Bruce is not a medical professional, and it’s always an excellent idea to talk with one when something concerns you. They can direct you to proper care if necessary. If you are considering suicide or hurting yourself, in the United States: dial 988 for a crisis counselor. If you can’t connect and you are in a medical emergency or a suicidal crisis, call 911.
Because of the complication of advising people never seen, over a textual communication, in extremely brief encounters, this site has the main purpose of discussion of the dilemmas that many of us will face, in the public interest, and can not render effective psychological counseling.
Bruce is anonymous. This site is differentiated from the usual newspaper counseling columns in that we don’t have regular advertisers and subscribed readers to satisfy and can express opinions that would not be tenable for venues that have to cope with such things.
Central to Bruce’s opinions are:
- Being a parent is the most responsible position most people will ever hold, and should not be attempted without professional training. Yet such training is not available to most people.
- You can’t train your child to be a responsible adult by protecting them from everything bad. They must be able to make their own decisions once they are adults, and this does not come without understanding all of the things they will face.
- Being a partner to someone also should be the subject of some training, yet most of us aren’t offered even one class on it in school.
- Religion is often a negative influence in our world.
- The collapse of social norms and the promotion of ignorance and policies that arise from ignorance and hate is a terrible problem in our society, and people who practice these things are to be criticized, shunned, and kept from any position of responsibility and any role in your life. These include anti-vaxers, racial prejudice, anti-intellectualism and anti-science, conspiracy theories promoted online and by politicians, fascism, and people who wish to impose the tenets of their religion on others not of their religion.
- Rampant commercialization of the wedding ceremony has perverted it. A focus on a big, expensive party as the bride’s one “day” devalues women (the concept that they have one “most beautiful day” rather than a meaningful and beautiful life to lead). The purpose of marriage is to bring the bride and groom’s lives together, hopefully for a lifetime, the ceremony and the big party are of trivial importance next to that. Bringing their families together is hopefully achieved for children in the marriage. The bride and groom’s parents, in-laws and other relatives and their partners often do not fully mesh and must always be considered much less important than the goals of the immediate family.
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