Word: susane
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years later, Susan got another vivid lesson in the priority of adult desires over children's needs. Her stepfather, a pillar of the community, started sexually molesting her. Susan reported the abuse, but she and her mother decided to drop the charges. Message to Susan from Mom: I'm willing to sacrifice you--your physical integrity, your self-esteem, if necessary even your life--in order to hold on to this...
...have, in the Susan Smith case, the female dilemma at its starkest: Not the pallid "family-vs.-career" predicament, but a zero-sum choice between romantic love and mother love, with guaranteed misery no matter which you chose. Novels like Anna Karenina taught us the "bad" woman's fate, which is ideally suicide. The Bridges of Madison County gives us the "good" woman's answer, which is to renounce romantic love for the sake of husband and kids. But the more disquieting message of that story is that four days and three nights with a sexy stranger can outweigh anything...
...socially redeeming lesson we can derive from the Susan Smith case, then, is that girls need the possibility of some great adventures other than romantic love. Yes, love is a joy and a shining moment of transcendence in our life. But it is not the only one. If I controlled the nation's playlists, there'd be a lot fewer songs about "giving all for love," and plenty of danceable tunes about running for Congress or getting through community college as a single mother...
None of this is to excuse Susan Smith's crime. But if we're going to dwell on her case for anything other than voyeuristic thrills, we have to forsake the easy, self-distancing explanations like "evil" and acknowledge that the unthinkable is always lurking within the familiar. That the "love" we endlessly celebrate can be a source, sometimes, of endless sorrow...
Several times a month, Susan Thomases, a New York City lawyer, flies to Washington for her usual strategy rounds at the White House. Thomases, says a Clinton White House consultant, is Hillary's best friend, and senior White House officials believe her words carry the authority of the First Lady. So they listen-at the oddest hours. "If you got a call from Susan, it was generally at midnight," said Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, at last week's Whitewater hearings. "In our office she is known as the Midnight Caller, because that's when...