Dear Queenie,
What is it with people nowadays? Why can't they put down their cell phones and/or other gadgets long enough to hold a person-to-person conversation?
I have a cell phone and a computer, but if I'm talking to someone or sitting at the dinner table or something like that I let the phone call go to voice mail or the computer's e-mail tone wait its turn.
Queenie, what ever happened to simple good manners?—Offended
Dear Queenie,
My father died a few years ago and since then my mother has turned her back on all her own friends and butted in on my relationships with my own friends.
Not only is this a nuisance when we want to do things together, it makes it impossible for me to stay on the same terms with my friends when my mother always seems to be involved.
Queenie, why doesn’t she stick to friends her own age?—Fed up daughter
Dear Queenie,
A couple of years after my first wife died I got married again. The problem is that she refuses to visit my daughter's home because my daughter has a picture of me and her mother, my first wife, on a table in the middle of her living room, but no picture of me and my second wife, which my present wife thinks is disrespectful.
Queenie, is she (my second wife) right?—Caught in the middle
Dear Queenie,
I’ve been divorced for several years now and I’ve been dating a man who is some kind of cousin to my ex-husband. The problem is that some of my ex-husband’s relatives do not approve because of the relationship. They seem to think it is adultery or incest or something.
I want to stay on good terms with them because they will be relatives in-law again if we get serious about each other, and even if we don’t I don’t want to cause problems in his family.
Queenie, what do you say?—Dating again
Dear Queenie,
I want to ask my doctor to give me birth control pills but I’m afraid he will tell my parents and they will freak out.
Queenie, how can I get them to be cool about this?—Teenager
Dear Teenager,
If you are still in your teens you are still growing and adding the hormones of birth control pills to your developing body is probably not the wisest course of action, which is just one reason your parents will “freak out.”
You are right to want to be prepared for what may happen, but it would be better to put off any possibility of becoming pregnant until you are older and better prepared to deal with the consequences.
Yes, I know this is difficult, especially if you have a boyfriend who is saying to you, “If you love me you will …,” but the answer to that is, “If you love me you won’t … .”
