Letter Writer Didn't Get It

The woman who sent this recent E-mail of the Day to Dr. Laura misread/ignored a very important word said (written) by a man. Hard to believe, I know. I have no idea if Dr. Laura (who is on vacation) actually read this letter herself or not.

I know exactly where the man being quoted is coming from. Whether you, dear reader, agree or not, the man is operating under the very common understanding that men want sex, and women want attention, a bill-payer (at least to buy dinner/entertainment/gifts while dating), a bodyguard, a chauffeur, and a stronger/taller person to do her bidding.

The woman who sent the letter starts off:

Dr. Laura,

It's soooo hard being a woman who is waiting out there.

By "waiting" she means not having sex until married.

When the rest of the women give it up for free, the men won't even give me a chance.

The phrase "for free" implies she expects to get paid for sex. "Without commitment" might be a better phrase, but I could quibble with that one, too. She's right, though, that smart or even just lazy men are going to seek the path of least resistance to getting whatever it is they want.

Then again she might not be attractive.

Kid-Oriented Life

I've heard Dennis Prager talk about this. Somewhere along the way, we shifted. Even though so many children are dumped in institutions from the earliest ages because their parents won't change their lives for them, parodixically we have allowed kids to become our masters. When I was a kid, toys and other kid stuff stayed in our bedrooms or a designated playroom. Now they are cluttering our entire home. A parent might come to one of our games or school musical performances, now both/all parents are expected to come to all of those things every time. Kids used to have to endure adult conversations at the dinner table until the adults excused them. Good luck with that now.

And then there are the kid birthday party. Every kid needs a big party every year. And the parents of the invited kid guests have to be there, too.

So on a Saturday morning, I end up at a 2 year-old's birthday party. There was no need for me to accompany my wife and kids there, but my wife is trying to make the mother her best friend, and so of course I am supposed to come along to help keep our bratty kids in line and because my wife hopes I will be good friends with the father. That way I'd have even less ability of keep my old friendships going. Not that I have time for them anyway, with my family obligations. But since my wife didn't pick them, she'd just prefer I not have them. They aren't clones of us, and so she can't relate.

It was really interesting to have my wife shower ahead of this party, and to get out of bed and get ready to go much easier than with just about anything else. These days, she usually sleeps as much as she can as long as I will be around to keep the kids from killing each other. And she doesn't seem to care to shower on account that there might be the possibility of making love. Her choosing not to shower in a given day is a big sign to me that she doesn't want me. I tried to take advantage of her having just showered, but she was tired. Of course.

This is definitely worth over half of everything I'll ever earn. Isn't it?

Bad Things and Theism

I don't know if anything has happened to Dr. Laura in her personal life, beyond seeing a friend of hers die not too long ago after an awful fight with cancer (which can certainly be devastating to see), but now she has gotten to the point of saying she is offended by the Theistic beliefs and related prayers of her callers. I was just listening to the second hour of yesterday's show and she had to make a point of it when a caller who'd witnessed a death as a result of a car accident says she now prays before driving.

Dr. Laura has a skeptical background, but went through a time of being an observant Orthodox Jew before giving that up after, she has explained, being disillusioned by some others in that community. She also has said she had talked with a famous Christian minister who told her to think of the Gospel as a metaphor, from which she inferred that even he didn't believe miracles were real in the literal sense. (Connecting the dots to other things she has said, I suspect that minister is Robert Schuller, which would not surprise most Christians the way she thinks it would.)

She encourages families to be active in their faith communities, preaches right and wrong as though there is an objective morality, yet has strongly implied she doesn't believe in an afterlife and continually expresses what appears to be Deism, if not Atheism, now to the point of, like I said, stating she is offended by prayers as asking Him to keep someone alert as a driver.

If there is a God, He can intervene in life. If there is a God who has called us to pray, what is wrong with praying for strength, alertness, etc. as long as one takes the reasonable actions they can? It isn't like the caller said she stays up for 72 hours before driving and prays for alertness. I realize the "IF" is a big one.

I will pray that Dr. Laura finds peace. I hope (another word she doesn't like to hear from callers) that doesn't offend her, because it is not meant as a dig. She has done so much good and I don't want to see her in anguish over what is wrong or broken in this life. Yes, there is much broken in this world. I am convinced God has provided a way to overcome that brokenness. If there was anybody who didn't deserve a painful and early death, it was the Jew we know as Jesus. Yet it is through that sacrifice we are reconciled to God, and we can look forward to the redemption of the world from sickness, suffering, and sin. That is not some wishful thinking on my part. It is a conviction based on consideration of facts, facts she can investigate herself if she so chooses. She may find a renewed passion for preaching the morals she does. After all, if there is no God concerned with what we do, and no cosmic justice (an afterlife involving rewards and punishments) then what objective reason is there for any given caller or listener or reader to put aside selfishness for the sake of their spouse, their child, or anyone else?