As a therapist (and part time writer), here's some of the issues I deal with about this time of year:
* "Although I am not ultra-religious, my brother is an angry religion hater. At Easter time he likes to tell my young kids that Easter is when we celebrate the day the Easter bunny was born." ~or~
* At the annual Easter egg hunt, dumb bunny parents are yelling at their kids! ~or~
* "I love to serve lamb for Easter meal. My 'rural' cousin, just before the blessing will always say, 'ewww, mutton? Who ever eats a smelly sheep?!'"
______________________________
Three issues? So whatever shall I do? So I made a mature and well thought out decision as to which issue to address: I flipped a coin.
Happy Easter everyone.
ps  It's really not the celebration of the birth of the Easter bunny......

Hey John,
This past weekend I took my two girls to a local park for the annual Easter egg hunt. It was pretty well organized and quite crowded. It was divided into age groups to make it more fun for the kids. Both of my girls found a bunch of eggs full of candy, and they had a good time. The problem was with me. I was really bummed out by the behavior of some of the parents. Some of the mothers were screaming orders out to their little kids in order that they could find more eggs. One mother was yelling, “Billy! BILLY! Turn to your left! NO!! YOUR LEFT!! Oh for God’s sake”. Another mother admonished her six year old, “is that all the candy you got?!”
My question is, should I tell these parents to be joyful for their kids, me just be quiet, or simply not take my kids back?
Easter Blues
 
Dear Bluey,
It is unfortunately a reality that some of these parents belong in cages, not in public places. Doing “free counseling” with knuckleheaded parents can be helpful, but can also result in angry, inappropriate responses. The real question is: did your kids enjoy themselves? If they were blissfully unaware of the tightly wound noisy parents, and were pleased with participating in the event, it would seem that future participation may be good for them. Personally, I would go down to the local hardware store and buy a pair of those squishy little earplugs. As the event begins, put them in and try to focus on your children. You can unplug yourself just as the event is ending. You sound like a kind and loving mother. I hope your Easter was joyful.

HeyJohn,
I am an eighteen year old girl living in a bad house. I never met my Dad, and my Mom ran off with another woman a few years ago, and I haven’t seen her since. I’m living with my Grandmother, and this is like living in a homeless shelter or a nut house. My thirty year old cousin and his meth-shooting girlfriend are taking one of the rooms in this house. Last month my boyfriend set up his PlayStation 4 in my room for us to play. A few days later, when I got back from school, it was gone. I asked everyone who took it, and of course no one admitted anything. Later I found the pawn ticket in my nasty cousin’s bedroom. When I showed it to my grandmother she said, “Well, for God’s sake, if you want it back, go pay off the pawn ticket!”  I told her since she’s letting these skanks live in our house, she should pay for it. She got really mad at me and started yelling. I went down to the pawn shop, paid $90.00 to get it back, and brought it back to my boyfriend’s house. I’m worried he will stop liking me because he’s discovered what a screwed up family I have. Do you have any ideas to help me stop suffering?
White Sheep Of The Family
 
Dear Sheepy,
I know it’s not this easy, but four little letters will eventually bring you some peace of mind: M-O-V-E. Although you presumably have a few months before you graduate, and thus will likely have to stay in the Nut Hut for a while longer, start making plans for what will follow graduation. College bound? Make an appointment to see financial aid and see if they have loans, or better yet, grants for disadvantaged youth. There are also very well regarded vocational schools (one in Texas is TSTC). Job Corp can be cool, as can Americorp. Training for virtually free? What an opportunity. Going to stay local? See if you can access the bulletin board at your local college to see if there are other girls looking for roommates.
The bottom line is this: you can’t change dysfunctional people, especially when they see no need to improve. We can, however, succeed in our own lives. It takes some effort, but so what? Would you rather voluntarily live in misery? Not me. I hope not you either.
p.s. As a relationship enhancer, keep your boyfriend away from the House of Weirdness. You are right to be concerned he might get scared by the level of dysfunction at Granny’s House of Horrors. Additionally, don’t always use him as your therapist. There are lots of counselors to be found. Boyfriends and girlfriends are supposed to have fun together, share dreams with each other, and generally enjoy each other’s company. Search for a counselor for counseling if you are so inclined.
Get after it, kid. You sound like you have a lot of potential. Break on thru to the other side.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Technical_College
https://www.jobcorps.gov/
https://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps/join-americorps

[Please see essay below for Part I]
In college I didn’t major in Pornography Studies or anything. I did take a class in Human Sexuality however, as I thought it might be a good place to meet girls. But that didn’t pan out. All I got out of it was a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and a C+. Thus, what I know about the subject of pornography I have learned from my forty years of counseling. I never thought it was the world’s greatest activity, but I was somewhat neutral about the subject. However, the world has changed, and one of those changes is the intensity of what is out there. This ain’t your grandpa’s nekkid pinups no more. So here are a few real life cases. The facts are altered enough to keep the people anonymous, but the situations are real.
•I thought when I saw this young couple (19?) they were coming in for some relationship enhancement. Instead, shortly into our visit she said, “Will you tell him I am sick of his sexual punishment?” Yow! So into our time together, I learned that he received his “sex education” by watching triple X movies. This was pre-internet, so he had to drive with a few friends about an hour to watch lots of hardcore porn. As a result, that’s what he thought sex with his girlfriend was supposed to be. Even though she objected, his overly assertive personality won out. I saw her years after their predictable break up, and she felt she was still scarred by the extreme sex he had with her.
•Years later a husband began our session by asking, “if she has had her teeth professionally whitened, and is getting breast implants, do you think it’s reasonable for me to assume she’s making plans to leave me?” Before I could respond, she said, “Why in the hell would I stay? You are in love with all those hoes you spend time with on your computer. Mr. Sommer, I have asked him for months to come to bed with me, and instead he stays with his internet hoes. I can’t compete with all the sex stuff that they do. Our sex life hasn’t existed for at least six months. Also, do you think it’s okay that he accidentally left the porn site up, and our thirteen year old son moved the mouse in the morning and sees oral sex happening?” Although he profusely apologized for the kid incident, he made no reassurances he would, or even could cease his porn watch. I received a letter from him a few years later informing me she had permanently left a few days after our meeting. He hadn’t seen the kids in over two years.
•A concerned mother called me asking for me to help her daughter. She thought her son-in-law was “addicted to porn”. I told her I would be fine in consulting with her daughter, but she had to initiate the call. Five minutes later she called. Crying, she said they were living at the job site, and if she went to his boss for help, her husband would likely lose his job and their housing. She continued. “even though he is well paid, we can’t afford his nine-hundred dollar a month bill from the porn sites”. I was so stunned, I asked her to repeat her last sentence. Nine hundred dollars?! Uh oh. This represents a different level of pornography. Is her husband watching snuff films where the sexual abuse becomes lethal? Infant sexual abuse? This one really sent me reeling. I’m experienced enough not to play my hand to the extent where the person asking for help is hurt by my response, but I had to tell her that this is a whole new world of extremes. My parting advice was to ask for outside help to motivate her husband to seek help, in this case possibly inpatient. This issue mixed with what his job was meant he would lose his job without the help, so get the help while it’s still available. I never heard back from her.
•He was thirteen when he talked the neighbor’s younger boys into trying some sex. He had both oral and anal sex with the cousins. Although the county attorney wanted “inpatient treatment” for him, further investigations indicated that the facility was a poorly run lockup facility for young sex offenders. As this kid was small and immature, he would have likely been fresh meat for the older offenders. Instead the judge locked him up in a detention facility for four months, and put him on indefinite probation until he is eighteen. After I got to know him, I asked, thinking he had been sexually abused himself, “Where did you first learn about this kind of sex?” With his head hanging down, he quietly said, “On my phone”. When I asked if there was a particular friend or relative who had shown him the site(s), he said, “I dunno, you know, everyone’s phone”.
 
If you notice, these few examples are without religious or moral commentary. That in itself is a whole other vantage point that, although extremely relevant, is missing from this response. Dear Abby Jr. apparently thinks that this subject is one that pits the hip enlightened ones against the conservative moralists. She is wrong. Harmfully wrong. Although people have occasionally viewed extreme sex and not suffered detrimental effects, so many people have been harmed by their indulgence in porn, and a lot of them are really young, that to ignore that well known fact is far worse than being naïve or ill informed;  it is a form of  journalistic malpractice.