Agony aunt launches tirade at reader
A woman who wrote syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson of “Ask Amy,” seeking advice for a problem she was having with her sister, received a brutally honest response when Dickinson called the letter writer a “horrible person.”
“I’ve been pretty amazed by the public’s reaction to this letter,” Dickinson, who replaced Ann Landers at The Chicago Tribune in 2003, tells Yahoo Shine. “And I’m excited that it’s generated conversation about how bullying is a problem, even among siblings.”
The woman, who signed her letter “Sad Sister” wrote to Dickinson explaining that she excluded her sister, “Wendy,” from family functions and didn’t understand why her sister would be offended by the slight. Here is the letter:
"Dear Amy: Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin’s sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city. We stay in a hotel, treat ourselves, shop for our children and go out for lunches and dinners. It is a great time to reconnect. I have a sister 'Wendy,' who we do not invite.
"She is offended to the point of tears when she finds we have not invited her. My two sisters and I are very close in age, but Wendy hasn’t been as close to this set of cousins as my sister and I have been through the years. We are all married stay-at-home moms. Wendy is a divorced, working mom with one young child.
"There are several reasons we do not include her. We know she doesn't have very much money for such an outing. She also does not have many of the same interests as we do. Her life is quite different from ours. We’re not interested in what she has to talk about. She complains too much about her aches and pains, and claims to have some kind of neurological disease that some of us feel is more psychosomatic than real and which she uses to avoid getting up for church on Sundays.
"She also complains about her ex-husband who left her for another woman, but everyone knows it takes 'two to tango' and she is not without fault.
"We’re all very active churchgoers, while she only sporadically attends services. Plain and simple, she does not really fit in with us anymore.
"She takes it very personally, and last year even came over to my home unannounced crying about it, which upset my children and caused my husband to threaten to call the police if she did not leave.
"Now she barely speaks to me and has told our relatives that I am a horrible person (even though I’ve helped her).
"How can we get her to understand that she should perhaps find another set of friends whose lives and interests align more closely with hers? — Sad Sister"
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Then came Dickinson’s response:
"Dear Sad: First, let’s establish that I agree with your sister: You are a horrible person. Obviously, you can do whatever you want and associate with — or exclude — whomever you want, but you don’t get to do this and also blame the person you are excluding for not 'fitting in.'
"The only way your sister would ever fit in would be for you to make room for her. You are unwilling to do that, and that is your choice. But her being upset is completely justified, and you’ll just have to live with that.
"Perhaps this is something you could ponder from your church pew, because despite your regular attendance, you don’t seem to have learned much."
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“This letter struck a chord with me for a few reasons,” Dickinson tells Yahoo Shine.
“She seemed to look down on her sister's financial situation — she couldn’t afford hotels and shopping trips — which was classism. I was a working single mom for 17 years so I can relate to the gap between mothers who have the means to stay at home and those who work. The mommy blogs really reacted to that portion of the letter.”
The letter and response quickly made the Internet rounds. It was shared hundreds of thousands of times on the news site Opposing Views, and sparking conversation on social media about Dickinson’s no-holds-barred honesty.
It's not the first time Dickinson’s column has gone viral. Back in November, a father wrote explaining that his 17-year-old son was gay and that he was concerned about how his church friends would react.
The father wrote, “He won’t listen to reason, and he will not stop being gay. I feel as if he is doing this just to get back at me for forgetting his birthday for the past three years — I have a busy work schedule. Please help him make the right choice in life by not being gay. He won’t listen to me, so maybe he will listen to you.”
Dickinson’s response: "You could teach your son an important lesson by changing your own sexuality to show him how easy it is. Try it for the next year or so: Stop being a heterosexual to demonstrate to your son that a person’s sexuality is a matter of choice — to be dictated by one’s parents, the parents’ church and social pressure.”
"Sad Sister" didn't respond to Dickinson, but that's not surprising, she says. "I'm an advice columnist and my job is to dispense advice," Dickinson tells Yahoo Shine. "I'm just happy people are asking me for it."
