European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 3, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday june 3, 1980 stepping info fhe shoes r letters of another Parent not easy to the editor the stars and stripes Page ii new York not Magazine articles like battalions of infantry come bunched together As if a trend were a War As if. Because of the pollen in the air or the volcanic Ash everybody sneezed the same sneeze. It has seemed almost impossible during the last several months to pick up a Magazine without finding another article on the perils of being ,1 stepparent. We even have a new word stepping to describe the condition and the process. I read All these articles i la read any thing. Besides i am a stepparent and so is Muf wife. We get it both ways coming and going. My children come on vacations and holidays her child goes on weekends. In Between there Are Telephone Calls. These Telephone Calls accustomed As we Are to the Telephone As an instrument of urgent business or a substitute for the confessional Booth can be so inconsequential As to seem silly but one of the Nice things about a family is that it is a place where we Are permitted to be inconsequential and silly. To digress with a for instance my son called the other afternoon from Florida. He was on his Way to some puberty rite at which he would be required to make a speech on mathematics. He was wearing a suit he deeded to Complete his suit with Atie. He had forgotten How to tie a tie. Imagine if you can trying to explain How to tie a tie on the Telephone. I went to get a tie so that i could attach words to the manipulations necessary to achieve the noose. His sister held the phone on his end to leave both his hands free. I found that i could t knot my tie because i had wrap Ped it around the Telephone Cord. We were not serious people. This is certainly inconsequential and silly. But at the same time i was at least pretending to be a father and my children were checking in As they do almost every Day. If they did t Check in they would arrive in Manhattan on vacation or a holi Day feeling like strangers. And they would resent my stepdaughter for having monopolized All of the i consequence and Silli Ness in my life just As my stepdaughter doubtless resents All the time i spend on the Telephone talking o my children just when she is returned from school with a Litany of triumphs and humiliations to re  Are Back at stepping. All the mag Azine articles emphasize the difficulties the resentments the problems with cur fews with meals with television programs with a rated movies with by making and Dis washing and going to the Delicatessen for bagels and staying Home Reading comic books on a sunny Day designed for Central Park. The Magazine articles Are full of sulks and tantrums tears and Spile As Well As Claustrophobia. Being a stepparent we Are told is not being Mellow i won t deny the difficulties. Especially when the stepparents Are dealing with teen age children to whom the world itself is often an insult who spend half of their waking hours combing their nerve strings plucking themselves As if they were Gui tars. Can my wife ask my son to sweep the front Steps of a House in which he May feel he is Only a visitor Well she can if my son is in the habit of asking my wife a Hundred questions about the history she teaches because he is writing a term paper on his vacation. Can i explain to my step daughter that unless she turns Down the volume on styx or Queen i will feed her record player to the cats she is inclined to listen if 1 can be otherwise relied on to explicate a difficult poem to listen to her opening argument in the next school de Bate to Correct her grammar and to and mire her bizarre attire. Among other things a St family is a series of Trade offs. I am about to make what i believe to bean obvious Point but it is a Point altogether missing from the battalion of Magazine articles on being a stepparent. You arc a step Parent. You inherit a child who owes you nothing is naturally suspicious feels cheated of her own father rejects your authority walks around you As if you were a hat rack or an unfortunate Accident. She also watches you How Are you treating her Mother and she watches her Mother is her Mother paying More attention to you than to her own daughter you must win her Over and not wit Candy. You try to do so of course by establishing Trust. You make rules be cause if you Don t make rules you arc a creep but you explain Why you Are making those rules the rules Are up to a Point negotiable. If you Are angry indignant dismayed or just Plain tired you Tell her Why. If you Are pleased you say so instead of grunting. You try to be consistent and fair and when you Are not you remember to apologize. You do a lot of listening whether or not you Are interested in what you Are hearing. Obvious. What Are you doing you Are treating her like another human being not a Vassal. The result is amazing. Just As we Are All amateurs when we first marry we Are All amateurs at being parents. The Sec Ond time around we Are obliged to consider what a Parent ought to be and we Are obliged to Stop taking a child for granted. She May be Little but she s real and Why should i you have to earn your authority ? having become a Stepfather i think i am a belter father to my own children than i was when As an Amateur i did l have Lime to listen to them and i thought they owed me something. We owe Ihm some thing i hair dignity. Then maybe they will love us. Defending no nukes movement i was totally appalled after Reading n let Ter denouncing the no nukes movement May 16. This writer is definitely ignorant of the consequences of atomic Power plan and also of what the no nuke movement represents. The no nukes movement is a credit to the society a Hope for the future. This movement is working for a future built on Safe Energy Ocean Thermal Ocean wind Mills tidal Power Hydro Power solar pan Els Wood alcohol biogas . And conscientious conservation and an end to the threat of atomic Power plants. Atomic Power plants have a Long list of liabilities uranium an exhaustible resource is mined for nuclear fuel. Uranium emits radon Gas which is causing cancer among miners and adding dangerously to the radiation Levels elsewhere. Low level radiation previously thought to be Safe is causing cancer and birth defects. Some surveys show that nuclear workers and communities near reactor Siles Are already suffering from abnormal cancer  transport of nuclear cargoes jeopardizes the safely of millions of people every Day. In the past decade there have Bee hundreds of accidents involving radioactive materials. In 1975, the american physical society estimated Hal people living As far As 40 or files from an atomic reactor might have to be evacuated following the mass release of radioactive Gas. The nuclear regulatory commission estimates that Only 43 percent of the people will be Able to a Vacuole within one hour. Can you imagine what will Hap pen to the remaining 57 percent a reactor meltdown could kill thousands of people and do Elroy a land area the size of Pennsylvania according to the govern ment s own estimates. Three mile Island illustrated thai the unimaginable China syndrome could happen. Radioactive waste is so dangerous that an invisible speck can give you cancer. It is so hoi and corrosive that in can cat through just about any known substance. Also i slays radioactive so Long in must be isolated from living things for a Quarter of a million years. Tons of nuclear waste arc building up at each nuclear site All Over the world with nowhere to safely store it and no solutions on the horizon. Current waste disposal Sites have already leaked radioactive material into the environment Kudina Clive waste produced by atomic reactors is becoming generally available for producing atomic bombs. There have been several reports in the established Media about Mccrel atomic arsenals in South Afri Ca Israel. Pakistan and other countries. The atomic Power Industry is an economic disaster. The unavoidable Cost of construction now More than $2 billion for one reactor decommissioning waste disposal and equipment repairs arc forcing electric Rales up. Uranium fuel has skyrocketed from s7 to s40 per Pound and More. Our taxes underwrite Plant Security radiation monitoring waste disposal decommissioning and promotion and research and development thai make in All possible. Our nations atomic Power plants consume Bil Lions of dollars per year and contribute Only 10 percent of our , the continued use of atomic Power plants invites More deaths the mutating of our genetic code ecological catastrophe and a contributing Factor towards economic depression. Karen s. Us slow Alschbach Germany european edition col. Hose Trauber. Usa Edmer Al chef it. Col. 1c. Taylor. Usan Deputy Edmor a Hommert in in it Edler  manager Elmer d. Frank. Henry j. Epstein this newspaper is a authorised unofficial put Catlon Tor . Armed Forcett overseas. The stars and stripes it published in enl unction with it armed forces information program of the department of defense. Contents of the Start and sir let Aro nol necessarily lha official View of the Irta . Government. Depart Manl of detente or the . European command. The appearance of dust fast in Hilt newspaper concerning commercial Publ Scallons does nol cont tule an endorse ment of me deportment of defense. 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