Free Republic

Over eight years, Dolores Jacobo earned her place as an integral member of an affluent Malibu, Calif., household, where her workplace is a six-bedroom, nine-bath beachfront home with a private movie theater. Hired to be the nanny of twin 3-month-olds, she stayed with the family after the girls started school. She transitioned from pushing strollers to shopping for groceries and ferrying the family's golden retrievers to grooming appointments. Her employers, she explains, "have busy lives" that include volunteering at school, going to the gym, visiting the chiropractor and getting various beauty treatments, like facials, manicures and pedicures. Later this month,...

When Abigail Garner was in eighth grade, she confronted two classmates who repeatedly used the word "gay" to describe something as "uncool" or "dumb." "One of them said, 'What's your problem? Is your brother gay or something?' " she recalls in her Web site, www.familieslikemine.com, a forum for teen and adult children of gay parents. "My heart started to race. 'No,' I responded. 'My dad is.' " It was 1985, Garner remembers, a time she felt so isolated, she believed she was the only one in the world with a gay father. "Being surrounded by 'fag' and 'lezzie' jokes on...

<p>Since fashions have been going retro -- from hip-huggers and halter tops to the recent '60s nostalgia hit ``Down With Love'' -- perhaps it was inevitable that ``Sex and the Single Girl'' would make a big comeback this summer. Barricade Books has dusted off Helen Gurley Brown's 1962 bestseller, given it a hot-pink cover and marketed it as ``A Cult Classic.''</p>