The “In Good Hands” Edition
S1: This ad free podcast is part of your Slate plus membership. Lucky you.
S2: Dear, dear Prudence, Prudence, dear, dear Prudence here. Do you think that I should contact him again? Help! Help! Thanks. Thank you.
S1: Hello and welcome back to The Dear Prudence Show once again, and as always, I’m your host, Daniel M. Laborie, also known as Dear Prudence. Since this is our last episode of 20/20, I’d like you to take a deep breath, gently close your eyes and imagine this. It’s an hour into the future and I finish this recording. I get up and walk away from my recording setup and leave the room. The room is empty. I realize that I left the light on and I go back to turn it off. I pause in the doorway and take a long, soulful look around the room. My gaze settles on the microphone and I start to think about the many memorable letters we’ve had this last year, this last year, this last year.
S3: Why would you please read our first letter? I would be delighted to do so. Daniel, thank you. The subject is, should I consider letting my best friend raise my troubled daughter? Dear Prudence, I always wanted to be a mother. Of course, parenthood comes with its challenges. But on the whole, my sons are curious, happy, social and well-adjusted. Things were always different with Mary. We were asked to leave two different preschools because of her destructive and aggressive behavior. We considered a number of specialists recommended by her pediatrician. She was eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, despite following her treatment plan. Every day is a struggle, and most of her anger seems to be directed at us. However, Mary also had a very difficult relationship with my best friend Helen, who is single and childless. Whenever Helen is around, Mary is Colma kind. She generally does what Helen asks. I’ve never seen her do this with anyone else. When Helen moved last year, Mary’s behavior worsened considerably. Helen asked to have Mary visit her for two weeks this summer. The break was so needed for my family and the visit seemed to go beautifully for Mary and Helen. But now that Mary is back, things are even worse. Helen approached me recently and said that after careful consideration, she’s wondering if we would consider letting Mary live with her for a year. I don’t know what to say. It feels like a godsend. They seem to really love each other. And Mary, now 13, thrives with her. Helen is independently wealthy. While my husband and I divide our time between two jobs and our two other children is a terrible idea. We’ll never be giving up on my daughter.
S4: There’s a lot here, obviously, I think one thing that I was really struck by was the degree to which the letter writer seems to feel I don’t want to see, like, quite abandoned by her husband in this. But a real sense of like, this is a referendum on me as a mother rather than like a decision we’re making together, like I always wanted to be a mother and then ending up, would I be giving up on my daughter? And of course, I understand she’s the one writing the letter. But I do wonder, just especially because of the dynamics of like I had two relatively easy sons and now I have a really fraught relationship with my daughter, a sense of like. Whether or not this works out, whether or not this is an option that we pursue, it’s my fault or my call to make. Did you get a similar read?
S3: I did. You know, I’m wearing my English professor has a little bit at this point, but I was really struck by the way that the pronouns in that first paragraph move quickly between I always wanted to be a mother and we were asked to leave two different preschools whether we could mean me and marry me and my husband, my entire family. Yeah. And then eventually, most of her anger seems to be directed at us, which one assumes is me and my partner or the letter writer and her partner. I think it’s interesting that the husband doesn’t show up in the story until right at the end, my husband and I divide our time between two jobs. I’m trying to avoid claiming that his nonappearance in this letter is evidence of a kind of absence from the relationship or from the family. I’m not sure that I could really sustain that on the reading of the text, but I do think it is a little odd that at no point in this letter does he have any kind of independent motivations or feelings even.
S4: Yeah, I’m curious. Like, what does your husband think about all this? Has he have you discussed this with him? Like, is this just a call that Helen made to you and you haven’t yet told your husband that it’s a possibility? Yeah, I’m really sorry. Yeah, it does sound like Helen approach to you and you maybe haven’t even floated this idea with your husband. So if that’s the case, I think the obvious first step is tell your husband about the offer and have a conversation. Yeah. As a parenting team about what you think.
S3: Yeah. So that being said, I guess that we should probably talk about some of the other questions, too. Would I be giving up on my daughter? Seems like a question worth addressing. And I think my view on that is not necessarily I think it would be a question of how this kind of thing was handled and discussed and to what extent you’d really given Mary a chance to talk about her feelings and preferences with you both. I think that that’s important and it may very well be. I say this is a former child, a former difficult child myself. It may very well be that Mary’s conspicuous fondness for Helen is another way of antagonizing you in some way. It’s not so obvious that that’s evidence of a kind of healthy, organic relationship that although it very well could be right.
S4: You know, but I think one of the things, if you were to go down this road to treat it as a real experiment and to be prepared for even if the visits often go really well. And the last time she was with her for two weeks, it was great if she were with Helen for a year and Helen became a new sort of authority figure, things might sour really quickly.
S3: Yeah. And you would also want to make sure that Mary knew at all times that she would be welcomed back and that if there were any question of, you know, her changing her mind or those things suffering, that you would still love Mary unconditionally, difficult as she doubtless is. So that’s another thing I want to say. Just quickly, on the topic of like, would I be giving up my daughter, which is just that I think I have always felt and we have especially lately been thinking a lot about. I mean, we mean I mean, Danny, you Danny, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which the nuclear family is a failure in so many ways for for so many children. And the expectation that children naturally belong solely within hermetically sealed or at least sealable family units is a devastating one, especially for queer kids, especially for kids who have particular needs, a community connection outside the bounds of the nuclear family. So for me, I would think you might give up on your daughter if you did this. You might give up on your daughter. If you didn’t do this, the nuclear family with its protections is not going to be the thing that decides whether or not you’ve given up on your daughter.
S4: Yeah, so I think really talking about it with your husband is the next step then maybe bringing maybe before bringing it up to marry you and your husband and Helen talking about what would a potential schedule look like. What how would you three make sure you are all checking in pretty regularly about Mary and how she’s doing and what would be best for her? What ways would you have a kind of contingency plan in place if things clearly didn’t work out? And then once you feel like, OK, the three of us are on a somewhat similar page, then talk to Mary, ask her what she thinks. As you said, make it clear that this is an option, not something she has to do. Probably it would make the most sense to give it a trial run first, and it might not be great to do it in the middle of the school year so that this might be something that you would want to start, say, in the early summer and see how that goes. You know, you’ll have a sense of what timeline works best for your family. But no, I mean, she’s thirteen. I’d have probably a different answer. If she were a lot younger and being away from you for that long period of time would probably be really, really difficult. But, you know, kids at 13 often go to long summer camp. Sometimes they go to boarding school, sometimes they stay with relatives. I’m sure there are ways that you could do this that would feel like, get out of here, we’re not going to call. We’re hoping that this just turns into your life that would make her feel rejected or cast off. But there would also be a lot of ways to make sure that this was about extending your family in a in a bigger and a broader sense and and might work really, really well.
S3: Yeah. You know, so obviously want to make sure that you had an opportunity to talk in great detail with Helen about what expectations between yourselves as parents and her could and should be. Yeah, basically my my thought about this is that, you know, one of the ways to diffuse the antagonism would be to really, truly consider this as an option and work out what kinds of responsibilities and ethical relations it would entail.
S4: Right. And yet, I think just to that end, the subject here, which is should I consider letting my best friend raise my troubled daughter, is, I think, maybe illustrative of something that you can let go, which is like either Mary lives primarily with me and my partner and we raise her or she goes and lives with Helen and we’ve abandoned her when we’re done with her or we’re no longer involved in raising her. And like even if she goes for a year and it goes great, I think you should still visit. You know, I think you should still call regularly. I think you should fly out yourselves at least once so that it’s not just like a year without seeing Mary. So it’s not just like if she goes and lives with Helen, then she is out of the family. I think there are a lot of ways to make sure that it’s a trip, an experiment, time spent with basically another member of the family. Not here. You’re her mom now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought we clean that one up. I think so too. And I’d love to hear back from you. I would really love to know how these conversations go.
S5: I feel that we can help so much. This first writer, I have, you know, a great deal of love and compassion for this person and I look forward to hopefully giving them permission. Would you read that letter for us, please?
S6: I would love to. The subject is feminised chest pains, Dear Prudence. I consider myself very staunchly feminist. I have a Ph.D. and my specialty overlapped with women’s and gender studies. I’ve always thought the prevalence of so much plastic surgery was an indicator of a society that thinks a woman’s best quality is their ability to look hot and young. I always thought cosmetic surgery was vain and kind of dumb. The problem is I’m starting to want some. I’ve spent years dealing with a chronic illness that’s caused my weight to fluctuate in the extreme. My breasts are extremely saggy and I have a ton of stretch marks. I’m only 33. I’ve been working hard to lose weight. I’ve been thinking of rewarding myself with a breast lift when I get to my goal weight and stay there for a year. Every time I look down, I just feel so old, which is the way my illness has always made me feel. I’m also dating and just keep thinking about all the potential guys that will see my breasts. I can’t tell if that’s influencing me a lot or not. I need some outside perspective on this. I still think it’s kind of dumb to have a risky surgery to prevent something that’s going to happen over time anyway. But I just feel so frumpy. How can I figure out what to do?
S7: As they say, lots going on here, I think it’s wonderful that you have a PhD. I don’t know that that’s like relevant here. Exactly, but congratulations, you certainly don’t need one to be a feminist. But I’m glad I’m glad you’re proud of it and that you earned it.
S5: That’s wonderful. That’s a real achievement. Yeah, that’s that’s super incredible. The prevalence of plastic surgery is for a lot of reasons. And so I think while it’s absolutely true that we live in a society that is very, very often very sexist, I think one of the things that you’re kind of bumping up against is the possibility that perhaps dismissing all plastic surgery as simply capitulation to evil sexism is like rightly being challenged. Right. And that’s OK. Right.
S6: Capitulation to to a society that is sexist or just sort of unmitigated vanity. Right.
S5: Vain and kind of dumb, which which is my the that is my gender goals. Like, that’s all I want. I want to have a lot of masculine jewelry and be a hambo. Yeah.
S6: As I say, your goal has been himbo for four days, one day, one baby, although you know, to be fair, counterpose a society that prizes these things and then saying also plastic surgery is vain and dumb. The society that you just posited, plastic surgery kind of makes sense. It makes a ton of sense. It makes sense for reasons that you outlined in this question about why you want it right. Because you you you want it for for yourself. But you also have some external concerns in terms of your your dating. And you don’t want to feel self-conscious. Right. You say I can’t tell if that’s influencing me a lot or not. And the fact that it’s in this pretty brief letter, the part that this this letter writer is considering herself in sexual situations. Right. Not only for her own wanting to not feel frumpy, but also for that of a partner I think is obviously influencing you to to some degree.
S5: Yeah, of course it is. And I don’t know that you need to pretend that it isn’t in order to say I’m allowed to make this decision. I think you are allowed to do whatever you like here. And if you want to say, I would like to do something that is vain and I would like to do something because I think that it will please more sexual partners, that’s a financial investment I’m comfortable making. You are allowed as you and entitled to do that. And that does not somehow compromise or mitigate the kind of person that you are. Right. I do think, you know, when it comes to stuff like surgical risk, there’s always risk when you go under anesthesia. But talk to one or more plastic surgeons about the risks of breast lifts. I don’t know that it’s an especially risky procedure.
S4: Again, obviously, all surgery is slightly risky, but I would reality test the idea that a breast lift is super risky.
S5: Right? I don’t know that a I mean, obviously they’re never going to tell you like, no, this one’s the safest. It’s not like no one’s going to open themselves up to that kind of a lawsuit, but. Right. Get some information about complications, possible side effects, possible outcomes. If you decide like. Nope, you know what? That’s too risky for me. I’m going to look for non-surgical alternative ways of dealing with this. Do that, but get that information first.
S6: Right. I think my my one hang up here because I also do whatever you want. Like, if you’re if you are seeking permission. Permission. Absolutely. Granted, my my one actual hang up here is the part where you’re working hard to lose weight and you can think of rewarding yourself with breast lift when you get to your goal weight and stay there for a year. I don’t know the nature of your chronic condition except that you say it is chronic and has caused weight fluctuation. I don’t know if you’re in a place now where losing weight is a thing that is medically advisable, something that your doctor wants you to do. Certainly medical doctors often tell people of that seem to be sort of overweight by a like arbitrarily assigned BMI that they should lose weight, kind of whether or not that is anything to do with their health. So my one hang up here is AVL. Consider releasing yourself of this carrot stick mechanism where you only get a breast lift if you hit this goal weight. But also, I would love for you to be in conversation with your doctor both about the safety of a breast lift for you in terms of your this chronic condition, but also this weight loss thing. I obviously, you know your medical condition better than anyone, but I would not tether yourself to that if it is going to impact sort of other other health decisions you make.
S5: Right. I feel similarly like I want to encourage certain aspects of your vanity and I want to discourage certain effects of like internalized loathing of fatness. Right. Which is admittedly a very difficult needle to thread. Like we’re all swimming in some murky water and it’s difficult. But yeah, this idea of if I earn this type of like size of body through various forms of restriction and discipline. Right. I then have the right to do something to my breasts that will make me feel better about the way that they look.
S4: And if I don’t do that, I will, you know, continue to feel frumpy, punish yourself by talking to.
S6: You need to feel frumpy or to not sort of deal with this because you have behaved improperly, right.
S5: So, like, none of which is to say, like, get it no matter what or don’t get it no matter what, so much as relative to how much fat you do or don’t carry on your body, you are entitled to think about ways that you can treat your breasts in a way that feels like loving, that increases your sense of attraction to yourself, that increases your like the aesthetic appeal of them. Like I want you to consider all of your options, not simply in terms of once I’m thin enough, then my life can begin. Right. Right.
S6: I think we’re both sort of coming down on the side of, like, whatever whatever version of this keeps you healthy as as a person in terms of managing this illness, not in terms of weight as relationship to health, which is dubious at best, but also just in terms of like how you see yourself and how you can proceed out in the world with, you know, and obviously, yeah, we live in a society, but you for yourself not feeling frumpy or old or these things that you’re sort of dealing with internally as relation with your illness. But, yeah, don’t you don’t need to tackle these things onto each other into a sort of mousetrap of then you get to finally feel good about your body because you will you will just keep adding obstacles in that way, probably if that is how you proceed.
S5: Yeah. I mean, like, obviously part of me wants to suggest like like throw like an all girl orgy where everybody like openly like lusts after one another stretchmarks and like deals with the realities of like bodies that move over time and with time and through time rather than like imagining future kind of sexist guys who are already disappointed in you the second you take your shirt off, just throwing that out there as an option. So, yeah, I mean, I want to offer all of those as possibilities. Like, I want you to be able to look for what are ways that you could try to think about your stretchmarks in a way that was not purely how disgusting. What a sign of my failure to remain then consistently throughout my whole life, through your whole life and an illness. Right. And ended and getting a Ph.D.. And and I also want to say that, like while acknowledging that, like the desire for plastic surgery, it can be fine to be vain, can be fine to be vain in particular ways. It doesn’t devalue you as a person. It doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself or can’t love yourself. So I realize I’m trying to, like, push you in several different directions at the same time.
S6: Right. But the question isn’t what should I do, but how can I figure out what to do? And I think ultimately it comes down to you can only you have to deal with your body today and tomorrow and the days that you you wake up until you get to you get to make those decisions about what is going to make you feel good in your body and also relative to what is safe and healthy in terms of this illness that you are grappling with, that is clearly a fairly significant factor in these decisions.
S5: Yeah. And just, you know, not to be all as someone who but like as someone who also had like, quote unquote, risky plastic surgery on my chest and yet also deals with the fact that, like, I’m getting older and I live in a body and I don’t always feel perfect about it. It’s like having done both of those things. Sometimes I also have to do the work of, you know, well, now I just feel worse about my middle instead of my chest. And sometimes, you know, I don’t think the goal necessarily needs to be. I wake up every day feeling totally self actualized and perfect love for my body. That’s exhausting. But I also think that it will be good to both tell yourself, yeah, I have the ability and the resources and the right to pursue these surgical options if I would like to. And it will also not solve the problem of if I feel old or if I acknowledge my fatness, then I think I’m disgusting and unsexy. Right. And how do I wrestle with that? Because that’s not true. And it’s, I think, often easy to punish yourself immensely for failure to get thin in a way that’s like just very, very challenging.
S6: Yeah. And give yourself the gift of looking at cosmetic interventions, including plastic surgery, as a morally neutral. Yeah. Completely morally neutral and also vanity as completely sort of morally neutral.
S5: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s wise. And to then also just do a lot of research, look at a lot of before and after pictures, familiarize yourself with the results, ask yourself if they look good. Ask yourself if you know, if you had that result, would you feel like it was worth it or do you think you would feel like Jesus. They did all that and this is what happened. I don’t want that because I think the more information you can give yourself ahead of time and the more realistic your expectations, the better the outcome will possibly be, as opposed to if you’re like, oh, this is kind of embarrassing and shameful. I don’t want to think about it too much. Let’s just get it and hope for the best. Right, right. Yeah. But to to trans people who have had cosmetic surgeries are not going to tell you to. Not exactly. You know, while you’re at it, how much higher can you lift them than to have them removed completely. Have you considered installing a flat chest. It’s more aerodynamic and the rain just rolled. Right down you, yeah, lift lifted all the way to heaven. It’s great. Then if you drop crumbs down the front of your shirt, they just shoot straight down, out crumbs. Don’t stay there. And that’s why I did it. Isn’t that, frankly, worth all the money in the world?
S7: So the subject of this letter is chicken versus husband. Dear Prudence, my husband refuses to eat at Chick fil A due to their anti LGBT donations. We are both in the LGBT community and his stance has made him cut off relationships far and wide. He has made it clear that eating chick fillet would result in divorce. The other night I mentioned missing the chicken and said that no other place had chicken. Quite the same. I talked about the place. I didn’t go there. I didn’t almost go there. I just mentioned it. My husband stormed off and has barely spoken to me since. He tells me that he is upset and can’t get over it. I feel like he’s acting like I cheated. I don’t feel that I did anything wrong. I understand he feels strongly on this one subject, but it’s closing out his spouse for mentioning chicken, not an overreaction. I’m curious, you say he’s cut off relationships far and wide and either. It’s certainly possible that he knows a lot of very homophobic people who kind of delight in saying, like, I’m going to go get this one chicken sandwich because it really, you know, drives home how much of a person I don’t think you are, which is absolutely possible, in which case I can understand. I also wonder if it’s like a lot of people who just simply weren’t willing to get on board of his, like eating at Chick fil A even one time is the worst thing a human being can do and total grounds for immediate estrangement. And he kind of lost it. So I’m curious to know I wish I had more details about what those estrangements would look like.
S8: No, I mean, that that level of extreme intensity around it. I mean, it’s definitely something that has come up for me. I remember one time going through an airport and it being the only open option and having that like I am so hungry and I don’t want this terrible food and I don’t want to give them my money. And how do I reconcile this? And OK, I’ll have the, you know, a Hudson bookseller, you know, nuts combo. But it it is not fulfilling. It is not sustaining. And there there’s just clearly, clearly some massive hurt going on. Jamie, like you say about, you know, these who these other people are and especially, I think communities in the south where Chick fil A is around every corner, like it was a big deal when the first Chick fil I came to New York and everyone was like lying around the corner, you know, but during pride, watching it get taped off by some rebellious fellows was a pretty pleasing sight marching up. You know, I I don’t know. I think these kinds of extreme moments in a relationship, you know, the the wish to kind of back away from it and just see if it releases is there. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Like, I think having some more conversation about this and being supportive and, you know, coming up with some kind of plan, like there’s this thought in my mind of like, how are you affirming your community, how, you know, maybe as a couple coming up with ways that you’re supporting local queer businesses or, you know, other parts of our community, like, is there some kind of balance that you can achieve together as a couple against these other people who you have estranged and and reaffirm the fact that you’re you’re a team like increase the sample size?
S9: Totally. Yeah, I this felt very online. This felt very much like the husband had way too many, very long probably Facebook comment wars over this with friends or people that you were once in an improv class with seven years ago and still somehow are in your network and you’re just you’re going back and forth. And I think in those scenarios where it’s friends or it’s people who are at that level of remove move, you can pretty safely when somebody sets a tone like that or not. Not a tone like that. Like when somebody sets a line of I really need there to not be discussion of Chick fil A and I just need everybody to understand that even the concept of regretting the fact that you can or should no longer eat it is a no go. I think that you can pretty safely keep that line. But when it’s somebody that you’re in proximity to for so many hours of so many days, it’s probably not reasonable. Like at some point the topic will come up again. And unless you and it’s too much to expect the person to thread the needle perfectly. So as you often tell me, like you need to increase the sample size, you need it to not be so painful, because every time it comes up, it’s a fight or even most of the time it comes up. It’s a fight. So I do wonder I do wonder if it’s possible to to raise that, to sort of say, you know, it is impossible that we will be together for years and decades without this emerging again. How can I talk about this in a way that doesn’t hurt you? How can I help you see that that I need you to prioritize me over your need to win this?
S7: Yeah, I think that’s really helpful. For whatever it’s worth. I had never even heard of Chick fil A until I had my first serious girlfriend and she was from Missouri and I got her job in high school and she introduced me to it. I mean, I think part of I want to say a couple of different things, one of which is like giving you the silent treatment or the near silent treatment for a couple of days. Even if this had been over, something big would would not be great. So I think one thing I really hope you can encourage your husband to do is really reconsider his priorities. The other thing is like I think it’s totally appropriate to have a general policy of not wanting to eat at Chick fil A. I get it. I’m there. I don’t I don’t personally eat a chick fillet anymore. But it’s also like no fast food chain is a good there’s not really such thing as a good company. And they’re like in and out. Don’t you know, in California, like I think something like twenty five thousand dollars. The California Republican. Back in twenty eighteen, they all engage in factory farming farming practices, they all underpay their employees and don’t give them enough sick pay to be able to stay home and take care of their health. Like, you know, McDonald’s has recently been hit with another one of those huge sexual harassment lawsuits, like they’re all viol. It’s not even just like Chick fil A is far and away the worst one. And then the other ones are almost OK, like they are all profound moral compromises. And yet, yeah, everyone also has to make those compromises on a regular basis within that system. And I’m not saying just like so just eat it fast food places all the time no matter what. I just mean, like, it’s a little strange that he’s painting this as the sort of one really important stance to take when it comes to like where a person eats. And it’s just like and again, I don’t say this, you can say to him like, so just get over it and eat it chick fillet. But it’s just like this. This intensity could be spread over, you know, take more stances. Yeah. Yeah. Many more but less intense stance. And I think to one thing that your husband’s doing here that it would really encourage him to reconsider is attempting to conflate morality and desire and choices all being the same thing. And it’s just like it’s not that he’s just saying, like, don’t eat at Chick fil A. It’s like don’t enjoy the thought of their chicken, which is like. Well, now you’re just telling me how to feel and like I’ll give you how to act like I’m on that same page, but like suggesting that is in fact good. Not to want something you’ve decided not to do is like there’s a little bleak. Yeah, yeah.
S8: I might like my admittedly, my first gut reaction to this was to unfortunately bring a small product placement onto your show here and to say that there is a cookbook that’s called Top Secret Cookbook where they have all of the recipes for these kind of faux versions of all of the great chains of, you know, whatever. Like I just happened to remember having a bloomin onion that was created at home. That was a wonderful creation. But the joy of having Aquaman create a Chick fil A sandwich from home for a queer community. Now, that was pretty great and it wasn’t identical, but it was very close. And not everybody has a deep fryer at home and nor does everybody want to. But if you’re really missing that flavor, maybe you want to sample all of the chicken sandwiches that are available to you at home and.
S5: Yeah, and, you know, the restaurant community, like I you know, and it’s also a great opportunity to say, like, we’re not going to be able to keep up this rate of factory farming into the future. Now, let’s all just accept it like soon. We’ll never know what chicken tasted like. No. And it’s probably a good idea to get used to that sooner rather than later.
S7: We’ll have our yearly chicken. Yes, yeah, yeah. It’s going to be like Redwall, you know, you’re like twice a year. They have to go back to it. Yeah. And then it’s just back to like Brimson pudding. And when CAUDILL Yeah. Always Kortu So yeah. I mean I think to say to your husband like I love you, you are more important to me than mass manufactured chicken. Yeah. I hope I’m more important to you than mass manufactured chicken. We both agree that LGBT rights are good. We’ve both committed ourselves not to going to Chick fil A. I don’t know what’s coming up for you right now, but I would rather hear about it. And I’d rather hear about what you’re afraid of, what you’re angry about. What bothers you about my simply acknowledging that I enjoy the taste of something I’ve decided not to eat. Why does that make you so angry and afraid? Why does that make you want to punish me? And it may be that you have like an OK conversation on the like outcome. It’s just like it’s for whatever reason, it’s too volatile a topic. I’m just not going to talk about chick fillet with him again. That’s fine. It’s not such a big issue that it’s like, oh no, you’re you’re going to lose your closeness. Like you may very well just need to say, like, OK, great. Whenever I want to talk about Chick fil A once or twice a year, I will go to a friend. Yeah, but he’s also certainly kind of like creating a situation where, like Chick fil A becomes the forbidden pleasure that’s like pleasure over like restriction and definitely. Yeah, like he’s he’s pushing you straight into her arms, the wings that I mean, and it was referenced.
S9: Right. It was the husband was like, it’s worse than if you cheated. And in a way, I mean, I’m sure that the I’m sure that the structure of the argument was you knew that this was a boundary and the unstated portion of it was and the boundary was supposed to come with a guarantee that we would never discuss this, that this would be a verboten topic. And that was the nature of the pain, was that you would hurt me. So by discussing this thing that, you know, that I hate and that I was asking you implicitly and without words to to never talk about. So, yeah, time to talk it out. Time to take away some of the mystery.
S7: Yeah. And, you know, good luck. I hope that your husband does not often respond to agreements about what you’re going to do together like this, because this sounds like a real potential area for growth for him.
S10: Either way, I’m just like going through this is just like I’m prepared for sheltering in place to last another 10 months. I’m prepared for it the last nine months. You know, I’ll just count backwards. I’m just totally ready to do whatever is required, staying at home less so. In the meantime, I do want to get to these letters. And our first one, I think, if you don’t mind reading for us, is perhaps the most topical one that we have.
S11: Sure. The subject is, oh, now I’m essential. Dear Prudence, I’ve worked at a well-known grocery store chain for ten years now. I went to college, graduated early and got a job teaching. I didn’t like the job for many reasons. When I left, I you click money and landed on a grocery store job over the years and learned all I could and moved up to a good position and make good money. I have amazing coworkers. I take pride in what I do. My family specifically. My mother has always looked down on my decision. She was, I mean, online applications to further my degree and offer help so I can start a career that’s more substantial. With the pandemic, I am now considered an essential employer. My mother is now praising what I do on social media, posting that grocery store workers like her daughter are heroes. I really do appreciate it. Trust me, I’m scared. But it truly hurts that this pandemic had to happen for a mother to be proud. Of what? I do do I try and explain this to her or just thank her and wash my hands?
S10: I, I, I love this, I especially love the subject line, and it’s like, oh, now I’m essential, which is not to say that this is like a fun or a funny problem. I just I recognize the real humor and like the immediate pivot from like what kind of a job is this? When are you going to grow up and get a real job like, oh, my God, you’re a hero. Thank you. Excuse me, everyone. My daughter works at a grocery store like just that now that she realizes she can get a little social capital out of this one, she’s so proud of you. And it’s just like I hope you give yourself at least a little permission letter writer to just fucking suck it in.
S11: Yeah. I mean, I think society as a whole is going to have to, you know, now and as this pandemic ends, revisit their conceptions of different work and the value that they play.
S10: Yeah, I absolutely think that you have every right to bring this up to your mother. I think the most important thing to bear in mind will be it’s it’s about clarifying with your mother what kind of comments you’re not going to put up with in the future and letting her know how her behavior in the past is affected you. That, I think, is a reasonable and achievable goal. And then when it comes to something like I want my mom to understand and share my values, that is the sort of thing that you have to say. I don’t get to control that and let that part go. So absolutely say mom is happy as I am, that you’ve been appreciative of my work. I just also remember that not that long ago you were really putting it down and that hurt. And I hope that you won’t do that once this particular crisis has passed that you can say maybe her response to that will be a little defensive. Maybe she’ll say, oh, my God, you’re right. I’ll never do it again. And she won’t. Maybe she’ll say, oh, my God, you’re right. I’ll never do it again. And then in two years, she does it again. And you’ll have to say, like, hey, remember when we talked about this? But absolutely. I think you can do it.
S11: Yeah. I think that in any relationship, it always benefits from having more honesty and communication about what’s important. But I would encourage the letter writer to focus more on the relationship with the mother and how the comments made her feel, as opposed to why she didn’t value the work before and things like that. I think it should be more about the feelings and emotions than anything else.
S10: Sure, yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense to me. And then also, I hope you can give yourself a little time if you feel agitated about it. This is definitely a conversation you could have tomorrow. You could have in a week, you could have in a month. So really, I think it’s just up to you to decide, like, when do I feel kind of emotionally prepared and when does my mom see, like, she’s relatively non agitated, given that you’re living in times of great crisis. But, yeah, absolutely. You can say something. And if in the future your mom sends you career advice that you don’t want, you have every right to say, I appreciate that you mean well, but I don’t want this anymore. And I will be deleting any future career advice you send me. And, you know, I have had a couple of, like, well-meaning parents don’t want to let me have this thing questions lately. And I think often what it comes down to is like, how do I convince my parents to let me have this space or this respect or this autonomy? And I think one of the hard things is they won’t ever give it to you. That’s why you have to take it for yourself. And their first reaction is not going to be. What a great idea. I’m so glad you’re taking this thing for yourself. It’s going to be, you know, resistance and the real struggle. The real problem is how do I go ahead with whatever I need, whether that’s setting a boundary, ending a conversation, declining to hear someone else’s, you know, unsolicited advice. How do I force myself to do it when I’m worried about making my parents upset with me or, you know, risking their disapproval? And I think you’re well set up to withstand a little bit of your mother’s defensiveness or disapproval. And I think you’ll get through it beautifully. And I hope that you stay safe at work.
S11: Yeah. Based on this question, I wasn’t sure if they already had a conversation about this or not, but I think that now maybe the lines of communication and focus on grocery triggers might also help to maybe she could talk more about what it is she does and why she likes it. And maybe that will lead to a change in the types of conversations they are having.
S10: Yeah. And, you know, I just I know lots of people who who work in food service and in grocery stores have already talked about the way that language, like the language of heroism, is often offered in lieu of like a living wage or decent health insurance or adequate protections in a pandemic. And so, you know, that might also be worth deconstructing with her, not in the sense of like you’re a monster for calling me a hero, but just like calling me a hero implies that there’s something unique about me. I’m actually just doing the job I already had because it has to be done and I’m scared and I need support and protection. So if there’s like any legislation. Officially on the docket in your city or state that would help protect grocery store workers, that you can kind of turn your mom’s attention to to say like here’s a great place to channel this newfound energy to help try to pass this so that we can get the things that we need in order to work safely. Maybe now is an opportunity for that, too.
S11: Yeah, the moms are doing social media. That might be a great way to use it for education and awareness.
S10: And right now she’s got all this time to post about how great you are. Maybe she’s got time to post about, like, increasing the minimum wage and making sure that you all get, you know, protective gear.
S1: All right. Let’s move on to a slightly more. Strange rather than like deeply, deeply painful series of lies, the subject of this next letter is just my childhood friend is a fraud. By the way, I’ve never read the Neapolitan novels.
S12: Is this the plot of one of them? Yeah, definitely. I forget which one, but 100 percent. I was like, I have read that somewhere.
S1: I should really read Elena Ferrante, if only to recognize Elena Ferrante plots in the letters. So my childhood friend is a fraud. Dear Prudence, my best friend growing up, Rina was in many ways my twin. We had extremely privileged childhoods financially, emotionally and otherwise. We had access to anything we ever wanted and our community was one of the wealthiest in the United States. We lost touch in high school and went our separate ways. We are now in her 40s and I recently stumbled upon the website of the nonprofit. She now leads right there, front and center. On the About US page is a sob story about Reena’s upbringing. She claims she grew up in deep poverty and lacked food, clothing and other necessities. Rena is actively using this information to solicit money for her nonprofit and show her employees that she identifies with their background. I actually know one of her employees and that person did in fact, grow up in poverty. My mom told me that Rina is now estranged from her family. It’s unlikely that Rina’s family members even know this is going on, much less would feel comfortable coming out of the woodwork to call her out on it. What is my role here? I feel sick that Rina is persuading donors using lies. And even worse, she could ultimately get discovered and have it reflect negatively on the very noble work her nonprofit does. What should I do?
S12: Well, this I would read this novel absolutely. I think I have a pretty straightforward answer to this. Maybe you can help me with it. I’m kind of like, I don’t think this is your problem. I, I, I think you haven’t seen this person and, you know, 30 years. And I think, you know, if there is a potential that Rina is using this story in a way that is actively harmful to people, then perhaps there is something there to explore. But I think there’s some I think there maybe is a wider question here about, you know, what kind of relationship do you want with her? Do you want a relationship with her? I think you don’t have to lie if this employee of hers that you know, you know, if it comes up in conversation or something. But I also don’t necessarily think you have to be involved unless it’s causing harm.
S1: Yeah. I’m inclined to agree here. I think it would be one thing if the lives were directly connected to the way she was using those donations and if you had direct evidence that she was embezzling money or misusing funds. That, to me, would feel like a pretty easy call. Whereas here, I think all you’d be able to say is, well, if she’s willing to lie about that, then maybe she’s willing to lie about other things. And so they should investigate her on those grounds, which. I can see someone saying that I also feel like that is more speculative, I certainly don’t see here like a slam dunk. You are obligated to say something. And if you don’t, it’s you know, it’s going to be on your head totally. So, yeah, I mean, I, I agree. It doesn’t seem like one of those cases where it’s like, well, maybe you didn’t really know what his home life was like and maybe they were doing worse than you thought. My guess is you probably had a fairly accurate idea of what her family’s financial situation was. And she has mostly made up growing up poor. I think it’s fine to say, like, yeah, she seems to be lying about that if you were in current contact with her. Yeah, I would. I would say you have a relationship now. Bring it up. But she’s a stranger to you. It’s not a smoking gun that she’s misusing or like misappropriating funds, if I were in your position, I would chalk this up as like, boy, that’s weird. That’s a weird lie.
S12: This would be a weird story that I’d be like, I’m going to pass this one out, like between some friends, and we can just discuss how bizarre this is. But I don’t think I think if you had evidence that it was causing harm, that she was misappropriating funds, you know, that’s one that’s one thing. But yeah, exactly. She’s a stranger to you now.
S1: Yeah. I mean, I’d be a little bit surprised if the only reason people were donating to her nonprofit, which you say does noble work, was because the, you know, current executive director claims to have grown up poor. Yeah, that might certainly be part of how she uses her, like, personal story to get donations. But I don’t think it’s the only thing she does it like without coming out swinging against all nonprofits. I do think it’s like this does not seem to me out of keeping with the kind of dysfunction that is common to nonprofits. There’s absolutely happens. Right. Like this is not just Rihanna’s problem. Yeah, I think there’s a little bit of a sense of like, oh, no, nonprofits are such noble, like impeccable, unimpeachable organizations. And she could bring down their good names when it’s like nonprofits often have like a lot of overhead and have more to do with kind of dysfunctional ideas of being a compassionate person who can manipulate or use a personal image to control other people like they’re not all perfect charitable. I mean, charity is already like a difficult word to kind of work around. Like, yeah, this to me feels very in keeping with like I think a lot of nonprofits actually operate on the basis of lies and exaggerations on this level.
S12: Absolutely. Non profit and charity drama is like a very specific niche. But as somebody who works in LGBTQ health care stuff that has to deal with a lot of nonprofit drama, let me tell you, it is a rich tapestry.
S1: And yeah, and so sorry not to say like, I really thought I could come across as like I have personal, like, firsthand information that like 80 nonprofit directors are currently lying about where they grew up or either that like who gives a shit? You know, like they’re all liars. They don’t want to make it sound like no big deal. But I think everybody has.
S12: You don’t know this draft’s that about page a very specific way.
S1: And yeah, I just don’t see a way. I don’t see, like something so big that you need to get involved. And I don’t see anything that’s like imminently disastrous. If you wanted to email her and say I saw your about us page and I think you’re lying about your childhood, you can and then you can, you know, spend a little time fighting with a stranger who used to be your friend. But you don’t have to. And if you don’t have to, and that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, go do something else with a clear conscience.
S12: Yeah, that’s pretty bang on.
S13: Thanks for listening to Dear Prudence. Our producer is Phil Cercas. Our theme music was composed by Robin Hilton. Don’t miss an episode of the show. Head to Slate dotcom slash Dear Prudence. To subscribe and remember, you can always hear more prudence by joining Slate. Plus go to Slate Dotcom Prudy Pod to sign up. If you want me to answer your question, call me and leave a message for zero one three seven one dear. That’s three three to seven and you might hear your answer on an episode of the show. You don’t have to use your real name or location and at your request we can even alter the sound of your voice. Keep it short. Thirty seconds a minute, tops. Thanks for listening.
S5: And on today’s plus segment, I like the idea that they would say, like, oh yeah, it was fine that we kissed as long as we both assumed we’d hate it. But if you were gay and of course, like, if you were gay, you must have loved it. You must have super wanted to kiss me specifically. And if you had a good time now, it’s a problem. Yeah. So I guess I just really want to say, first of all, I hope you get more gay friends. It doesn’t sound like you have a lot of gay friends right now. And I’m sure your friends are lovely people.
S10: I don’t want to be too hard on anyone who 10 years ago made it thoughtless jokes about girls kissing girls.
S7: To listen to the rest of that conversation, join Slate. Plus now at Slate dot com forward slash Prudy part.
