Jack & Jill Politics

Thank you all for you notes. I'm still trying to process this. It's so hard to understand how this can happen to her because she truly was one of the good ones and even more disturbing to know senseless crimes like this happen everyday.

Chick is nuts. She paid to implant 14 embryos when she has no job, no man and apparently no sense. I think the outrage is coming from the fact that she chose to have all these children with absolutely nothing in place to ensure their financial, emotional or spiritual support. I'm sorry but it seems like an abuse of a procedure meant to help women who can't have kids…not to feed one woman's insane idea that having tons of kids will somehow heal her or complete her.

Omigod, that was your friend?! I read about that earlier and thought it was so horrible…she seemed to enjoy traveling and was unafraid of going to various places….and just from the article you could tell she was loved. i'm so sorry she just kind of jumped off the page as someone who you'd like to know…my prayers are truly with you and her fiancee and family…

You know the tire tracks are still on Bristol too.

LOL

No, its not the case these days with the extended family being right there willing and able to help – that's sad to me. I realize we had a lot of advantages with that. I remember my dad's cousin staying with us when my twin sisters were born. I was fortunate that I grew up right around a lot of my dad's relatives.

My deepest condolences.

I am sorry to hear that pjamma. Prayers out to you and her family.

My 4 grandparents were immigrants and there were 13 children on my dad's side and 9 on my mom's side. I was a rebel in my family in many ways, but one of the most interesting was that I developed friends. I was actually forbidden from having friends when I was young — the philosophy was that all you need is family and everyone else will betray you, it was a survival philosophy, in some ways. Two of my grandparents never learned even to speak English because they stayed within the immigran community. It was a philosophy that made sense when we lived in the town where both families lived, but was not very helpful as we had to move all over the country for my dad to find jobs. To this day, my only sibling does not have friends. Friendship requires skills that are different than being part of a family. And they are also skills you learn as a child. So although I have a good friend who I have sustained a relationship with over 25 years and always have other friends in my life, I think I am still awkward as a friend.

So, TownI think there is a certain element of fear in insular families — the parts of my family that didn't have friends also experienced the greatest tragedies, terrible jobs at steel mills, sudden deaths from lack of safety laws, alcoholism. The receiving world was hostile and all they had was their family. Then it becomes a mental habit, unexamined, in future generations, until someone in the family can break the pattern.

My 4 grandparents were immigrants and there were 13 children on my dad's side and 9 on my mom's side. I was a rebel in my family in many ways, but one of the most interesting was that I developed friends. I was actually forbidden from having friends when I was young — the philosophy was that all you need is family and everyone else will betray you, it was a survival philosophy, in some ways. Two of my grandparents never learned even to speak English because they stayed within the immigran community. It was a philosophy that made sense when we lived in the town where both families lived, but was not very helpful as we had to move all over the country for my dad to find jobs. To this day, my only sibling does not have friends. Friendship requires skills that are different than being part of a family. And they are also skills you learn as a child. So although I have a good friend who I have sustained a relationship with over 25 years and always have other friends in my life, I think I am still awkward as a friend.

So, TownI think there is a certain element of fear in insular families — the parts of my family that didn't have friends also experienced the greatest tragedies, terrible jobs at steel mills, sudden deaths from lack of safety laws, alcoholism. The receiving world was hostile and all they had was their family. Then it becomes a mental habit, unexamined, in future generations, until someone in the family can break the pattern.

My 4 grandparents were immigrants and there were 13 children on my dad's side and 9 on my mom's side. I was a rebel in my family in many ways, but one of the most interesting was that I developed friends. I was actually forbidden from having friends when I was young — the philosophy was that all you need is family and everyone else will betray you, it was a survival philosophy, in some ways. Two of my grandparents never learned even to speak English because they stayed within the immigran community. It was a philosophy that made sense when we lived in the town where both families lived, but was not very helpful as we had to move all over the country for my dad to find jobs. To this day, my only sibling does not have friends. Friendship requires skills that are different than being part of a family. And they are also skills you learn as a child. So although I have a good friend who I have sustained a relationship with over 25 years and always have other friends in my life, I think I am still awkward as a friend.

So, TownI think there is a certain element of fear in insular families — the parts of my family that didn't have friends also experienced the greatest tragedies, terrible jobs at steel mills, sudden deaths from lack of safety laws, alcoholism. The receiving world was hostile and all they had was their family. Then it becomes a mental habit, unexamined, in future generations, until someone in the family can break the pattern.