Dear Abby: Family Political Debate Opens Chasm Between Daughter, Mom

Dallas Morning News ^ | 9/13/01 | Paulne and Jeanne Phillips

[madprof98]

DEAR ABBY: At our Halloween party last year, which included both parents and children, my brother and I somewhat jokingly debated the two presidential candidates. My brother was for Bush. I was for Gore.

Sometime during the evening, my then 11-year-old daughter asked me why her uncle was for Bush and I was for Gore. I explained why I was for Gore and gave her four or five reasons. She asked again why her uncle was for Bush. I told her to go ask him.

During the merriment of the evening, I forgot about the subject until we were on the way home and my daughter asked me how I could think that killing a little baby was OK. I was speechless! I asked her where she had gotten such an idea. She said her uncle had told her that Gore thought it was OK to kill babies, and if I was voting for him, so did I. I tried to explain about a woman's right to choose -- and that I DO think a woman should have that choice, but I was so shocked I hardly knew how to defend myself.

It has been nearly a year now. Ever since that night my daughter has been very distant toward me. I have tried to talk to her about it several times, but she refuses to discuss it.

I'm at my wit's end. My daughter is now 12 and our closeness has been destroyed. I found out her class made Mother's Day cards, but my daughter never gave hers to me. There are no more hugs and kisses at bedtime -- just "good night."

What can I do? I love my daughter with all my heart. I'd give anything to have her the way she was before.
-- DESTROYED MOTHER IN DALLAS

DEAR DESTROYED MOTHER: Sit your daughter down and tell her that the subject of a woman's right to choose is a controversial one, and that it is OK if she disagrees with you about it. It's a topic about which everyone has to make up her (or his) own mind. Her uncle thinks the way he does, and you love him in spite of it.

Explain that you are not in favor of killing babies, but that you feel it is important for a woman to have the right to choose. Some women's lives have been saved because they were legally empowered to make that choice. It wasn't always the case.

Tell her that as she grows older, you want her to examine her reasons for feeling the way she does about this subject -- but you also want her to be open to different points of view, because there are more than one, and people have a right to their own opinions. It may not heal the breach your brother has caused, but it's a beginning.

And finally, I urge you to talk to your daughter's uncle about this entire situation. He could help a great deal by reinforcing what you have said -- and he should. He was out of line from the beginning for having given your daughter his inflammatory answer to her question.

[AgThorn]

Explain that you are not in favor of killing babies, but that you feel it is important for a woman to have the right to choose. Some women's lives have been saved because they were legally empowered to make that choice. It wasn't always the case.

Dear Abby -

You are "all wet" ... First off, you are twisting the facts worst than this kid's uncle. i.e. Being "pro-life" has never put the baby's life before the mothers, it is a sad twist of history, womens issues and the whole discussion of abortion for you to use THIS as your foundation arguement for this mother to go talk to her daughter about.

Second - Abortion is murder, and you know it Abby. What does "saving the mothers life" have to do with 99% of the abortions out there? Are you just not following the actual statistics on partial birth abortion alone, where "mothers health" is often sighted as the "excuse" but all doctors that have testified so far have admited that they consider "depression" as one of these "mothers health" issues? Or just the request to NOT go through with it? And how do you rationalize that Ms Abby? I see, you don't.

How about the ease for our children to get RU486 pills without even a prescription? (as encouraged by ads on MTV)

How about the harvesting of fetal body parts for medical use? Gee you left that out as well ...

How about ..... ah forget it.

Dear Abby - you are just showing that you too are as misguided as Gore.

As we look at all the shocking television that we are seeing with the carnage going on in NY and DC, I have to reflect at how the so called "pro-choice" people complain about the pictures of aborted fetus's. The revulsion should be the same. You can't hide what we have done to the unborn, and act shocked at what others do to us. that's hypocricy.

AgThorn & Lily4Jesus
Los Angeles

If you haven't already done so, please add your signature
to the petition for the unborn (and ask others to do likewise)
These little ones need our voice to speak out for them.
God Bless you!
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b7c063605a8.htm

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Abby's answer is priceless. So much babbling and dancing. Trying to disguise immorality as morality.

You can't do it, Abby Dear,

It doesn't withstand the light of day.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Flame if you want, but I'm going off-line for a while.

Typical of this poster. Drive by responses frequently. Just ignore her.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

I totally agree with you workerbee. The uncle has done permanent damage to the relationship between this mother and daughter. The child will only have one mother and at such an impressionable age the uncle should have been less specific.

You people don't give a twit about this girl whatsoever. Mom should be free to chose murder. Better for the kid. Ya right.

[VadeRetro]

As solidly pro-life as I am, I think the uncle was out of line.

I have no use for people who are relentlessly cagey about what they believe and why. The uncle was asked why he chose Bush over Gore. I suspect he answered honestly and that's not out of line.

[albee]

"Dear Abby, Dear Abby,
My fountain pen leaks,
My wife hollers at me,
And my kids are all freaks
Any side I get up on,
Is the wrong side of bed,
If it weren't so expensive,
I'd wish I were dead"!

Signed

"Unhappy"

John Prine Song
"Dear Abby"

[FlyVet]

Poor kid, at 11 yrs old hasn't lost her innocence. A few more years of indoctrination, she would have had a heart of stone and wouldn't have believed her uncle. Now, maybe she always will.

[workerbee]

Your analogy is seriously flawed. Bush doesn't hate women and want them to be oppressed by men, so anyone telling your 11 yr. old would be lying.

I know he doesn't feel that way, but to many pro-abort types he does, simply by the virtue of the fact that he is not pro-abort. The very definition of "woman-hating oppressor", to them, is someone who does not believe in "choice." So in the context of this discussion, the analogy works.

I believe the situation between the mother and her brother is probably much more contentious than her letter implies. After all, a person who describes abortion in the terms this man did is pretty obviously strongly pro-life. There would be little "joking debate" for him on the issue of abortion. What I think is that he used the 11 yr. old to score points in an argument against his sister, the girl's mother. I think that's wrong.

I reiterate what I said before: it is not appropriate to undermine the mother's authority of her 11 yr. old child, which is what I believe he intentionally set out to do with his choice of words.

the woman's daughter may just be in shock from learning how close she came to being sucked down a sink.

Isn't that a great thought to put into an 11 yr. old's head? What an accomplishment for the uncle.

[workerbee]

How would the situation be reversed in your analogy? In your little scenario the 11 yr. old is being told an outright lie. This suggests that you believe the girl's uncle told her a lie. Care to explain yourself?

See #49. By "reversed", I mean that it is not appropriate for an adult to try and undermine the relationship of a child and her parent, even if we know we're on the right side. I disagree politically or fundamentally on many issues with certain family members or friends. This does not give me license to make their children question their authority or love. It is simply wrong to drawn an 11 yr. old into a situation like that.

Maybe you're not as pro-life as you claim to be.

My pro-life stance is pretty well documented on FR. I can understand people siding with the uncle, because I know he's on the right side of the issue, but I do think his actions with the 11 yr. old were wrong.

[workerbee]

I have no use for people who are relentlessly cagey about what they believe and why. The uncle was asked why he chose Bush over Gore. I suspect he answered honestly and that's not out of line.

There are age-appropriate responses to most questions. Telling an 11 yr. old that her mother likes to kill babies is out of line, IMO.

[victim soul]

"The Empereor Has No Clothes" comes to mind. I wonder if the 12 year old girl ever wonders about whether her mother might have chosen to kill her brother or sister.

[Old Professer]

The whole abortion rights issue is really a women's power issue; ever since 1973 women have had the ultimate and singular power of life or death. The fact that they used men to wrest this power testifies to the weakness of America.

Women are ruthless and filled with guile, a grudge perceived is carried to the grave.

Sir Francis Bacon shunned them as he would the plague for he recognized that they would prevent him from attaining his goal of the acquisition of all knowledge; he even predicted that they would one day rule all of society.

[Godebert]

"My pro-life stance is pretty well documented on FR."

I suppose this thread is part of that documentation as well? Not lookin' good.

[HalfIrish]

I never read that dreadful column. Thanks for posting this, I would have missed a great save otherwise.

[Godebert]

"Telling an 11 yr. old that her mother likes to kill babies is out of line, IMO. "

Is that really what he said? Do you think that folks are just too darn lazy to scroll-up and read what he actually said?

[victim soul]

You are comparing apples and oranges. The Uncle was right to speak the truth. The mother should have done the same.

But if she did so, she would be telling her daughter that women have an unrestricted right to use a perverted medical professional to destroy another human being. The mother in essence is saying in agreement with NOW, Eleanor Smeal, and NARAL that the mother's rights have priority over her own child's and is willing to destroy her weaker and dependent flesh and blood to get her way.

[who knows what evil?]

The child is lucky to be alive....considering that her mother might have chosen to kill her in the womb. Maybe the 11 year old wonders if some of her unknown siblings met this particularly gruesome fate.

Took the words right off my keyboard...it may have dawned on the daughter that it is POSSIBLE that her Mom may have "dusted" an "inconvenient" sibling at some point in her past. How can you sleep under the same roof with someone like that?

[fone]

First: This girl was eleven years old. Eleven. Forget the birds and bees; she was already exposed to the exterminator. If it wasn't her uncle, she would certainly hear it from her "health" teacher. Although the following statement was made for a different topic, it still applies: to paraphrase Paul Harvey from 9/12/01: Our children have been raped.

I am glad and thank our Creator that my mother did not have this "choice" in 1957. Considering the circumstances she had every right to terminate me. Perhaps a pleasing thought to many of you, I can not tell you how my life would have been different had I known she had such a "choice" (I was a junior in high school when the SCOTUS tried to override God.)

For the generation now on the loading deck, life is cheap. Remember all you pro-choicers out there the day will come when the 'elderly' will need to be disposed of, we are "too expensive" and a "burden" dontcha know.

When they stick the needle in your arm just remember: it was their choice.

[DallasDeb]

Dear Destroyed: How did you manage to raise a daughter with higher morals than your own? Take my advice, let your daughter be the mom. Signed: Abby's Ghost Writer