Category: Advice Columns

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This Slate Advice column left me gobsmacked. This woman’s daughter-in-law left her kids at the front gate of her house expecting Grandma to take care of them while she dealt with a work emergency. The daughter-in-law called her before leaving her kids there, got no answer and just assumed she was there. She was not. She, in fact, was out of town. The woman’s neighbor, seeing two children abandoned at the front gate, called Child Protective Services who then got involved.

The son and daughter-in-law are now angry with the woman because she wasn’t at home when they needed her. The woman had gone out of town with her new boyfriend. The daughter-in-law informed her she needs to keep them apprised of her out of town visits. Her son had the nerve to say she was whoring around with wrinkly old men instead of caring for her grandchildren.

So much to say about this:

  1. The daughter-in-law didn’t know where the woman was. The woman hadn’t answered her phone. Why would the daughter-in-law assume she was there? And why would she leave her children at the gate based on this lack of information?
  2. The woman could have been in-town and not at her house. She could have been taking care of a sick friend or shopping at the mall. Does her family expect her to keep them informed of her every move? Do they expect her to give them a daily rundown of her schedule? Is she supposed to sit at her home waiting for their emergencies.
  3. I don’t think implying that your emergency babysitter is a whore is a good way to encourage her to be available at a moment’s notice. Just saying there might have been a more diplomatic approach to the discussion.
  4. The woman sounds like she is afraid that she has ruptured her son and daughter-in-law’s relationship with her. This is truly eye opening. I mean they are going to get bent out of shape with their emergency babysitter. The person who will take their children at the last minute. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. Really, this is what you want to do?
  5. Getting CPS called on them was a bummer. But having their two children sitting outside Grandma’s house without any adult supervision was a mistake. The daughter-in-law made a lot of bad assumptions here and hopefully she has learned her lesson but misdirecting her anger towards her mother-in-law is unfair and unrealistic.

I think the woman should take a long vacation with her new boyfriend and see how her son does with emergency babysitters while she is gone.

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I enjoy Slate’s advice columns (think Dear Abby for a variety of different topics) because they are generally entertaining to read and eye opening in what people get upset about. There was a recent letter that alarmed me because I think it was over reaction on the part of the columnists (JENÉE DESMOND-HARRIS AND LIZZIE O’LEARY).

It is behind a pay wall so you might have trouble retrieving so I will summarize the issue. A husband and a wife (30 plus years of marriage) were traveling with friends who had a college aged daughter. The husband took surreptitious pictures of the other couple’s daughter in her bikini. The girl was in public places in all these pictures — walking in front of him and at the pool. The husband clearly was sneaking photos of the young woman.

The wife later was looking through their shared vacation pictures and found the pictures of the young woman. The woman confronted her husband because she thought it was creepy and the husband gave a bull shit story about it. He told her he thought the woman could be a model and he was checking this out. He thought she was making a big deal out of nothing. This freaked out the wife who wrote the Slate columnists to get their take on it.

Desmond-Harris and O’Leary’s response, to me, seems to be an over reaction. The husband is a creep. He needs to be taken to task. The wife needs to go through his computer and see what he is up to as they doubt if this is the only time he has taken pictures of girls in bikinis. She could find something so much worse so she should. Then they started talking about whether the girl and her parents should be warned about the husband’s behavior which they seemed to be conflicted about. Finally, they advised the woman to never let her husband be alone with that young woman ever again.

Huh? How about a simple — your story is bullshit and you better cut it out or one day somebody is going to catch you and everyone is going to think you are a creep.

The woman is an adult and was in a public place in her bikini. Anyone could have taken a picture of her. How many people take pictures of other people who haven’t a clue that they are the model. Yes there is a protocol to ask people if it is all right to take your picture but realistically how often is that done? If you are in a public place, and someone likes your looks, they are free to take your picture.

The wife had access to the pictures. He clearly didn’t think it was a big deal or else he would have deleted the pictures which he knew she had access to. He wasn’t exactly hiding his behavior. When the wife confronted him, he was embarrassed. He put two and two together and realized how other people might view these pictures. Yes, he made up a unbelievable excuse which he should be called out on but, again in my eyes, that is about it.

Then the columnist determined that the man should never be left alone with the girl ever again. What? We are talking about a grown woman — a young woman yes but a college aged woman who surely at this stage of her life has learned to handle herself with men. More irritating for me is the woman had been married to the man for over 30 years. The wife never saw any evidence that her husband went beyond taking pictures of one beautiful girl in a bikini. This is quite a jump from taking a picture of one adult woman to much more egregious behavior that the man somehow now poses a threat to young women everywhere.

He made a mistake, given his wife’s reaction — one that he isn’t likely to make again. I think, given the lack of any other evidence, the husband should be given the benefit of the doubt. He knows how to behave in front of women and should be allowed to be alone with the young woman.

Then Desmond-Harris and O’Leary discuss whether to involve the woman’s parents. Again, what? The woman is an adult not a naive 15 year old. She has gone beyond the age where her parents have any responsibility over her actions or her life. I personally don’t believe anyone should be told but if you must tell someone — it is the college aged woman and not her parents. This is infantilizing a grown woman.

Men like to see women in bikinis. They sometimes do stupid things because they like to see women in bikinis. The woman doesn’t even know it happened. Why create a problem where there is none? It seems to me that the wife’s big problem is not the pictures but her husband’s lame excuse about why he took the pictures. This is a matter between the man and his wife alone. No one else needs to be involved and the only action required is telling him to knock it off until he can come up with a better reason for taking surreptitious pictures of women in bikinis.

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One of the things I like about Slate, an on line magazine, is its advice columnists. They have a variety of subjects like finance, misbehaving children, people being assholes and sex questions. I enjoy reading and seeing whether I agree with columnist about the problem being discussed. Every so once in awhile there will be a non problem that I think why would anyone even bother writing about this extremely lame “problem.”

A reader addressed one of these non-problems to Slate’s sexual advice columnists recently and I have to admit being baffled by the reader’s concern and the columnist’s advice. The reader’s boyfriend, while asleep, vigorously touches his dick to the point of semi-erection. He never takes it to climax, he doesn’t make any demands on her, he remains asleep during the whole time and doesn’t seem to be negatively affected by the time he sleeps in this semi-aroused state. So what exactly is the problem here?

The woman is concerned that this might be a form of sexsomnia — a condition, I have to admit, I never even heard of until reading Slate’s sex column. For those of you, like me, who are new to sexsomnia, I have provided a link but I will try to summarize as best I can. A person with this condition acts out sexually during sleep – this could include attempting to have sex with a partner sharing the bed. The person who suffers from this condition is actually asleep and not faking it in order to get sex. They are genuinely asleep.

The advice columnist thought it could be a form of sexsomnia and suggested the woman have her boyfriend take a sleep study done to ascertain if this is indeed true. All I can say is WTF. Really. A sleep study to find out if he touches himself to semi-erection while sleeping? Why would anyone consent to a sleep study when he is bothering no one? The woman isn’t being harassed for sex and he isn’t complaining about the lack of sleep. How would anyone’s life benefit from a sleep study here? Yes you do have sexsomnia but it is so mild we don’t suggest you do anything about it? Or no, you don’t have sexsomnia, you dick is just getting hard because you touched it for a few seconds. It’s all perfectly normal so don’t worry about.

I would suggest the woman just go back to sleep when she finds her boyfriend in this state and to stop worrying about nothing.

On the other hand, it does keep my mind off of Donald Trump for a few minutes. So, there is that.