Drawing upon her rich
experience of life, Prudence (Prudie to her friends) responds to questions
about manners, personal relations, politics, and other subjects. Please send
your questions for publication to [email protected]. Queries should not exceed 200 words in
length. Please indicate how you wish your letter to be signed, preferably
including your location.
Dear
Prudence,
My
fiance and I attend different universities. He is a scholarship athlete, and
academics are not his forte. Lately, I have taken it upon myself to write a few
of his papers. Now he has come to expect it. How can I tell him that I am not
his tutor or his slave without causing a fight? I don't mind doing the work, I
just know it's not the best thing for him.
--Two Diplomas,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Two
Dips,
You unfortunately have a
sticky wicket of your own making--and that may be the way out. Since it was
your idea initially, tell the athlete something like "I have made a
great mistake." Explain that you were not thinking ahead, imagined it to be a
one-shot, and now know it is not beneficial for him in the long run. (No
need to go into the national scandal of schools going academically easy on
their athletes and graduating dumb people.)
Prudie
foresees a potential fight, and then you will have to evaluate the young man's
values and intellect in relation to your own. As one of Prudie's friends says,
mazel ton ... tons of luck.
--Prudie, studiously
Dear
Prudie,
I need advice. A woman of
my acquaintance recently announced that she has a "boyfriend" and wants
everyone to introduce the fellow by that title. It seems to me that when you've
reached the stage of life where your children are eligible for AARP, all your
grandchildren are married, and some of your great-grandchildren have their own
Web sites, you should find a term other than boyfriend for the guy with whom
you're hooking up, hanging out, going steady, or whatever.
At
social occasions such as my son's upcoming bar mitzvah, I would be reluctant to
say, "I'd like you to meet my grandmother and her boyfriend." It just sounds
wrong. Can you suggest an alternative term?
--Neologistically Needy
in New Jersey
Dear
Neo,
Personally, Prudie is not
wild about "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" for people over 30, and she
loathes the term "lover" except when used by European women.
Prudie may be a tad retro,
but the terms "beau," "lady friend," or "beloved" seem about right for
grown-ups. Then, of course, you could always use the chap's name: "This is my
grandmother's friend, Mr. Schwartz."
Would you
feel very unhappy with Prudie if she mentioned that a married person's
grandmother referring to her boyfriend is rather sweet, considering
everyone's ages?
--Prudie,
euphemistically
Dear
Prudence,
I am
overly stressed by finals, and the question haunts me: When will the insanity
stop? Teachers are asking more of students every year, and it's coming to the
point where the average kid has to go to college for four years just to flip
burgers. I am asking you: Why is everything so hard now--more so than 25 years
ago?
--Pete Fiala
Dear
Pete,
Prudie isn't sure how to
square your complaints with all the news stories about grade inflation and
college-level courses such as "The Structure of the Soap Opera" and "The
History of Beads."
It is
possible you are not in a college suited to your needs. If it's any comfort,
Prudie cannot imagine how she got through her own university years and
sympathizes about the increasing need for degrees just to get a foot in any
door.
--Prudie,
empathetically
Dear
Prudie,
You counseled Holding a Secret
in Toronto that she had a civic duty to report her old boyfriend for tax
fraud. I can't say about Canadians, but we in the United States have no such
duty.
A small informal poll
indicated that we would voluntarily yield 14 percent of our income to
government. Anything beyond that is not voluntary. A Reader's Digest
poll indicates that the most anyone (at least anyone in a family of four)
should have to pay is 25 percent.
I believe the current
level of taxation is illegitimate because it is done without the consent of the
governed. Prudie, even if you personally don't agree that we are at the point
where noncooperation is a virtue, won't you admit that at some level of
taxation, "noncooperation" with the Internal Revenue Service would become a
civic duty?
During the Vietnam War,
some conscientious objectors believed they were acting for the good of the
country and did so at great personal risk. Perhaps tax resisters should be
viewed with the same mix of emotions that we viewed conscientious
objectors?
Prudie,
can I get you to withdraw your blanket statement that we have a civic duty to
report tax evaders?
--Charles Clack
Dear
Charles,
Prudie's reply to her Toronto
correspondent did not say that tax evaders must always be reported, but she
wonders why you wish the Reader's Digest respondents made up Congress.
While no one really likes forking over taxes, that money pays for a
multitude of government services and functions. Which ones should be
eliminated? (Whatever their true merits, widely unpopular items such as foreign
aid make up only a tiny percentage of the federal budget.)
Taxes are,
of course, a complicated issue. What is proper, and what is enough? The concept
of a fiscal citizen's arrest (tattling on tax fraud) is subject to many
considerations. What you call "noncooperation" with the IRS is called "tax
evasion" by the feds and is punishable by jail time. Just as those who
protested the Vietnam War paid various prices, it would seem logical that tax
protesters make a similar determination. Gandhi would be the perfect person to
consult about civil disobedience as it pertains to taxes but, alas, it is
impossible to contact him.
--Prudie,
representationally
