Dear Queenie,
When I was 10 years old my parents used to leave me at home alone when they went out for the afternoon or evening. I wasn’t afraid to be alone. By the time I was 12 they would leave me to take care of my younger sister and about that time I started babysitting for some of their friends.
My 12-year-old daughter knows all this and thinks I am treating her like a baby for still refusing to leave her alone in the house. She also wants to start babysitting outside the home.
I say times have changed and it is more dangerous for a child nowadays.
Queenie, what do you think?—Cautious mother
Dear Cautious mother,
I think you are right. These days it is not safe to leave a child alone until he or she is big enough and self-confident enough to fight off or escape from an adult intruder, which is to say, well into his or her teens.
Meanwhile, however, you could enrol your daughter in some classes in self-defence and child care, so she will be prepared when you are ready to leave her alone or in charge of younger children, or, God forbid, in case anyone ever attacks her.
You could also let her work occasionally as a “mother’s helper”; that is, look after younger children while their mother is resting or doing other housework. That way she will gain valuable experience for when she is big enough and old enough to babysit alone.
Dear Queenie,
The other day I looked out the window and saw the man who cleans my yard urinating against one of my trees. He didn’t even have the decency to turn his back to the house, but of course, if he had he would have been facing the street, although there is a fence and the tree would have been between him and anyone on the street.
I don’t speak his language and he doesn’t seem to understand mine (I explain what I want him to do with signs and gestures), so there was no way for me to reprimand him about this, but it reminded me about something someone told me when I first came to the island.
They said it was not illegal for a man to urinate in public on the French side as long as he did not shake his penis afterwards to get rid of the last drop of urine.
Queenie, is that true?—Curious
Dear Curious,
I have heard the same story. I don’t know if it is true. You would have to ask a Gendarme or a lawyer on the French side. Maybe one of them will be kind enough to write to me and set the record straight.
However, legal or not, it seems to me that such behaviour is certainly uncouth, not to mention unsanitary!
Dear Queenie,
I made a new friend at school this year and she invites me to her home a lot. I like going there because her family is so nice.
They eat dinner together and everyone is laughing and chatting and it’s like they are all best friends. I like it a lot, but when I go home I start crying because my family isn’t like that at all.
We never do things together or talk much to each other. We don’t even eat together. We just go the kitchen and help ourselves whenever we feel like eating and it’s never all at the same time. Sometimes two of us will eat at the same time, but it’s not like we’re together because we don’t talk to each other or anything, we just eat our food and go.
I tried to talk to my mother about this, but she was too busy to listen.
Queenie, how can I get my family act more like my friend’s family?—Sad all the time
Dear Sad all the time,
You can’t solve your family’s problems all by yourself. In fact, you can’t solve the others’ problems at all, so concentrate on your own.
Keep trying to talk to your mother. If you still can’t get her to listen to you, go to a teacher you trust or to your school counsellor and ask for help. Maybe if they intervene, they can make your mother understand that you seriously need her attention. If not, they can help you get counselling to learn to cope with your problems without her help.
You could also join a girls’ group like the Girls Brigade, Girl Scouts, Pathfinders, sports team or whatever to develop some outside interests and maybe find a female mentor who will give you the guidance you need. Your teacher or school counsellor could help you find the right group.
And keep up your relationship with your new friend. Even if your family is not all you would like it to be, you can learn from hers to be a better parent than yours are, and when you have children you can lead them in the right direction.
Dear Queenie,
I’m all mixed up. My boyfriend told me he loves me, but his best friend’s sister told me he really thinks I’m ugly and he wishes I would leave him alone.
Queenie, who should I believe?—Confused
Dear Confused,
How well do you know the sister? Is she a friend of yours? Is it possible she also likes your boyfriend and is trying to break the two of you up?
Tell your boyfriend what she said and see what his reaction is. Then cool it for a while. Don’t break up with him, but don’t call him or e-mail him. Wait for him to call or e-mail you. If he likes you, he probably will, and if he doesn’t call or e-mail you, it probably means he doesn’t care that much about you.
And if he does call you or e-mail you, be careful how you respond and what you say to him until you are sure of how he feels about you.
Dear Queenie,
Queenie, why do men who claim to hate homosexuals spend so much time talking about homosexuals and homosexual activity if they hate it so much? It gets boring and even disgusting after a while, and I have to wonder why it is so much on their minds.—Just curious
Dear Just curious,
People who are afraid of something tend to dwell on what they are afraid of, like children who are always talking about ghosts and bogeymen.
Also, many men are actually intrigued by the subject, but are afraid to admit it for fear others will think they have homosexual tendencies, so they go on and on about how much they hate it and this gives them an excuse to think and talk about it.
When I hear them I am irresistibly reminded of the quote from Shakespeare: “The lady (in this case, the fellow) doth protest too much, methinks!” This thought is backed up by a study I have heard of in which a group of men were attached to machines that could measure their state of sexual arousal (sort of like lie detectors) and then shown various types of homosexual pornography.
Most of the men who claimed to be homophobes showed a considerable amount of arousal, while only a few of the men who claimed not to care one way or the other about the subject had any reaction at all, and then not much.
