More bad advice from Dear Abby

One common problem with advice-givers is that they commonly ascribe bad motives to third parties. In yesterday's Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: I'm 14, and I don't wear shorts because I'm self-conscious about my legs. My mother is always nagging me to wear them in the heat. ...

DEAR NEEDS ADVICE: ... Believe it or not, you don't need advice as much as your mother does. She has won the battle, but at what price? She turned your insecurity into a power struggle and pulled rank. There was no reason to force you to wear shorts ...

Maybe the mother simply wants to help her daughter overcome one of her phobias. If my 14-year-old daughter was irrationally self-conscious about her legs, then I would also encourage her to get over it. She can't go thru life always wearing long pants.

In today's Dear Abby:

DEAR Abby: Over the last two years I have lost 95 pounds. I did it by changing my lifestyle, exercising and making better food choices.

My husband, "Paul," insists that he shouldn't have to hide his cookies, potato chips and chocolate candy, and says I should have self-control. ...

DEAR RESENTFUL: Your resentment is justified. His insistence on keeping junk food where you will find it is an attempt at control. Your husband isn't "unconsciously" trying to sabotage you; it is overt and deliberate. Your victory may be a threat to him. ...

Some people lose weight by getting all the junk food out of the house, and others by keeping a surplus of junk food in the house. Both approaches have merit. If the wife has lost 95 pounds, then I'd say that whatever they are doing is working pretty well, and the husband ought to be reluctant to change a winning formula.

In each case, Dear Abby just blindly assumes that the writer's complaints have merit, and that the third party must have some bad motive. Instead, Dear Abby should be advising the letter-writer, and not just generating hostility.