Abuse Charges in Neglect Case

At the playground, we mothers joke about postpartum lobotomy, the vast reduction in our mental capacity from the demands and depletions of childbearing.

Patricia Quiroz (“Charges Filed Against Woman Over Neglected Children,” May 1) was barely out of her teens when she first experienced it. Five years (and three pregnancies) later, she is still in its grip. She is not a bad girl; bad girls wouldn’t carry all those babies to term. She is not a lazy girl; lazy girls try to collect handouts and dump their problems on other people. And if working in a nightclub seems a glamorous way to pay the bills, you have seen too many movies (and too few nightclubs).

This woman is a tragic creature who had run out of choice (and time and money and energy and hope). We are right to be relieved and grateful that her babies were rescued. But wouldn’t it be more practical--read “cheaper”--to rescue their mother as well? Surely, a little vocational training and some child care might have a better result than keeping this girl in jail.

JULIA COHEN

Westlake Village

* We have only two words to say to the creature who abandoned her three children and is pregnant with her fourth child. Norplant. Condom.

MARJORIE and LEE LAVALLEE

Hollywood