Dear Abby...
So--I'm out for breakfast on a sunny Saturday morning, reading the paper while waiting for my omelet to arrive. In the Body & Soul section, Dear Abby is providing sensible, mainstream advice for regular Americans, as she does every Saturday in the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Letter #1) A teenager discovers that her father is having "sexually explicit conversations" online--and knows this has been going on for years. She is crushed, feels that he's betrayed her mother and her siblings--and thinks her father cares more about his fantasy life than his real family. She also thinks she should talk to someone about this, but isn't sure how to do it without raising her parents' suspicions. She is "Conflicted in New York."
So Abby sends her to the school counselor, who will help this poor kid sort out her options.
My first thought was that Abby is making the assumption that there actually is a counselor in Conflicted's school, and that the counselor could schedule the time necessary to help with a delicate, multi-layered family issue that, on the face of it, has little to do with education. Many school counselors are buried under the master
Letter #1) A teenager discovers that her father is having "sexually explicit conversations" online--and knows this has been going on for years. She is crushed, feels that he's betrayed her mother and her siblings--and thinks her father cares more about his fantasy life than his real family. She also thinks she should talk to someone about this, but isn't sure how to do it without raising her parents' suspicions. She is "Conflicted in New York."
So Abby sends her to the school counselor, who will help this poor kid sort out her options.
My first thought was that Abby is making the assumption that there actually is a counselor in Conflicted's school, and that the counselor could schedule the time necessary to help with a delicate, multi-layered family issue that, on the face of it, has little to do with education. Many school counselors are buried under the master
