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Changing to the same
Nov. 2nd, 2005 07:36 amI read a few advice columns regularly: Dear Abby, Miss Manners (Miss Manners rocks), and Tell Me About It (a relationship advice column). Miss Manners is genuinely educational and viciously witty to boot. The other two... I expect I may stop reading them, eventually. The same problems in different clothing pop up over and over and over. It's a testimony to the human condition.
Take today's Dear Abby. Mother and Father slightly disapprove of Daughter-In-Law. They offer a carrot - a home downpayment, in this case - to Son and Daughter-In-Law, if only Daughter-In-Law will change her ways. Son and DIL take offense at this critique of their lives and are now not taking calls. Mother and Father are seeking renewed contact with Son and DIL and also validation that what they did was not wrong.
The thing that caught my eye? The aspect of the DIL that they did not approve of was that she did not work outside the home. There are three children, young but in school, and the Son works a full-time weekday job and on the weekends. They thought that the DIL ought to shoulder her 'fair share' of the family's fiscal responsibility by also seeking external employment, at least part-time.
Not all that long ago, I'm sure Dear Abby's mother (the original Abby) was fielding questions from frustrated Mothers and Fathers who couldn't believe that their new DIL would leave hearth and home to (gasp) go to work. It would reflect badly on their Son, after all, who was already heroically working two jobs. How could she belittle his efforts like that? It made the family look materialistic and grasping! And then, when they offered the couple some money if only she'd stay home, they blew up and starting spouting off about 'career ambitions'!
Edit: "A testimony"? Should be "a testament," shouldn't it? Mrf... The dictionary would have the first as "firsthand authentication of a fact" while the second is "a tangible proof or tribute." Um... well, go with whichever you like.
Take today's Dear Abby. Mother and Father slightly disapprove of Daughter-In-Law. They offer a carrot - a home downpayment, in this case - to Son and Daughter-In-Law, if only Daughter-In-Law will change her ways. Son and DIL take offense at this critique of their lives and are now not taking calls. Mother and Father are seeking renewed contact with Son and DIL and also validation that what they did was not wrong.
The thing that caught my eye? The aspect of the DIL that they did not approve of was that she did not work outside the home. There are three children, young but in school, and the Son works a full-time weekday job and on the weekends. They thought that the DIL ought to shoulder her 'fair share' of the family's fiscal responsibility by also seeking external employment, at least part-time.
Not all that long ago, I'm sure Dear Abby's mother (the original Abby) was fielding questions from frustrated Mothers and Fathers who couldn't believe that their new DIL would leave hearth and home to (gasp) go to work. It would reflect badly on their Son, after all, who was already heroically working two jobs. How could she belittle his efforts like that? It made the family look materialistic and grasping! And then, when they offered the couple some money if only she'd stay home, they blew up and starting spouting off about 'career ambitions'!
Edit: "A testimony"? Should be "a testament," shouldn't it? Mrf... The dictionary would have the first as "firsthand authentication of a fact" while the second is "a tangible proof or tribute." Um... well, go with whichever you like.
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