Site Content
Hey Abby "What's up"
Hey Abby “ What’s Up” Have you heard of an Advice Column? It’s a column which was published over a century ago in newspapers and magazines, where readers used to ask questions, talked about personal experiences and wanted a feedback from the writer. One of wellknown advice columns back in the late fifties of the last century was published by Pauline Phillips who used the name Abigail Van Buren, she used to answer her readers questions and concerns in a column which was known as Dear Abby. I would like to take you to a trip back to those times so we can take a look at people’s problems then and compare to ours now, may be we can track the drastic changes which took place between then and now. Check out the Grounded Teenager who wrote to Abby back in 1959 complaining about her strict mother and her rules, check out those rules and notice how the American Society dealt with relationships between adulscents at that time. Don’t say anything as of yet, we’ll cover more issues and we’ll see what happened between then and now. Dear Abby:I am a girl who will be 16 in two months, and my mother finally agreed to let me go in cars alone with boys. Well, to make a long story short, this real neat kid who is 18 asked to take me to a drive-in movie last Friday night, and I was on Cloud Sixteen because I’ve loved him for a long time. My mother said I had to be in by twelve-thirty. Well, at exactly twelve-twenty-two we pulled up in front of our house and we started to talk, and since it was two-ten before we noticed what time it was. Boy, did we ever say good-night fast. Abby, I swear to God all we did was talk, but I guess my mother doesn’t believe me. Now she’s grounded me for a whole month. Do you think this is fair? How can I get my mother to give me another chance?Grounded Dear Grounded: In means in the house, not in front of it. I think the penalty is a little stiff for the crime, but since you’re such a great talker, maybe you can talk your mother down to two weeks.