The Breakfast Table

Chips and Dip

Dear David:

Back from swimming lessons. Interesting how you learn to be a parent. She wanted to quit last night, of course, never to swim, never to get out of bed, never to leave her room etc. So I told her that I’d discuss it with daddy when he got home, and we did, and then I informed her that she would continue swimming, that we’d take her to the ear doctor if her ears bothered her, but that I would be happy to come today and watch, and that was that, and I hadn’t figured out what the consequences would be if she didn’t go along because that wasn’t a possibility. “In our family,” I told her, “we don’t quit things just because they’re hard.” She was fine today. End of subject. She did great at her lesson, and then we ate some nachos.

So I do believe in right and wrong, believe in it fervently, believe it to be at the essence of our jobs as parents. To persevere is good; to give up is bad. I think we have confused the question of who decides with what’s decided; so I end up being labeled as pro-abortion, when after five pregnancies and three miscarriages, I most certainly am not. I just don’t want the government deciding it; I don’t pretend to know the answer for someone else, better than they do for themselves, or to be honest, even if I do (I would certainly have an opinion), I don’t think they should be obligated to take it. I worry that the return of the public debate of right and wrong is not about morality but about politics, and that conservatives and libertarians may find themselves at odds, or I hope they do. In the frenzy to punish the press, the last thing I want is more government regulation, directly or through the vehicle of lawsuits. There’s still a value to a free and irresponsible press, as there is to other forms of free and irresponsible decision making.

And I think it’s wrong for someone like Kevin Murray to live one place and represent another, if that’s what he did, but I have to tell you that the quality of black political leadership in this city and in this country is a politically incorrect topic that should be addressed. The leaders are elsewhere; in sports and entertainment and business, and it’s hard to blame them. The record is intolerable. I just read the galleys of Clint Bolick’s book and his depiction of the inner city is striking; he and I would disagree on some of the solutions, certainly, but the fact that America at the most prosperous time in history is allowing the maintenance of a permanent, black and minority underclass is an indictment not only of the apathy of the rest of us, but of the lack of leadership from those who do have a voice. Just because I was paying attention to his name, I happened to read a completely different article about a developer who wants a special law passed so he can build in Westwood before paying off the neighbors and who is carrying the legislation but Kevin Murray. It’s good for developers in fancy neighborhoods with litigious neighbors.

I have to take issue with you about liposuction, and your assumption that those who have it might save themselves time fretting about their fitness later, and thus would be on the positive side of your scale in terms of how little they thought of fitness….

Anyone who has liposuction thinks about their body a lot, before, during, and after….

Most of us aren’t capable of doing otherwise. What we are capable of, I think, is better or worse thinking, thinking that is healthy and good, or not so healthy. It is not so good to hate your body, not so good to ignore and treat it like it could never possibly break and wear out. It is good to think of your body as a miracle, as a gift from God, not a foreign object attached to your head. It’s not a question of more or less, but right and wrong….

Off to play Hardball. Wonder what the topic will be….

Best, Susan