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2001-06-24 | 12:26 p.m.

Sent Leo my mini-essay attempt and got this reply:

You're a good writer, fluent, and often funny, and the essay mainly works, but the subject you deal with seems to me too serious for the tone. Personally, anyhow, I can't easily reconcile serious and complex moral issues with the mildness and lightly humorous manner of the prose. It's as if you are emotionally engaged but rather than indicate anything like that, you effect the light tone. �

He's probably right. I'll put it aside and come back to it. I think I have more to say on the subject. The other subject that's on my mind a lot lately is all the stories about bad mothers and fathers and dead children that I cannot get out of my mind. Other kinds of news stories I can forget almost immediately, but not these. I keep them, for reference apparently. Here is a partial list of what I carry around with me, working backward:

Texas mother drowns her five children in the bathtub, lays them out on bed

Swiss crackhead Mom arrested by police, who forget to take her 16-month-old toddler; baby survives for 10 days drinking toilet water

Bay Area mother methodically kills children by suffocating them with duct tape, lays them out on bed

Bay Area father kills ex-wife, leaves toddler son alone on a street corner, flees to France

Ten-year-old girl killed during "rebirthing" session, e.g. blanket suffocation therapy

House catches on fire, father gets out but neighbors notice he doesn't try to save any of his six children inside

Mother leaves car running in front of sandwich shop; thief steals car, throws boy out the back door but fails to release seat belt, causing boy to be dragged to his death while mother watches

Dad leaves two-year-old son in truck while hunting, boy gets out of truck, wanders through the snow in his pajamas, father can't find him, baby dies of exposure after walking for miles

Two guys leave baby girl in truck while hunting in hot weather; baby dies

Mother forgets to drop off baby at day care, leaves baby in car seat in hot weather; baby dies

Mother gives birth, throws baby in back yard for dogs to eat

Crank Mom forgets to feed daughter for a month, girl dies

Mother drives car into lake, leaving sons in car seats to drown

Pre-teen boys lead three-year-old out of suburban mall, molest and beat him, then leave him on railroad tracks to die of his injuries

etc.

I'm sure you can add more to the list. So what are we supposed to do with all this misery and the fretful energy it spawns? Where are we supposed to put it? Put it into loving the children who are left, I guess. Ours and other people's.

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