AL: There's a great deal of disappointment out there on the part of parents. Something obviously went wrong. Kids are supposed to bring you pleasure and joy and a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. I'm sure if anybody asked my parents if they would do it over again, they'd say absolutely, the kids made their lives. Apparently, this is not the way it is now.
PT: In addition to selfishness or maybe the disappointment of a failed marriage with kids around, perhaps you were tapping into something more generous, such as people voicing their concerns about the future?
As a parent, I can't tell you how indescribably sad I get thinking about the befouled and in a sense diminished Earth my kids will inherit. Perhaps some people react by thinking, I wouldn't want to bring kids into that.
AL: That's part of it. It isn't just that the kids have been a disappointment. It's the fact that the world has gotten to be such a dangerous and un-ideal place. People write and tell me often, "We're getting married and we decided not to have children because the world is a very frightening place to be in today; we don't think that we want to bring children in this world."
PT: It wasn't that way when you started doing the column?
AL: No, it wasn't. I would say that the world is getting more dangerous and untidy. The violence in America is absolutely mind-boggling. Drive-by shootings-who ever heard of that 40 years ago? You pick up the paper in Chicago, and two, three, or four innocent people got killed sitting on their porch or in their living room. A bullet comes through the window. People get killed in their own cars, going to a movie, on the street walking to get a pizza. From nowhere a bullet.
PT: What's your take on it? Where are people getting this?
AL: There's a lot of anger out there. I think TV has incited a lot of violence. It looks so easy to do, and everybody's doing it.
PT: Are any questions taboo for you today? Any subjects ever?
AL: No. Would you believe that, in the beginning, 38 years ago, we couldn't say anything about homosexuality.
I got a letter which made reference to a man's homosexuality and I put it in the paper. The editor in a Michigan paper called and said, "I want you to know that I'm putting a block on the front page saying that there will be no Ann Landers column today because the material covered was not fit for print." I asked, "What's going on," and he said, "That's the way I feel." And he hung up. Of course, everybody went right out to buy my column in the Detroit Free Press, to see what it was that the local paper suppressed. That little incident made me very popular.
PT: Today there are no more taboos?
AL: Oh, no.
PT: For you or for the readers?
AL: Today, I could deal with any kind of subject-oral sex, whatever-and I do.
PT: What do you say about oral sex?
AL: Whatever people want to do is their own business and nobody else's. And most sex drives are instinctive. And whatever they want to do is all right with me. I'm not a policeman.
PT: Coming out of Sioux City, Iowa, did you ever expect to be saying these things?
AL: Coming out of Sioux City, Iowa wasn't a bad idea.
PT: It seems to have worked. It gave you a very reliable fix on the world. Are they going to retire your name when you retire?
AL: When I die, so does the column.
PT: You're not giving this up?
AL: No. They're going to find me over the typewriter writing the last column. I've got no plans to quit, but when I go there'll be no more Ann Landers. I own the name. I make that decision, if I thought there was someone out there terrific. I haven't seen anybody.
PHOTOS (6): Ann Landers (RICHARD SHAY)
Tags:
advice,
advice columnist,
Ann Landers,
college graduate,
conscience,
dear ann,
editors,
eppie lederer,
half years,
healer,
intimate details,
listener,
media,
moral standards,
morality,
powerful woman,
private personality,
professional counselor,
professional personality,
professional writer
