From Our Readers

Prevention of Accidents

I am writing in regard to your issue entitled “Accidents​—Can They Be Prevented?” (July 8, 1985) At our gas and electric company we take safety very seriously. We try to stress off-the-job safety as well as on-the-job safety. I would like to request authorization to reprint in our monthly “Safety Bulletin,” in whole or in part, the articles “Accidents​—‘Why Me?’” and “Accidents​—Their Cause and Prevention.”

E. A., Shift Supervisor, Iowa

Being Just Friends

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your timely efforts to mold the mind of youths. My attention was drawn to your article “Young People Ask . . . Can a Boy and a Girl ‘Just Be Friends’?” (June 8, 1985) This topic has been on my mind for quite a long time. With the aid of your timely advice, I have stopped this behavior, and I have helped most of my friends to have a balanced view of this issue. I will continue to patronize your magazine and use it to help all my friends and others too.

J. C. O., Nigeria

I have just finished reading the article “Young People Ask . . . Can a Boy and a Girl ‘Just Be Friends’?” The information was exceptionally good, especially for young single people. This article called to mind something I have seen on more than one occasion. The situation seems to be a triangle consisting of a very close relationship between a husband, a wife, and the wife’s best friend. Is it not just as potentially dangerous for the husband and the wife’s best friend to spend so much time in each other’s company, even though the wife is also there, as it is for young single people to seek out platonic relationships?

K. B., New York

True, there can be a danger of emotional involvement where there is a triangle relationship with either the wife’s best friend or the husband’s best friend. Also, there can be a similar danger when two couples are always very closely associated together, whether at work, on social occasions, or on vacations. If for any reason a married person has been developing a close, confidential, and sympathetic friendship with a person other than his or her marriage mate, it could invite disaster and much sorrow.​—ED.

Unwed Motherhood

Regarding your article “Young People Ask . . . Unwed Motherhood​—Could It Happen to Me?” (July 22, 1985), I suggest that you could have called it “Unwed Parenthood.” You should have emphasized more in the article the mistakes made by both male and female teenagers. I think you could have put more emphasis upon the moral responsibility of both parties and stated more on the problem of male attitudes towards premarital sex, which equally leads to teenage pregnancy.

L. K. N., England

We agree that the responsibility of young men and the consequences to them morally need to be emphasized as well. The article in question was especially directed to young unmarried women, though the last three paragraphs were directed to young people of both sexes. There will be other articles in the “Young People Ask . . . ” feature dealing with various aspects of this problem, which will include specific counsel to young men as well.​—ED.