Rarely Should a Daughter Leave Her Mother

DR. WALLACE: I'm 15 and really need your help. Please answer my letter. You are the only person I can trust. I live with my mom and her boyfriend. My dad is remarried and is living in Germany (he's in the military) with his German-born wife.

I love my mother very much, but living with her is terrible. I can hardly take any more of it. Mom's boyfriend is an alcoholic. He doesn't work, so Mom (who works) supplies him with all of his booze. About twice a week, he gets drunk and starts hitting and choking my mom. I get very upset and start crying, and then my mom screams at me to go to my room and lock the door.

I've talked to mom about getting rid of this guy, but she says that she can't because she loves him. It's hard for me to understand how she could love someone who is cruel and mean to her.

I'll be in the 10th grade and like my school and teachers a lot, but I would give all this up if I could live with my grandmother (Mom's mom) who lives about 50 miles away. My mom doesn't want me to go, but my grandmother does. What do you think? Mom's boyfriend has never laid a finger on me. — Nameless, Jackson, Miss.

NAMELESS: Rarely would I suggest a daughter leave her mother, but this is one of the times I would recommend it. Mom has a strange, tragic way of being "loved." Let's hope your absence will cause her to realize that her boyfriend is a good-for-nothing jerk and send him packing. If that happens, return to Mom.

Mom's live-in boyfriend is actually behaving worse than a jerk; he is a criminal and should be spending time behind bars for a long, long time!

 

MY PARENTS SAY THEY ARE SOCIAL DRINKERS

DR. WALLACE: My parents consume more alcohol than I think they should. When I tell them this, they keep telling me that they're just social drinkers, like millions of Americans. Please tell me what a social drinker is because I want to discuss this with them. — Charlene, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

CHARLENE: Washington University in St. Louis conducted a study on the drinking habits of over 1,200 people and came up with this definition: A social drinker does not have any social, medical, legal or work-related problems due to the consumption of alcohol and has gone more than a month, twice a year, without consuming one drink.

 

MOTHER — YOUR DAUGHTER NEEDS TO SEE A DERMATOLOGIST

DR. WALLACE: I'm starting to have minor complexion problems. I also happen to eat a lot of junk food, especially french fries and chocolate. I guess you could call me a chocolate freak. I have chocolate almost every day.

My mother says my complexion will improve if my eating habits improve, but my science teacher told me that junk food doesn't cause complexion problems. Please tell this to my mother, so she'll take me to a dermatologist before my complexion gets any worse. — Courtney, Boston.

COURTNEY: Eating junk foods is unwise, but it neither causes complexion problems nor makes a poor complexion worse. Medical research has discovered several wonderful drugs that can help clear up your complexion. You need to visit a dermatologist — soon!

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. E-mail him at rwallace@galesburg.net. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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