« Thursday February 19, 2009 | Main | Elly's Letter for February 23, 2009 »

Dear Elly,
Walking may actually fit your
requirements best with or
without a jogging suit and
a friend to exercise with.
Jog with Annie by all means
but she's not likely to be
able to do it at the one hour
a day you can on a regular
schedule. Good shoes may be
more important than the suit.
If you walk, start at say
three miles per hour; just
leave the house walk for
30 minutes and retrace your
steps. Gradually work up to
a faster pace. Do jogging
when Annie wants to, but
ask Connie, who goes to a gym
to show you stretching
exercises to do before and
after walking or jogging. She
should have been given
stretches to do by her trainer.
Don't count progress by the
scale. Watch for your
clothing fitting a little
looser and a general feeling
of having more stamina.
The next step is to work on
low fat food, but as you
know already from trying to
get the family to eat more
vegetables, this requires a
lot of negotiation or even
learning to eat separately
from the guys dedicated to
their meat. Remember how
Phil and Michael came home
separately from buying the
Xmas tree and it turned out
they had bought all the
ingrediants for Pizza? Good
luck and good health!
Regards,

Amy D, Vienna VA

I disagree that those who shared their objections to the strip that ran on Thursday, February 12, 2009 need a "chill pill." These objections did not seem to be based on the premise that raising children is unimportant, but rather on the implication that raising children and engaging in the other types of activities that Elly listed are mutually exclusive.

It might be instructive to look at another strip, one that ran on March 18, 2003. In this strip, Elly encourages Deanna to put Meredith in daycare and go back to her pharmacy job. In Elly's words: "If you resent being at home, she'll sense it... and you'll both be unhappy."

It seems to me that Elly was speaking from experience--in many of the early strips, her resentment is palpable. Just because Elly was physically present doesn't mean she was emotionally connected to her children. On the contrary, I see quite a lot of emotional distance in the strips where Elly seems to be at her wits' end.

Working parents can have a very strong emotional bond with their children, and parents who are home full-time can be emotionally distant. Also, as others here have pointed out, it's possible to find ways to be active in one's community while involving the whole family in such activities. Please, let's avoid false dichotomies.

Katje B, Albany NY