The Right Track

Dear Dustin,

This email is in regards to your article of Nov. 5th, which was "optimistic" about marriage. Clearly you are a person with very strong beliefs who has given this subject a lot of thought. Moreover, the fact that you published your opinion to be criticized by the public speaks volumes about your faith (in yourself and religion). With that said, I would like pose a few observations for your consideration.

First of all, you should consider yourself very lucky to have grown up in a two-parent home. In your article you try and convince us readers of the benefits of marriage and two-parent families, yet I don't think many people would disagree with you. Surprisingly, what you fail to consider is a fact that you artfully gloss over in your article. As you put it, "over fifty percent of marriages succeed." From which we can assume that nearly fifty-percent of marriages fail. Your parents are still together. Lucky you. Many people are not so fortunate.

There are many reasons why marriages fail, something you don't mention in your article. What sort of advice do you offer women in abusive marriages? Should they stick it out because their kid will be less likely to have "behavioral disorders"?

What you fail to grasp (amongst other things) is that people don't want to be a single parent. As you so eloquently tell us, single parents are more likely to be "stressed out." Who wants that? Yet life isn't simple, Dustin, and neither is marriage. I hope you will be fortunate enough to get married someday and that your wife or child won't ever get divorced or lose their partner prematurely (or consider having an abortion, but I'll leave that for another time); but you shouldn't be so quick to condemn the decisions of others until you have walked a mile in their shoes, as the saying goes.

The gaps in your arguments are many, but I'll leave my response at that.

Brian Greene206-783-1516

PS Warren G. Harding won too, but that didn't make him a good president.