Children Need Parents Who Are Involved

Re “Working Moms, Give Yourselves a Break” (Nov. 10): Maybe someone should tell [sociology professor] Sharon Hays that children are not pets. Hays wants parenting to be pared down to its essentials (food, shelter and clothing?) to accommodate working parents. Simpler and less intensive methods would probably be just fine.

Children, in case no one ever told her, are human beings with inherent and myriad needs, the most paramount being loving parents consistently involved with them. Swimming, judo, soccer and designer fashions are extras. A child needs a parent to be there.

Hays berates Penelope Leach for pointing out what is best for children. She thinks we are asking mothers to hold up the world and piling impossible demands on their shoulders. Yet that is what she is asking of children: Give up your needs to accommodate mine.

SUZANNA BORTZ

Laguna Niguel