The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, March 23, 1987, Image 2

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    Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, March 23, 1987
Opinion
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Loren Steffy, Editor
Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor
Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor
Jens Koepke, City Editor
Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor
Editorial Policy
* The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper
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tion.
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board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions
of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents.
The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students
in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart
ment ofjournalism.
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We're still waiting
When he signed the prison management law into effect last
month, Gov. Bill Clements promised that inmates released under the
new law would be sent to halfway houses before they were allowed to
return home.
Last week, however, 121 prisoners released under the new law
happily bypassed halfway houses on their way home. Not only are
Texas prisons’ bars bulging beyond constitutionality, Texas halfway
houses also are filled to capacity. Of the 261 prisoners released un
der the law, just 140 were sent to halfway houses.
Clements’ general counsel and prison expert, Rider Scott, said,
“The majority of the 261 would have been released from prison
within a few days even without the prison act.”
John Byrd, executive director of the Board of Paroles, echoed
Scott’s sentiments, only with a little more precision about the number
of prisoners who would have been paroled even without the law. Co
incidentally, Byrd said 140 of the 261 prisoners needed to go to half
way houses, and exactly 140 spaces were available for them.
But no matter how hard state officials try make their efforts look
successful, it’s going to be diffcult to make prematurely released pris
oners cooperate.
“A burglar paroled last week from state prison kidnapped and
raped his parole officer . . .,” the Houston Chronicle reported Satur
day.
Certainly, these things will happen even under the best of cir
cumstances, but one can’t help but wonder how often they will begin
to occur while we wait for an intelligent solution for the overcrowd
ing problem to be implemented.
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Parents deserve combat pa\
I was traveling
down 1-35 Satur
day >n my way
back to College
Station from Dal
las, when a station
wagon in the next
lane caught my at
tention. You know
the type, luggage
rack on top, lots of
vacation stuff in
the back, dad and
able in the car.
Paula
Vogrin
mom in the front seat, and the kids tak
ing up every other inch of space avail-
The babies still have proud parents
I glanced over to get a look at the va
cationing family, and a girl about 10
years old grabbed her brother, who
looked about eight, and started choking
the stuffing out of him. As I watched
the little boy gasping for breath, an
other girl, who looked about nine,
climbed over the back seat and adminis
tered what looked like the Iron Claw on
her sister. The way I saw it, these three
kids were engaged in a life-or-death
struggle. Then, just when I was sure the
boy was turning purple and going into
death throes, they all turned, looked di
rectly at me and burst out laughing.
auto bingo. It’s just like regular!
except instead of numbers in iki
squares, there are pictures of i
airplanes, policemen, dogs, picnU
bles, bridges, etc. We watched i
other like hawks, making suren:i
covered something they didnt
see. Mom always had a prize forthe>
ner, but nobody could win more:
the others because she bought ane;
number of prizes for everybody.
IbutK
Throughout my
life, my sister has
taught me many
lessons. As befits a
sibling who’s
older, she often
instructs by exam
ple. Rather than
have a child her
self, she said there
licized, what will be the effect on a kid
who learns that one parent was com
pelled by the other to give her up?
were too many un
wanted children in
the world and so
Richard
Cohen
she adopted one. This is how the sweet
and delightful Lillian came into my life.
No one knows the answers to these
questions. Surrogate motherhood is too
new for conclusions to be drawn and,
anyway, we still know relatively little
about human behavior. I have talked to
a former family-court judge, a child pys-
chologist who specializes in custody
cases and a psychotherapist. For my
questions, they had nothing but more
questions. The Talmudic tradition lives
in the field of mental health.
nito. Whose child is this we are getting?
Will it be bright? Will it be dumb? Will it
have my ear for music, my zest for danc
ing? Will it have grandpop’s gift for
math and grandma’s cutting wit? Will it
be like us?
I drove past the family feeling a little
sheepish — I should have known better
than to fall for that old trick — my two
sisters and I used to pull it all the time
while on own family vacations.
These are tough questions. But what
have they to do with love? What have
they to do with wanting a baby for its
own sake? What have they to do with the
hard and true lessons of parenting —
the demands on time, the need to share,
the slow comprehension that even our
“own” children are not ours but are
unique unto themselves?
I looked in my rearview mirror in
time to see them do the same thing to
the car behind me. They brought back a
slew of memories from my family vaca
tion days.
I admire my sister for what she did. I
admire her even more because I am not
sure I would have done the same. If my
wife and I could not have conceived a
child, I might have tried something
other than adoption. I might have re
sorted to a surrogate mother.
I can understand the urge to have
what is called “your own” child. I have
one of my own, and one of our plea
sures is to talk about his ancestry — the
Keons of Poland, the Fitzgeralds of Ire
land. It is even a greater pleasure to see
some of my wife and some of me in our
son — and also, sometimes, to see my fa
ther’s smile on my son’s face. Anyone
who does not understand that is discon
nected from humanity.
But the former family-court judge
did raise the issue of ownership, what
might be called procreative capitalism.
Some people want a child that is theirs,
that they “own.” They seek a clone and
want to treat the child as an extension of
themselves — a statement of who they
are. In this sense, children become a
consumer good, like cars. They an
nounce status. For some people, the
perfect child is one who behaves the way
they would like, attends the “right”
school and then has a career that com
plements those of the parents.
These are the universal experiences
of parenting. The people I know who
have adopted children love them no less
because they are not “their own.” In
some ways, maybe, they love them
more. Whatever the case, they love
them. God, how they love those kids.
When we moved to Texas from Illi
nois, I was four, my sister, Andrea, was
two and my youngest sister, Lisa, was
just a baby. Six months after we arrived
in Texas, we took our First family vaca
tion. We went to Padre Island. I don’t
know how my parents did it — 10 hours
from Dallas to Padre in a station wagon
with a pesky preschooler, a whining tod
dler and a screaming infant — some va
cation. But from that year on, nothing
could stop the Vogrin family from tak
ing to the road and burning rubber all
over the southern United States.
When she was all out of prizes, C onti
would have to devise some other*;
entertain us. We played the licensed
game, where the one who sees the:
out-of-state license plates wins'
played build-a-word, where theone;
makes the most small words outofi
large word in five minutes wins
used to bring coloring books withunj lethic
til the time the jumbo box of Cravi “It
the one with 72 crayons and a sharpt: |P res >
in the back, melted all over thebacU |J LK
of the green station wagon. Needle
say, no coloring books appeared^
car from that day on, and mysisterst
I had a hard time sitting down forai
hours following my father’s discoveni
the mess. Tic-tac-toe, hangman i
connect the dots also were popular*
us.
And so it is with the realization that
the blessed should hesitate to lecture the
deprived that I nevertheless wonder
about the practice of surrogate moth
erhood. It raises many disturbing ques
tions. What happens — as in New Jersey
— when the surrogate mother refuses to
surrender the child? Which parent de
serves custody when the claims are bi
ologically equal? If the tug of war is pub-
All of this is understandable, al
though not necessarily admirable. We
all know people who see their own status
on the line if their child is not admitted
to a certain school. We all know the
Little League father who doesn’t recog
nize that it is his child — not him —
who’s up at the plate. We all know the
parent who wants a child to “marry
well” — an ugly phrase that has nothing
to do with happiness and everything to
do with status and wealth.
I go back and forth on the issue of
surrogate mothers. I empathize with
people who seek children in this man
ner. They want what I already have. But
if the insemination of a stranger was
achieved in the usual way, we would be a
lot quicker to say what we think — and
maybe disapprove. It hardly helps mat
ters that money also changes, with the
well-off paying the less-well-off to have
a baby.
Adoption limits those possibilities.
For the parents, it means going outside
their own gene pool into terra incog-
But the world is awash with unwanted
babies. They are mostly black, brown or
yellow and to some people that makes a
diference. This can be a difficult route,
but the outcome is sweet: a child. A
child as good or bad as any other — as
unique as a snowflake and, in a hug, no
different at all. This is how the sweet
and delightful Lillian came into my life.
She is the lesson my sister taught me.
My parents took us to Padre Island
every year for the next 14 years. And
that wasn’t the only place they took us; it
was just the regular trip. We went to all
the great Meccas of family tourism —
Disney World, the Grand Canyon, and
Carlsbad Caverns, to name just a few.
We saw mountains and oceans and prai
ries and deserts and fields and forests
and swamps and lakes and rivers and
mesas and hills and every other geo
graphic formation you can imagine. I
can’t begin to calculate how many hun
dreds of hours of road time my family
amassed during our vacation years. But
during those hours on the road I know
my sisters and I put our parents
through more grief, aggravation and to
tal hell than any human being deserves.
We soon tired of mental, sitf
games like auto bingo and tic-t#
and turned to more physical entei*
ment. One of our favorite games*
Feet Fight. We’d crawl into the ‘4
back” (the area of a station wagost
yond the back seat) and kick each#
in the feet and legs as hard aswecoi
We played Play Fight, the samep:
those kids I saw on 1-35 were plan)
The “way-back” also was a good plait'
play Statues. In Statues, you had to!
sume a silly-looking pose andstaycoi
pletely still until five cars passed. M
we tired of Statues, we’d makeiS
faces at the people in other cars."
never tired of making the univeii
“Honk Your Horn” sign at ever)!,
wheeler we passed.
Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group
My mother had the job of creating
ways to entertain three girls, aged two
years apart, with attention spans of 45
seconds or less. Her first solution was
When we ran out of things to do8
games to play, we’d get cranky. We'di
cuse each other of taking up moreih
the allotted third of the car andt
would inevitably lead to real 1$
We’d be hitting and punching when!
dad, with his eyes still on the $
would reach over the seat and starts^
ping anyone within arm’s length *
learned to avoid this by using ourj 1
lows as shields, and in the end wed'
end up laughing and making facet
him behind his back. He’d always* 1
that in the rearview mirror and*
those immortal words every child#
trip hates to hear.
Mail Call
Open mind
EDITOR:
I would like to thank Melanie Shouse for her letter in the March 11 Mail
Call. It is quite refreshing to find that there is at least one student on this campus
whose mind has not been sealed shut with concrete. Her attitude of tolerance is
one that should be adopted by everyone.
We live in a world with more than five billion people — each one unique and
very different from the next. We cannot hope to coexist if we cannot even
accept the diversity of the human race. It may take some time, and certainly
much effort, but I believe that if we make the attempt to tolerate all those
people who “irritate” us, this tiny planet will be a much more pleasant place.
Come on, Ags! Give it a try. Instead of complaining about things that you
cannot possibly change, learn to accept them as just another facet of our
existence —just as I try to tolerate those who don’t accept me for what I am.
Dave Martin
Vice President, Gay Student Services
A&M's OK by them
EDITOR:
Our son is a freshman at A&M, and during the past months I have
contacted the financial aid office, the Registrar’s office and the Department of
Agriculture several times. I have spoken to both male and female employees
and/or employee/students, and have been very impressed and GRATEFUL that
all my calls or letters have been hassle-free and have provided me with the
information I have needed. In this day and age, this is unusual, unfortunately.
Persons I have related this to are always amazed and impressed. We are very
proud our son is a Texas Aggie! Your institution of higher learning is to be
commended.
Mr. and Mrs. Curtis H. Urban
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for
style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must
include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer.
“Am I going to have to pull this*
over?”
‘No, Dad, we’ll be good, we protui*
“I mean it girls, one more time at*
am pulling this car over.”
He never pulled over.
By the time this happened, we^
all ready to read, sleep or lookout 1 *
window, and my parents nerves
left alone f or an hour or two. But"*
get bored gain and the whole profl
would start all over again. My par#
deserve a special award for takingu*
many places. I think that when 11#
kids I’ll let the neighbors take theff
family vacations.
Paula Vogrin is a senior journal
major and a columnist for The Bat*