectly content to be credited with zero successes just as long as it also has zero failures. And that's really pathetic.