3-2-1...Contact!

Guess what! I got an email from Cheryl Lavin today. And here's what she had to say:

hey! why don't you link to my columns: www.creators.com and my brand new blog: www.talesfromthefront.com ???????????

I assume she means, from this blog, though I'm pleasantly stunned that she knows about it, since I didn't send her the link when I emailed her a (much condensed version of my) response to the weekend-first-date-disaster a couple of days ago. How did she find us?? No matter! Well, Cheryl, ask and ye shall receive! (See links at right)

In fact, I used to have a link to her Chicago Trib column, but dropped it when I couldn't access the columns for free anymore.

In a separate message, she added that she plans to use my response (or some fraction of it) in an upcoming column! So keep your well peeled eyeballs on Tales from the Front for an alias like "Beth," and a handful of contempt for "Christopher" and "Patricia," and you'll know it's me!

On tinterhooks (is that the right phase?) (Aha: it is TENTERhooks)

Oooooooooh, I'm excited! It's Monday, which means Carolyn's column is "adapted from online discussion." Often these are less than thrilling to me because I've already READ the online discussion. However, in the column Carolyn spends more time on her response than in the chat, which requires a certain amount of instantaneous response, often introducing new ideas and resources, as well as re-phrasing and bringing in comments from others who participated in the chat and--here's hoping--wrote in afterwards!

Here's why we're hoping: today's column addresses the twin boys who don't like baseball, whom I wrote about with a a great deal of energy earlier this winter here and here. I don't know if I mentioned that when I submitted my letter to Carolyn, she responded by saying she appreciated the story and that it suited the topic well.

In today's column, Carolyn alone responded to the woman who wrote in. BUT! It is "to be continued" tomorrow....so maybe we'll get a mention! Fingers crossed.

**Update: sad day! The column is posted and I am not featured. Probably this is what I get for not being as concise and witty as those other chat participants. Oh well...maybe next time**

(re)writing it in

For whatever reason, the letter to Abby that I posted about yesterday really touched a chord with me, and got me very riled up on behalf of the daughters. After conferring with a friend, who is herself the older sister of a boy with developmental challenges (and engaging in a lunch hour facebook chat debate with SK), I decided not just to blog about it, but to write in to Abby. (Vive la revolucion!)

I tried to condense my post from yesterday, and to be really specific and non-rambly. I think my letter's still on the long side, but we'll see what happens! So, sorry if this post seems redundant--it clearly is. Just want to track a submission so we can see if it goes anywhere!

Dear Abby,

I think you really missed the mark with your response to "Challenged Mom" (March 5), whose two daughters felt that she favored her son, who has "some social and developmental issues." Although the girls had been informed about the details of their brother's needs by a psychologist, they still felt "slighted."

Although I agree with the actions you suggested, I have a real problem with your reasoning. For example, you suggested that the daughters could be more involved in their brother's care, which I think is really important and valuable. But you didn't recommend this as a way to spend time with their mom or know their brother better, but instead to understand more fully how overwhelming and difficult their mother's life is.

Essentially, you advised that the mother convey to two of her children that if they only really understood what an exhausting burden the third one is, they wouldn't ask for more of her time and energy.

The mom asked you for advice on how to assure her children that they're all loved and valued equally. You gave her the tools and the permission to logically and rationally explain to her daughters why she simply doesn't have the energy or the time to love them equally.

You also implied that the daughters either don't fully understand or don't respect their brother's needs, or they wouldn't be raising this issue in the first place. The sisters have most likely been raised right alongside their brother, and witnessed his development their whole lives. Who could know his situation better?

I think it's entirely likely that they do both understand and appreciate his needs, and don' t begrudge him those--but are still hurt that he is always the center of attention.

I was surprised that you didn't at least suggest that when the daughters raise this issue, the mom respond to them with love (not by sending them to the brother's psychologist, though family therapy might indeed be useful). I think a lot could be gained by a loving response--reassuring the daughter of her value, and assessing when she feels most slighted, and making a fair attempt to adjust all of their lifestyles to lessen that.

The son may always need more hours of the mom's time and more intense attention and care than the daughters, but that doesn't mean that at every moment those needs must be prioritized above his sisters' equally valid ones.

A reassuring remark, an open mind, a listening ear and a flexible spirit might be what the daughters need more than anything, and if the mom is not able to hear them out and make some adjustments so that they feel loved and valued, then she IS favoring her son. Not by spending more hours of the day on his needs, which most likely all of them understand and accept, but by prioritizing him, as a whole person, above her daughters.

Finally, the idea that the mother seek some outside care for the brother in order to spend some alone time with each daughter each month is an excellent one, but only as a supplement to real lifestyle change. If the daughters don't feel valued and heard at home, every day, even with their brother, then the afternoon out will feel like it's all they get--that they're allotted 4 hours a month of mom's time, while the rest goes to the brother.

Both the letter from the mom and your response to it were fairly short but they had undertones that the daughters were automatically in the wrong for seeking more attention. While this mother is certainly in an overwhelming and challenging situation, well, her daughters are too. And she's still their mom. Attempting to divide her time equally among them would be an impossibility. But responding to "I feel that Billy gets all the attention in this house" with "Here's a list of all the reasons I can't focus on you," is not only cold, it reinforces that the daughter's complaint is completely justified.

Hmm...OK, yep, it is indeed really long. Oh well! That's what she has editors for. Hopefully it will annoy her enough to rise to the top of the virtual pile.

O Brother, What Art Thou?

I started my Saturday by reading the transcript of Carolyn's live chat from yesterday. (Is there any other way to start the weekend than with a cup of coffee and an advice columnist chat transcript?)

The situation of a woman who wrote in really struck a chord with me. She had 10-year-old twin sons and it's time to decide whether or not to sign them up for baseball. They don't really like to play, she says, and show no interest in getting better. They'd rather not sign up, but their dad (who she admitted was not available to take an active role in getting them to practices, games, etc.) was insistent. The mom had mixed feelings...her biggest concern seemed to be that they'd be missing a lesson about "sticking with" things. She also said they like biking, swimming, kung fu, basketball...just not baseball.

This makes me nuts! If we had to "stick with" everything we ever tried indefinitely, I would be a dancer, baseball/softball player, gymnast, potter/artist, horseback rider, pianist, floor hockey player, black belt in karate, actress, choir member, badminton player, clarinetist AND saxophonist....etc.

Wait, scratch that. I would only be a dancer and a softball player, because those were the first two organized activities I ever tried, and there wouldn't have been room for anything else. A DANCER and a SOFTBALL PLAYER. Me. I would be miserable and not good at the activities that consumed my life--which is why I stopped doing them in the first place. Childhood and adolescence should be a time to try out a number of different skills, seeing what you're good at and what you like, and shaping yourself from there. You have to stick with it, sure...but it also has to stick a bit on its own. My brother and I always, always finished the season/session, but were never required to sign up again the next year.

(P.S., looking back at that list, it seems that I was quite a spaz. But it's not that I was signing up at random for particularly exclusive/expensive training in any of these things--horseback riding was probably the only one, and I'm grateful I had a shot to try it. Mostly they were park district things or school-sponsored activities I just wanted to find out more about, and enjoyed--but had no reason to commit to)

I did stick with band, writing, and major involvement in my church youth group and choir, and had a part-time job practically from the day I turned 16 (and stuck with the same one until I went to college, even working while home on break until the store where I worked closed). But enough about me--this issue resonated with me so much that I wanted to write in to Carolyn about it. I think my parents' flexibility in letting my brother and I choose our activities, experiment, and move in new directions was incredibly valuable. We learned self-discipline--we also learned to value our time and prioritize our passions, interests, obligations and choices because our schedules were not predetermined. So I wrote to Carolyn, in what ended up being an Ode to my Cool Brother. I think he and I did a lot of the same kind of things in terms of trying (and yes, quitting) different activities. But since the original chatter was asking about boys and about baseball, his life seemed to fit the situation better. So here's what I wrote to Carolyn:

Hi Carolyn and team,

The baseball twins from yesterday's chat remind me of my brother. When he was little he was in park district soccer and baseball and played on a church basketball team. He didn't really take to any of these things--never wanted go to practice, didn't show or develop much skill, and worst, just didn't enjoy the atmosphere of being on the team and playing the game. He was an anomaly among his friends because of this. [Forgot to include this to Carolyn, but he was also often frustrated and embarrassed. I have this really painful memory of his end-of-the-year soccer dinner where the coach played "we are the champions" on a boombox and each kid had to stand on a chair to be gazed upon, talked about by the coach, and receive a trophy. BJW either pouted through it, or hammed it up inappropriately, and got a "talking to" afterwards. Really he was just incredibly uncomfortable with the whole thing]. He got through the sports for a few years, and when he said he wanted to quit, my parents, despite possible reservations, let him make the call.

He, like the twins in the chat, took up karate and excelled at it for a number of years. He got involved in drama in junior high, and was basically the head of the tech department by his senior year of high school. He was still an anomaly, in that his individuality and creativity made him the rock star of his high school. He performed a killer Jimi Hendrix-style national anthem at the homecoming pep rally his senior year, and was voted prom king, despite (because of?) attending prom dressed as a pirate. He took up guitar lessons in third grade, with much discussion from my parents about the need to practice and stick with it. [another addendum: in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, he performed Beatles songs with three other kids in the elementary school talent show. They were always one of the few groups to actually play and sing, not just choreograph a kickline to the pop music of their choice]. Now at 22 he's a music composition major, teaches guitar to kids and adults (works 20+ hours a week while in school full time), and runs an amateur recording studio out of his living room.

If the issue is getting exercise, he doesn't "work out" or play sports, but he does walk several miles a day from the train station to his university (he commutes). If the issue is learning to work with a team, he did that with the tech crew, and still does with his job, where they all contribute to running a small, family-owned music shop (not our family, though he's become basically part of theirs). By nature he's more of an individual worker--so am I--but he's not incapable of working with others. There are many ways to achieve the ends of physical fitness and teamwork mindset.

It drives me nuts when parents define abandoning any sport or activity as "quitting." I think making it through the season and then opting not to do it again the next year is perfectly legitimate. Of course getting to the end of the season is important for all kinds of reasons--not letting down the team and coach by disappearing, not wasting money, and simply practicing self-discipline. But if signing up for something and giving it a fair shot isn't enough for us to make a decision about whether or not to continue, how will we ever find the time to try new things?

I think the worst possible consequence would be to teach your children to hang back from trying new sports, activities, clubs, etc. because they fear they won't be able to get out of it if they don't like it or don't have the skill.

Best,
Becky in Ann Arbor

Miss Manners and Masters of Ceremonies

I wrote in to Miss Manners today in response to her Wednesday column , which addressed a reader's question about the purpose of a master of ceremonies at a wedding. The person wanted to know when, and in God's name, why, this had become standard practice.

Miss Manners was brief and appropriately miffed that such a thing would ever occur: They narrate the event, giving fanfare introductions, public instructions and calls for applause. Why people will pay to have a formal party with their relatives and friends turned into something between an awards ceremony and a reality-TV show, Miss Manners cannot imagine.

(Yes, Miss Manners does write in the third person, in case you gentle readers had not yet picked up that convention).

Anyway...have many weddings become circuses? Of course they have. In fact, I think Miss Manners' description (damn, now I sound like I'm HER talking about mySELF) is rather apt. And yet, I think she has a tendency to inaccurately idealize the olden days, when weddings were simple and sane warm family affairs. So I wrote in to point out another perspective. My letter follows:

Dear Miss Manners,

A reader recently wrote in to ask you about the function of a master of ceremonies at a wedding. While think your response, which expressed perplexity and a bit of annoyance at the "cross between an awards ceremony and a reality show" that many weddings have become was correct, I think there may be room for flexibility here.

Surely when wedding receptions more often featured live music, there would have been a bandleader or wedding singer to set the mood, ease transitions, etc. In recent years, that has increasingly been the role of the DJ (some of whom, of course, are more irritating than others).

Even more recently, though, many couples have opted to forgo both bands and DJs, opting instead to create a playlist of their own and pipe it through thespeakers directly from a laptop. When this is the case, and when the party is above 150 people, I think it's acceptable, even desirable, to have someone with a microphone help guide the direction of the party--if anything, it keeps the host from screaming and pointing, and limits (to a certain extent) the impatient clinking of glasses with forks.

If this person is not leading a band or playing music, I suppose he or she is effectively a master of ceremonies.For the record, I agree that having an MC in addition to a DJ, wedding singer, or bandleader seems excessive.

Sincerely,
BW

Miss Manners will probably be horrified that I would suggest it's OK for a wedding to be so large that a host cannot herd all of his or her own guests without the aid of a loudspeaker. But if she wants to address THAT problem, she's going to have to back a lot farther than the 21st century. Weddings, not all weddings, but weddings, have been monstrous since the beginning of time.

It's not etiquette--it's tradition.

Kitty Kustody Kalamity!

Today has been a day for taking action. I wrote to the Tribune at large re: the unlinked advice columns, and also to Amy for some very (VERY) poor advice she gave to a fellow whose happy home and family of a girlfriend and 2 cats had just been shattered

First, his letter and her response. Then, my letter back to Amy. I've written to her before--only when her advice gets me really steamed, which isn't that often--and she has yet to print a response. So here's the issue:

Dear Amy: My live-in girlfriend of two years dumped me a couple of weeks ago, saying that she had never loved me.

Since the breakup I haven't been doing well. We had two cats, one that I had adopted and one that we adopted together. I finally found an apartment. I had been under the impression that I would be taking both cats.

The two cats are very close, and I've always been the primary caretaker for them. I have been the one who cleaned the litter box and took them to the vet.

When I went to the apartment to pack, my ex told me that she wouldn't let me take both cats.
She told me that if I took our cat she would feel bitter toward me and that we would never be able to have a relationship of any sort.

I was furious and upset. I cried and screamed, and my anger really scared me.

To be honest, I am still in love with her, and I don't want to do anything that I know will cause me to lose her forever.

But I'm also horrified at giving up my cat, and horrified to think of my other cat crying all day and all night and refusing to eat, the way he did the only other time I separated them and took him to a new place.

Now I'm incredibly sad and lonely.

It seems like a lot to lose. Should I give up? And how can I deal with my anger, frustration and sense of loss when I do?

—Lonely

And Amy's totally lame response:

Dear Lonely: Your ex sounds like a prize jerk who is holding your cats hostage while she emotionally blackmails you.

I hope that you recover from your hurt soon and that you are able to see how mean this is. It might help you to move on.

In terms of the cat you acquired together, you could take your ex to court and make a claim for custody—even though doing this would prolong this drama, which I don't think is a good idea for you.

I agree that splitting up this feline pair is also probably not a good idea, but you should visit the cats to let them see you and curl around your ankles.

Your best bet at this point is to head to your local shelter to find a new pet (or two) to add to your family. Visit a shelter a few times to spend time with and play with all the cats. You might also consider volunteering at a shelter—homeless kitties need food and affection at all hours; volunteers make sure these animals are well cared for, and this could help you through your loneliest times.

OK, just reading that made me mad all over again. "Your ex is a jerk who is manipulating you by holding your cats. So you better let her keep both of them and go volunteer at the animal shelter." What???? Plus, ahem...if SHE was the live-in girlfriend, why is HE the one who moved out? Anyway--I'll let the letter speak for itself. Normally Amy is a huge advocate for pets and the people who love them. I feel like she really dropped the ball here.

Dear Amy,

I have to say I totally disagree with your advice to Lonely, who was heartbroken over the fact that his girlfriend, who unexpectedly dumped him, refused to give up the cat they had adopted together. (And based on the comments posted on chicagotribune.com, I don't think I'm alone)

You imply that Lonely's only options are 1) "prolonging the drama" by taking the girlfriend to court to sue for custody of the cat and 2) letting her keep both cats, but visiting them regularly. (How does option 2 NOT prolong the drama of interacting with this woman?)

This really surprised me--the girlfriend never said "If you take the cat, I'll take you to court." She said, according to her ex, that if he took the cat she would be "bitter" and unable to have a relationship with him. How convenient, since HE is already bitter, and she has in fact ENDED their relationship!

I couldn't believe you didn't say he should just take both cats and run, out of concern for the kitties, and for his own sanity. Cutting off the relationship with his ex would probably be the best thing he could do for himself and, as you state quite correctly, recognizing the manipulative trick she tried to put over on him should help him get over her.

Why, in this situation, should the thoughtless girlfriend who doesn't take care of the cats get everything SHE wants, while the guy who's had his world shaken loses it all?

Loyal Reader in Ann Arbor

And for you enraged cat lovers out there, here's a little something to put some joy back into your Sunday. Check out Ninja Cat!

The Bare Necessities....

I just sent the following to the Chicago Tribune online customer service folks. The columns have been de-linked from the homepage AGAIN. This happens every once in awhile and is usually fixed within a couple of days, but that hasn't been the case this time.


Dear Tribune (Again),

The economy is falling down around our ears. Paul Newman is dead. The world is a scary and confusing place. The least you can do is keep the advice columns linked from your homepage (Please! Please! Please!) and keep Dear Abby up to date (Please! Please! Please!).

You should know that it's the advice columns that bring me to the trib at all --only after reading them do I read the rest of the news. That being said, if I can't get Abby (TODAY'S Abby, please) from you, I"ll go elsewhere.

It's not like you've filled the space with anything else...there's a big empty hole at the bottom of the page where the advice column links used to be.

Thanks,

Longtime Reader

Ah, Love

There's no better way to introduce you to Cheryl Lavin (image from www.chicagotribune.com), author of "Tales from the Front," than by giving you a peek at Thursday's column. Her long-running feature on the challenges of finding and keeping love caters both to couples, who typically complain about each other's altered physical appearance after years of marriage, and singles, inevitably bitter, who list their "nice" qualities and ask why they can't find a date.

In fact, my one (to date) successful (as in, printed) advice column submission was related to this very issue. I gave a particularly obnoxious "nice guy" what-for and she printed it(!), thoughtfully providing me with a secure alias ("Beth") to protect me from...the niceness he would surely inflict on me, if he knew where to find me.

Since then, I've always felt a little bond with Cheryl (may I call her Cheryl?)--a bond that was solidified this morning when I read her headline:

"Unending discussions about nice guys and overweight wives"

...and snorted. As long as she's aware of it, I'll go with it! I also admire her boldness (apathy?) in throwing together these two topics that have nothing to do with one another except that they create the most sheer volume in her virtual mailbag.

I have to believe that this is really annoying for columnists....for the most part, they get asked the same questions, over and over and over and over again. Usually I (or anyone!) can guess how the columnist is going to respond without even reading the answer...unfortunately, that response is never "Look at yesterday's column, dumbass."

Instead, columnists exhibit a number of different approaches to this issue, from mocking the readers with a wry-but-weary headline, as Cheryl did, to abbreviating their answers with a handy, versatile acronym. This technique was made famous by Ann Landers (MYOB/mind your own business) and perfected by Dan Savage (DTMFA/dump the motherfucker already).

One final note on Cheryl: she is notorious for printing whole columns made up of readers' anecdotes, with little to no actual advice or even, um, writing, of her own. She did it with mine over a year ago, and she did it this morning. Does this even count as a column anymore?

And could this blog be any drier? I haven't written for an audience in awhile...it might take some time to refine my, um, voice. Please bear with me!