Raising children with values

I was disappointed to read the editorial cartoon on Sunday that suggested that women want to be equal until it comes to paying the bill on a date. My husband and I mused that it seemed like something that would have been published in the 1970s, and everyone would have gotten a chuckle. But it doesn’t ring true today.

I was shocked to see that cartoon followed up on Monday with one depicting two young girls at a sleepover, and one saying that she hoped that one day she would “grow up and divorce a man just like Jeff Bezos.”

As a woman, and a mother, I am truly offended by this onetwo punch. First, I would hope that my daughter would not marry someone who was so arrogant to believe that, after 25 years of marriage, sleeping with another woman in his own house, while his wife was home, would in any way be acceptable behavior. Additionally, they were married before the founding of Amazon, so I’m guessing that his wife didn’t have a vision of dollar signs blinding her when they were betrothed.

As far as the “footing the bill” for the date, we have raised our children, one boy and one girl, as equals. If they arrange a date, they are expected to pay for that date. If their dates take them somewhere expensive, they are encouraged to offer to split the tab, which was exactly how I handled the situation more than 20 years ago when I was in the dating world. It seems to be pretty commonplace today. TERESA SCOTTI

Mt. Lebanon