Dear Parents,

I wonder sometimes about how I ended up with such different views from you two. It could just be the times. All the youngsters seem to be more liberal these days. Or not. I could have ended up this way regardless of the time period. I wasn’t raised to think so freely, but this happened anyway. My parents haven’t noticed. They have lost me. Some days I see that as a bad thing, but today is not one of those days. I am so far away, but I like where I am and I won’t apologize for it.

Maybe there wasn’t a simple way to prevent this. But to all the other parents…all I have to say is know your children. You don’t have to understand them and you don’t have to be their best friends. Just know them. Know how they are, what they do, and their quirks. Know them and learn to trust them. If you care and if you’re a decent person and if you notice things you’ll pretty much raise them well. Hopefully they won’t be too wild (but no promises).

Civics

People should be honest. This doesn’t mean blurting out everything that comes to mind, or being so brutally honest to the point where it’s hurtful. It means being true. This idea seems like it should be simple. Sometimes it is. But often honesty gets passed over in an attempt to adhere to social norms. I hate that. I hate these little games we play with each other just because it’s viewed as the proper thing to do. There are so many people who put up a front everyday. Why?

One of the things that bothered me in Ordinary People is the sense of fake. In the charming world of Lake Forest everything has to be in good taste. Everything has to be perfect. That’s not how life works but so many people try to pretend that it does. The dinner party scene angered me the most. Why should it matter if the Cal mentioned that Conrad is seeing Dr. Berger? It shouldn’t. Somehow, we’ve adopted this twisted idea that not having every single detail of your life precisely in order is a bad thing. Well it’s not. It’s okay to be a little bit crazy. We all have skeletons in our closets.