My husband, Peter, called me from the bathroom. “Carrie!” We are still in Mexico, and Peter’s abscessed tooth had been extracted earlier that day. The extraction had been difficult. Peter was sore and tired, and he had not eaten since the night before. All this factored into what happened next.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My 14-year-old daughter recently came home from school sobbing because she said that a lot of the boys were calling her ugly. As her mother, I feel horrible and partially responsible since she takes after me. She looks so much like me when I was her age, and I hate to admit it, but it’s not a great thing. Seeing her so upset broke my heart. She locked herself in her room for hours and refused to eat dinner that night. What makes this situation even harder for me is that it brings back painful memories from my own teenage years. I struggled with low self-esteem growing up and was often teased for how I looked. I worked hard as an adult to move past that and build confidence in other areas of my life, but hearing my daughter repeat the same hurtful things about herself that I used to think about myself has been incredibly difficult.
Hello, dear readers, and welcome to a bonus letters column. We have some interesting questions and will dive right in.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I’ve been married to my husband for about 10 years now, and we have two kids together.
Vice President JD Vance faced an impossible task trying to negotiate an end to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. That Vance failed is no surprise, given Iran’s so-far implacable resistance to the demand that it abandon its nuclear weapons program. That, Vance said, is President Donald Trump’s “core goal” of the war.
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DEAR HARRIETTE: It feels like my parents neglect to recognize my birthday every year, and it is becoming painful. My birthday was about two months ago, and they didn’t make time to celebrate with me. I shared with them that I’d love to go out to dinner or do something together. After the day passed with no celebration, I told them that this often happens and then I am expected to create birthday plans for all my siblings, which I find inconsiderate. Today is my brother’s birthday, and my dad asked if I had any plans in mind.
War is a great engine of change, sweeping aside assumptions, toppling established power relationships, driving new forces into play, rearranging long-held theories and challenging orthodoxies. That happened in six years of fighting in World War II, in the seven days of the 1967 Middle East War, and, we are discovering in recent days, in five weeks of upheaval in Iran.
President Donald Trump says he finds it insulting to hear critics say he does not have a plan to win the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “People say he doesn’t have a plan,” Trump told reporters Monday. “I have the best plan of all, but I’m not going to tell you what my plan is.”
DEAR HARRIETTE: A few months ago, I traveled home for winter break and went on a date with a former classmate. I was surprised when he asked me out, mainly because growing up, I was the only gay boy in my grade. To be honest, I really wasn’t even that interested in him; I just wanted to see what this was about. Turns out, we get along well. He wasn’t just trying to make a move – he took me out to eat at a nice restaurant a few towns over, got me dessert and drove us to the beach to watch the waves afterward. It seemed amazing ... until I found out he has a girlfriend. I ended the date immediately and made him take me home. I want to tell his girlfriend, but I don’t want to potentially out him, especially in the evangelical Midwest. What do you suggest I do?