Dear Gramps,
I’m not upset nor even offended about your comments on one-parent homes. One-parent homes are sometimes even more honorable and loving then two-parent homes. I am a single mother raising a two year old, and yes it is hard , harder then anything I’ve done in my life, and sometimes I even wonder if giving her away would have worked out better. But giving her away would have been the selfish thing to do, not keeping her. I would have been a selfish mother giving her away just because it would have been easier on me, Because I assure you that my little girl will never lack one moment of love or affection. She is loved and will never have to wonder why her mother gave her away or feel like she was not worth keeping. She will always know that she was perfect just the way she was. A one parent home is all she needs. Instead of going around and encouraging young girls to commit a big transgression like having premarital sex and then washing away the consequences by just giving it away, you should teach them at a young age that each of our consequences are our own, for us to deal with everyday. Maybe if the church starts teaching its youth about owning their consequences it might have less unwed mothers.
Martha Soriano
Boise, ID

Dear Martha,
Congratulations to you on the wonderful and responsible way that you are managing your affairs as a single mother. I’m sure that your little daughter will be richly blessed by having a mother such as yourself, and the lack of a father in her home will have much less of an impact than it would have on many, many homes with single mothers.
I certainly hope that I didn’t imply any thought that pre-marital sex is to be encouraged in any way. Nor did I wish to imply that giving a new-born infant away on the part of a single mother was in anyway a selfish thing to do. It is by far the much, much harder thing to do. The selfish thing is to keep the baby and subject it do an extremely difficult environment, that in the vast majority of cases results in such children growing up in an extremely disadvantaged condition because of the much smaller portion of parental care that can be given when the mother, usually in a very low income environment and without much education, has to spend much time away from home trying to earn an acceptable living.
And, believe me, the Mormon Church is perhaps the premier organization to teach moral values and individual responsibility for the consequences of one’s decisions and actions. The fraction of unwed mothers within the Mormon Church is significantly lower than in society in general, rather than the other way around, as you imply.
Gramps