Letters to the Editor

Giving solo parents their due

Between bottles, diapers, and a forty-hour workweek, I read the "Bringing up Baby" issue of the Bulletin page by page, something I rarely do. I am sure many of your readers identified with the triumphs and tragedies shared within the pages, as did I. However, while the couples profiled are diverse, they are couples all the same and represent society's ideal two-parent family. Not one story included the men and women today who by choice or circumstance (or both) are solo parenting. This issue could have been all the richer if the joys and struggles of this group (27 percent of all households, according to your statistics) had been included.

Name withheld by request

Editor's response: We agree. While we had planned to include at least one article focusing on a single parent, all our potential subjects declined, for one reason or another, to participate. We do hope to publish such an article in a future issue.

Denying nature?

Naturam furca expellas usque tamen recurrit, we learned in Latin literature class. "You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, but relentlessly it keeps coming back."

This millennia-aged adage is realized in "Just Saying No to Motherhood" in the "Bringing up Baby" issue of the Bulletin. No, no, says Jennifer Neiderhouser Hedden '90. "I have never felt the twinge of maternal instinct." Yes, yes, says the photo of Hedden, as she clasps her beagle, Seamus, to her breast.

Once again, nature is not to be denied.

John Martin '48
Washington, D.C.

A request

One of the unforeseen consequences of an increasingly e-mail-based correspondence culture has been that many magazines, including this one, have been receiving fewer letters to the editor as readers communicate directly with the authors of articles. The Bulletin editors would still like to hear from our readers, though, so we encourage you to send copies of your e-mail messages to us. We'd like to know what you think of our stories, and we're sure fellow readers would be interested in your comments, too.

-- The editor

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