Dear Fatherly Car Owner

I like lipstick around my dipstick.
-Car decal

Dear Fatherly Car Owner,

Because a child's car seat and toys were seen in your backseat, I'm going to assume that you're a father.  Maybe your situation differs from my assumption, which is the risk we take when we make assumptions, but until new information comes in I'll just go ahead and consider you a father.

A car is a very visible accoutrement.  A car is often considered a status symbol.  Our bumper stickers and other car accessories are one-glance messages we project to the world.  People often use bumper stickers to promote ideas and messages; it's a way both of signal boosting and of advertising something about oneself.  What's your political affiliation?  What's your favorite dog breed?  Which organizations do you belong to?  What has your child achieved lately?  It's all right there on your rear bumper.

What do you want the world to know about you?

"I like lipstick around my dipstick."

So, you have a penis.  You like to get head.  You like to get head specifically (as heteronormativity rears its ugly head and I continue to make assumptions) from women who conform to the patriarchy's exacting beauty standards.

That's the one thing you want the world to know about you.  You like patriarchy-conforming women to suck your dick.

Not that you're a father, not that you're a member of some club, not that you passed some milestone in life, not that you want to promote a cause.  No, what you're most proud of is the pleasure you get in having women (certain kinds of women, mind you) give you head.

Here's the thing, Daddy Driver.  If we all lived in a happy void where nothing we do affects each other, I would look at that decal and think that if that's the most important thing complete strangers should know about you, you lead a very small, sad life.  That would be the end of it.

However, what we do actually does affect each other.  The things we say can sometimes fall in line with other messages and reinforce existing ideas.

There are ideas, for example, that women are only good for sex, only good for pleasing men, naturally subservient to men, and so on.

If you love and respect women, your car might boast messages like: "I love women!"  "I love smart women!"  "I love confident women!"  If your sexual needs have to be a factor, you could advertise: "Assertive women turn me on!"  "Funny women = hot women!"

But you aren't talking about women, really, at all.  You're talking about an anonymous pair of lips coated in patriarchy-conforming lipstick.  You've reduced women to one specific body part.  A body part you're co-opting for your sexual pleasures.  You don't care what a woman says with her mouth; you aren't interested in her thoughts, her opinions, her personality, her jokes, her wit.  You just want a sexual orifice, and she'd better make sure that it meets your patriarchal standards.

Your reinforcement of misogynistic notions communicates to the world that women are for sex, that women are a mere collection of useable body parts, that women had better meet patriarchal standards or they'll find themselves not even worthwhile for the one purpose you allow them.

When did you get this decal?  When did you decide to plaster this particular message on your car?  Before your daughter was born?  After?  Before her mother was pregnant?  After?  I picture you seeing the decal in a store somewhere and giving a good chuckle and deciding to make that purchase; I picture you slapping it on your car window.  Should I picture a happy daughter playing in the backseat?  A pregnant woman waiting for you in the passenger seat?

The daughter's there now.  The sticker's there now.  She's going to see it.  What will she think of it?  The people who see your car at work, in public parking lots, in your driveway; your friends and neighbors, strangers, what do they think of it?  What do they learn from it?  I wonder if you've pictured your daughter bringing boy friends home.  The boys notice your decal, and look at your daughter, and snicker, and those ideas you're reinforcing churn...

I hope that your opinions mature soon.  I hope that your daughter finds a thoughtful, caring father in you.  I hope that you scrape off that decal and learn to view your daughter and all women with a more respectful eye.

Maybe your daughter will join a club or join a team or get on the honor roll, and you can brag about that to the world, instead.

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Lisa Suhay

Dear Lisa Suhay,

I read your recent article on Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas. You admit mid-article that you shouldn't judge other parents.  You say that "of course you never want to judge."  I really think that you should have stuck with that idea and not written this article at all.  Yet you push past it with "the tendency to judge other parents is pretty powerful" and continue blithely on.

You know that you shouldn't judge other parents, but you feel that the tendency to do so is "pretty powerful" in certain circumstances, and that's enough justification to write a public article for a widely read title?  Your own impulses trump your morals fairly easily, there.  While we're talking about parenting, what sort of example are you setting for your children?  I wouldn't ask, but, considering the circumstances, the tendency to judge you is pretty powerful.

The article is about how the biological parent-child bond is so important that anything, including Olympic dreams, should be sacrificed to keep the family unit together.  However, early on, you say:

Still, visit any highly competitive training facility in sport, child or adult, and it truly is a family complete with all the love and dysfunction of the real thing.

Emphasis mine.  Sentence yours.  If children get genuine familial love and a sense of family from a training facility, is being away from family to train for the Olympics really so anti-family?

"I wanted to make my Olympic dreams a reality, so I told my Mom, 'I need a better coach, and I need a better coach now,' " Douglas told Time magazine. I'm sure she's a lovely child, I adore her smile and am rooting for her and shouting at my TV set like anyone else, but all I could think of was Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and what happened to her. It made me ask, "Who's the parent?"

The parent is the person who heard what Gabby said, agreed with her, and arranged for the move to the new coach.  The parent is the person who supports her daughter's dreams and recognizes her daughter's potential and helps her to realize her goals.  Do you want her mother to bring the topic up first?  Or do you want Gabby to be less ambitious?

However, all the reports today talk about how this Olympian has blossomed in Iowa

Great!  That's terrific.  Her new situation seems to be going very well for her, then.

Perhaps the stability and not just the coaching is what this child really needed coming from a home where her mother, who according the Virginian-Pilot divorced the same man twice and has struggled on disability to provide for her needs.

You may want to edit that sentence, as the syntax is a little off.

This is where shit gets real.  This is where your article stops pretending at idle musing and gets right into the judgmental criticism.  Her mother divorced the same man twice!  Her mother's poor!  For all of your "keep the family together at all costs" rhetoric, it's very telling that suddenly it's better to farm the kids out away from that all-important family unit if it'll get them away from the atrocities of poverty and divorce.

I'm not rooting for poverty and divorce.  I also don't think that poverty and divorce make people bad parents.  I don't know anything about this family's financial situation or how it affects their day-to-day living.  I don't know anything about why Gabby's mother married that guy or divorced him.  It doesn't sound like you do, either.  Have you been to their home and talked with their friends and family and sat in their kitchen and helped out at bedtime and discussed marital history?  Probably not.  Does Gabby's mother confide in you?  Probably not.  Do you know much about Gabby's siblings or their lives or their schooling or how loved and supported they are?  Again, probably not.

Poor people have kids and rear children and live as parents all of the time.  Is it ideal, no.  Struggling financially or not being able to afford certain luxuries or not being able to provide your child with certain opportunities hurts.  But Gabby's mother did provide her with great opportunities and was able to give her a great shot at rare success so very, very few people ever get to strive for at all.  Does Gabby's mother give her a new pony every year, I'd guess not.  Did Gabby's mother support her dreams and encourage her success and help her to realize her goals?  Yes.  Which of those two is more important when it comes to parenting?

I realize that I do not have what it takes to be any kind of Olympic parent. My hat is off to you all. Yet I wave my hat and smile for the parents who chose the path that kept them walking right beside their child. The path where everyone is under the same roof or at least in the same state at the end of the day.

I believe that there is a deeper strength we must train into a child, a tempering that forges their ability to win in life and still be on the medal stand. The kind of Olympic mom who is up at 5 a.m. making toast and hugging her child and whispering, "You can do this," in her ear before the event. I would not be able to give that responsibility to a stranger because those are the golden moments all parents treasure – win or lose.

Here's where you make it plain that the focus isn't your child.  The focus is you.  Your desires, your goals, your interests, your memories.  You want your children beside you.  You want to enjoy golden moments.  I understand where you're coming from, but what's best for the parent isn't always what's best for the child.  What's best for the family overall isn't always what's best for the child.

Parenting includes sacrifice, and I expect that you know that.  I know as little about Gabby's family as you do, but now that we've heard your interpretation of events, here's mine.  I like to think that Gabby's mother loves her enough to do what's best for her.  Gabby's mother recognized her potential and was willing to sacrifice that same-roof golden-momentness to help her achieve her goals.  As opposed to thinking, I'm poor and this house is chaotic so she's better off somewhere else, maybe her mother thought, My daughter's something great and I want to help her to make the most of her amazing gifts even if it means missing out on sharing her life the way I want to.

If it comes down to reaching for the stars or being tucked into bed at night by their mother, your kids will get tucked into bed.  You want your children right beside you where you can teach them the values most important to you.  Instead, Gabby's mother taught her daughter that her gifts are special, that her goals are important, that her family shares and encourages her dreams.  Isn't that better than, "I love you and I support you, only as far as your needs mesh conveniently with mine?"

With love,
Frank Lee

Dear Danielle

I hardly ever speak to my family, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
-Danielle, "Cutting the Ties That Bind"

Dear Danielle,

Thank you for this article.

While it would be terrific if all families were made up of caring, understanding, loyal individuals who loved and supported each other, that's not the case.  Many of us have that ideal somewhere in our minds, so when someone says "I haven't spoken to my brother in twenty years" or "Don't answer the phone, I never pick up for my father" or "My mom was a terrible mother," sometimes there's a lot of push-back.  Some people don't understand or can't accept that not all family members are good for each other.  They'll insist that you should reach out!  Patch things up!  He's your only brother!  Reconnect now before it's too late!  You'll live to regret it!

The example a friend of mine always brings up is Eminem.  He's said some terrible things about his mother, and there have been a lot of responses like: "You can't say that about your own mother!  What kind of awful human being says something like that about his own mother!"  As if despite the various problems he's mentioned (Munchausen by proxy, for starters), speaking ill of one's own mother is an unspeakable transgression.

There's a lot tied up in that.  The reverence our society claims to have for motherhood (when it's convenient).  The idea that we owe our parents something (everything) for conceiving us in the first place.  I think that a lot of people in the USA feel the need to cling to family especially because of our lack of a robust social safety net.  If we're cut loose from family, who else will take care of us?

Many families are great to each other, and that's a beautiful thing.  Other families are pretty good to each other, or at least can get along when necessary.  And then there are families where the bad outweighs the good, at least between some members.

Everyone has her own point where the balance tips.  Everyone can only take so much.  Sometimes you arrive at the moment when you realize that it's not worth it anymore.  You're not getting enough out of this relationship to make the pain and frustration and trauma worth it.

When people hear "I haven't spoken with my father in 15 years" and reply "That's a shame," yes.  Yes it is.  It's a shame that he's such a terrible father.  It's a shame that he's such a terrible person.  It's a shame that he'll never get to understand or appreciate what a fun, smart, compassionate person I am.  But I am not going to keep going back, trying to create a relationship with someone who isn't interested in having one with me.  I'm not going to keep throwing my time, energy, and emotion into a void based on a notion of "fatherhood" that's barely applicable anyway.

Insisting on some abstract notion of "sisterhood" based on mere biology is kind of rude to all of the people who genuinely work on their relationships and are good sisters to each other.  Insisting that the mere fact of biological fatherhood is owed some great loyalty is kind of rude to all of the people who put genuine effort into being good parents or caretakers or guardians.  A man ejaculates once, shows up a time or two after that, and isn't heard from in twenty years, but when he finally pops up, "You owe it to yourself to reach out to him!  You'll regret it if you don't!  He's your father!"  Never mind the stepfather (or single mother or foster parents or grandmother) who actually reared you with love and care.

As I said, everyone has her own point where the balance tips.  Different people have different levels of emotional energy and emotional resiliency.  Different people are more or less forgiving, empathetic, and tolerant.

If someone makes a decision to break ties with her family, that's up to her.

Let's stop paying lip service to the idea of motherhood and fatherhood and all of the rest of it.  Let's stop forcing people to honor destructive relationships just because we like to believe that there's some magical binding element in biology which makes blood ties intrinsically superior.  The reproductive process in and of itself does not make someone a good mother.  One particular moment of ejaculation will not make a man a good father; all of the rest didn't, did they?  The fact that two people share a common parent doesn't give them some sparkly blood link which unites them forever against all odds.

You know how feminists often explain that intent isn't magic?  Biology isn't, either.  It's just a matter of science and chromosomes and reproductive cycles.  That doesn't make up the social unit we call "family."  Love and loyalty and support and compassion and forgiveness and a lot of other sometimes pretty complicated things do.  And when those things aren't there, why stay in a relationship with someone who doesn't like you, doesn't want to understand you, treats you like shit, abuses you, and only deals with you because, technically, there's some biological link?

If it's not worth it to you, then it's just not worth it.

It's a shame that they'll never understand or appreciate what a great person you are.  I hope that there are other people in your life who do.

With love,
Frank Lee

P.S. This letter seems to have developed into something for everyone in general, not only you, Danielle.  Sorry about that!  I got carried away.

P.P.S. None of the examples above apply to me in particular.