Letters to the editor, June 7

I teach a class called FOCUS Fathers that shows fathers their importance in their kids’ lives. In this class we talk about fathers and the impact they had on us through their experiences with their own fathers, the impact of those experiences on them and their current fathering style, and how they can make changes in their actions and attitudes as fathers in the future. A significant percentage of the men grew up without a father in their life.

Fathers help establish the norms for their kids’ behavior as kids and then adults by the way they act in every situation. Fathers teach young men how to treat women by the example of being good to their son’s mother. Fathers also teach young women how they should be treated by a man by the example of how they treat their daughter’s mother. Most young women will grow up to marry a man just like the biggest male influence in their life. This should be powerful motivation for men to be good fathers. More is caught than taught.

Paul Juarez,

Northern Region coordinator for NewDay Services,

Denton

Alliance with NRA or with Texans?

So, our Republican state legislators have mandated that our public schools have an armed guard on each campus. Denton, where I live, has 43 schools. Those 43 guards will cost the school district $3,655,000 per year. Our legislators also require that the state provide $10 per student toward the expense of gun violence safety measures. Denton schools have 32,016 enrolled students. So, that’s a total of $320,160 from the state.

Texas has a budget surplus of $33 billion. All of that money could be spent on so-called safety measures to prevent future Uvaldes but it would be a complete waste of money as long as Texas has gun regulations that clearly enable such horrid slaughters.

The two Republican representatives quoted supporting the legislation, Dustin Burrows of Lubbock and Ken King of Canadian, are highly rated and praised by the National Rifle Association. One must regretfully conclude that these gentlemen and their compatriots value the benefits of their association with the NRA more than they do the safety, well-being and security of the children and families of Texas.

Ed Soph,

Denton