Letters to the Editor
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Man, oh Man
I know the feeling. Completely. Jeez dude, you made me fuckin' cry....
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...
We painted her bedroom pink, by request
then yellow a few years later.
Now the yellow room is empty.
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Gary, how have you, do you, talk to you children about sex?
Now that the news has arrived about the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears, age 16 ( sister of Britney Spears) - I wonder what you say to your children about the subject of sex, teen sex, teen pregnancy.
For background, I am 60 yrs old. My son and daughter are 34 and 33, married to nice people, with children. None had any teenage pregnancy. By the time I gave my 'sex talk' about contraceptives to my children, I think my son had already experienced it at age 14.
The major part of the background was dysfunctionalism from my mother and their father, which I covered up, so as to lessen their burden in life and allow them to have as 'normal' a life as possible.
My daughter attended college but roomed at home the entire time. I never interfered with her coming and going, figuring that if she had attended college out of town I wouldn't know what she is doing anyway.
In the main, I think I was lucky, and that my staying out of their private lives was what worked in our case...and me not causing any more family crises than that which had already occurred from their father who had 2 illegtimate children, 1 during our marriage and 1 after our separation.
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A teaching article
Thanks, Gary. Others have said it before, but this is a wonderful article. I immediately sent it to several people I know. I did that because it is not only deeply moving, in a sentimental kind of way, and deeply true, but also because I thought about it, and I realized some things in reading it. These things are obvious, but I hadn't put them into words: that you learn some things about life from being a parent that you can't learn otherwise. Don't misunderstand: people who choose to have children are are not better (nor worse) than people who choose not to. But they do know some things that you can't learn any other way—most of them do, anyway. You learn things about your own life, because all of us are children who grew up, all of us had parents who loved us more or less, all of us face loss that is never more clear than when we look at our children. Today, I watched my son as he left for high school, and then as I walked around the college town where I live, I thought: each one of these young people is more than the college student we see; each one is also someone's little boy or girl now arriving at independence, just as they are the potential adult, parent and aging person I won't live to see 40 years or 50 years from now.
I know, it sounds sappy. But the truth of it isn't sappy; its only what you do with it that might be, or might not be, sappy. Your article was true without being sappy.
Thank you, Gary, for the gift you have given us, your readers.
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This parent's hope
Nobody gets out of here alive, but so long as I check-out before any of my kids do I'll consider myself a very lucky man.
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Wow, just wow
As a relatively new parent myself (two year old twin girls) I cannot imagine a better, more fitting description of parenting. I already miss the littler them, but maybe that's because I haven't truly learned the lesson of this article.
Bravo, and thank you.
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daughter
thank you for your wonderful article. My beautiful amazing nineteen year old daughter came home last night for a short visit from Israel where she is spending the year. How is it possible that I was just holding my newborn baby girl through the night and now we are listening to her tell funny stories about life on a kibbutz? It must be about love and time but it's a mystery to me.