IN AN ANONYMOUS first-person plural, the Daily News editorial writers recently chose to criticize Andy Reid, albeit "gently." His silence, the writers argued, was not "golden," they say.
I would like to comment on those parents whose children have troubles. And I would like to call them "the Parents in God's First Orchestra."
They are the blessed ones. So often I have seen 24-hour parents toiling and anguishing away about what one waitress once explained to me was "that phone call."
That phone call is when something has gone terribly wrong.
For a parent or sibling or any loved one, a path that one human takes or descends into because of a blood-chemistry problem is not the fault or responsibility of another loved one.
That is very hard thing for all of us to abide by. We want to help. In fact, while the troubled one struggles to get better, silence is very golden to not expand these struggles of the person in trouble.
The only thing that Andy Reid can do now, perhaps his saving grace, is go to work. By keeping silent for his sons' sakes, he is preserving their privacy. Is it possible to realize that people around someone who has a blood-chemistry problem have done nothing to abet or create or exacerbate that problem?
And in going a step further, all of us humans get a chance in that first proverbial row to suffer and worry about someone we love. And it is horrifying to know that one human, particularly blood-related, cannot help another at that particular time.
But for goodness' sake, or whatever power your writers are appealing to, leave the parent alone and let him go to work, whatever he may do for a living.
Melinda Roth
Philadelphia
Thank you, Jill
After reading Jill Porter's recent column on troubled children, I want to let you know how Jill helped me put my problems in perspective.
I can relate to what she is saying because I too, have beaten myself up, asking myself why my child is so self-destructive. That child has been a problem for the past decade, whereas I also have a daughter with a college degree in nursing who is working at University of Penn Hospital.
Through it all, I have not given up on my problem child, and hope and pray that he will turn his life around, because he did not come from that sort of upbringing. I feel that certain people stereotype me and judge me for problems that they cannot even comprehend because their children did not turn out to be troubled.
My heart goes out to all the other parents and grandparents who have a "troubled child."
Karen E. Vincent
