It's none of my business, but I wanted to react to your statement that experimentation with drugs is based on "low self-image".

For the record, I don't take drugs and I don't go around advocating their use. I am opposed to legalizing narcotic and addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine even though I can't claim to have tried them personally. As to the psychedelics, I smoked marijuana once in a while in college, usually because somebody was passing a joint around and I didn't want to be a party-pooper. I think I may have tried LSD or mescaline at a "Be In" in Central Park in 1970, but the people who gave me one of their tablets weren't sure what it was. It brought me close to hallucinating a little, but the major effect was to make me feel confused about what I was doing with those people in the first place and I went home early.

I have seen first-hand some positive reactions to marijuana, though. My college room-mate, Rikk, tried some and I put some very dense Bach on the record player. He had always hated classical music, but something about the marijuana opened him up and he was thrilled by what he could now hear. More importantly, he came away from the experience permanently able to appreciate classical music in this new way. For about a year after I dropped out of college I used to listen to Indian ragas while stoned and found out I could follow the incredibly intricate rhythms much better that way. Marijuana is classified as a sedative, and it may have been the relaxation alone that helped me.

I am more skeptical about what drugs like LSD do for you. For one thing, Timothy Leary has turned into a dissolute drunk and should have stayed at Harvard. If that's the ancient planetary wisdom that LSD gives you, forget it, please. More specifically, hard psychedelics seem to really rattle and scare their users, especially first-time users, about everything most of us take for granted. I'm perfectly capable of seeing that many conventional people are ignorant and immoral, basing their ideas of what's appropriate social behavior more on superstition and customs than on scientific information about human nature. But where's the wisdom in denuding common sense if you have nothing to replace it with? People have a right to grow and learn at a pace they're comfortable with. If they're afraid to go beyond where they are right now, that's their right as long as they don't try to prevent me from going beyond my own ignorance at a pace that's right for me. I get along with many blindly-conforming people in the business world simply because they respect my civil rights as embodied in the democratic principles by which we all try to live. Putting LSD in the cookies of such people is a cruel and dangerous joke I don't endorse.

The urge to experiment with sex is easier to understand, I think, than the fascination kids have with psychedelics. For one thing, it's the birthright of every vertebrate, and even many invertebrates. (Ever seen cockroaches do it?) Animals — including you and me — don't have sex because reproduction requires it of them; they have sex because it feels great. Nature has usually managed to contain this urge within the family domain, but there are spectacular exceptions, like the well-documented dolphin pack orgies that involve multiple homosexual as well as heterosexual copulations. Humans are smart enough to know that if they want kids they're going to have to have some sex, but usually they have sex because it's something pleasurable and exhilarating to do, especially when it's with somebody you really care about.

I don't make rules about what kinds of sexual experimentation are legitimate, but I'll simply say that if two people are truly important to one another, then sex tends to find a home in the relationship whether you plan for it or not. You don't know my whole history, but when I was twenty-two I was really confused and lost and decided to take up the offer that had been made to me by an elder male psychotherapist who had said he was in love with me. Although I was naturally pretty skeptical, I found out that he really did love me. Sex found its way into our home life because after a while there was no reason to exclude it. Did it turn me into a homosexual? Not really. I'm more attracted to women and have been with Jennifer now for six years. But it gave me a whole new understanding of how foolish people are to be so afraid of sex emerging in adult relationships that aren't designed from the ground up to be procreative. My heart belongs to the gay community on that issue. Let's worry less about unusual but wholesome sexual acts and more about all the people who are trapped in legal commitments to barren and loveless relationships.

The point is that sex is not something that you can figure out from reading a Dr. Joyce Brothers book. And it's definitely not something you'd want to just accept your parents view of. Did you just do what your parents said? Did Millie? You have to experience it yourself and see what's dangerous or undermining about it versus what's safe and harmless. I think promiscuous sex is very dangerous, frankly, far more dangerous than, say, marijuana usage. People tend to place their self-esteem on the line when making love with another person, whether they know it or not. If that person dumps them the next morning, it can take months to recover. Many of the human wrecks you find in gay bars lost all their self-esteem years ago and are now just valiantly trying to survive from day to day. And having two lovers at the same time never works, no matter what people tell you.

Okay, here's the advice part. First of all, you should definitely talk to your kids about drugs and sex and rock and roll and fast cars and anything else you think might get them in trouble. They won't benefit from your having a distant attitude of distrust and disapproval. But explain to them the difference between something being illegal and something being wrong. In some states having sex with the lights on used to be illegal, but drinking and driving wasn't. Teach them about all the countries throughout history that made being a Jew a crime. This point is a crucial first lesson in ethics. Why do people of good will work to change laws if law is such a great thing? Because laws are just human guesswork and reflect the prejudices and ignorance of the communities that legislate them and the corrupt leaders they elect. Understanding the difference between having respect for the law and seeing it as the handmaiden of something vastly more important is pivotal if children are to become fully aware of how democracy works and why a lifetime participation in citizenry is a universal responsibility.

But as important as it is to share with your kids however much or however little you understand about these things, it's more important for you not to cop a know-it-all attitude about why they're experimenting. Harrison, kids don't experiment with unconventional behavior because they have "low self-image." I certainly didn't. I experimented because I lived with parents who got low marks in the art of living, as all parents do. I decided at a very early age that I would have to try everything for myself and find out first-hand if it was right for me or not. I'm not saying you and Millie are like my dumb parents. I'm saying that I see now that these kinds of questions (Is marijuana right for me? Is gay love right for me?) have to be answered not by authority but by experience, even if it's just the experience of seeing first-hand what these things do to other people you care about.

Kids who experiment even when the local authorities (including panicky parents pressed for time) are trying to prohibit them have high self-esteem, Harrison, not low-esteem. They believe that life holds untapped riches. They trust in their ability to control and understand their own feelings and behavior. They want to find out for themselves "what it all means" so they can be sure they're making the right decisions.

Kids with low self-esteem tend to slavishly adopt the beliefs and behavior dictated to them by whatever culture they're born into, and are as happy to end up as proud Nazis as anything else. I know this first-hand, since I'm working shoulder-to-shoulder at the moment with a 25-year-old woman who has all the moral depth of my adorable but vapid 11-year-old niece Danielle. I really like this woman and get along with her well, partly because she knows exactly how to work her charming and lovable qualities on those around her and partly because the two of us are odd enough to have developed some real mutual admiration and even see the other as some kind of lifeline in a politically uncertain business climate. I have defended her several times now when others in the group complained behind her back. At the moment I am delighted to be her trusted confidant and buddy. Yet, frankly, it sometimes seems like everything she knows about life she lifted out of a three-thousand-year-old book. She makes a great co-worker, but I'd hate to find out how she votes.

Is believing in the untapped riches of life dangerous? You bet it is. It makes people question the rewards of conventional success and weigh carefully the uncertain and non-material benefits of alternate lifestyles. Many people who have tried to live creative lives would have been better off as zombies. But civilization is built on their attempts, whether successful or not. If people were never dissatisfied with the wisdom of their forefathers we'd still be living in caves. And sooner or later most of us find out that you can be creative and a free spirit and still hold down a day job at an insurance company.

How should you deal with children who are still considering options that you lost interest in decades ago? Be their partner in life. Explain all the lifestyle choices that are open to them. Don't be down on them when they disappoint the idle expectations of your daydreams. They're real human beings, not pets, with as much right as you have to explore the meaning of life, and they will champion that right whether you want them to or not. Be a champion and share their journey with them and you will have their love and loyalty as long as you live.

Anyway, enough of the harangue. I had a truly lousy father, so I'm sensitive to seeing other people make the mistakes he did. I'm sure, though, that you're a thousand times more caring than he was and will really try to understand your children.

Please say hello to Amy for me?