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A. Incredible, isn't it? A woman went to visit her cousin in Cincinnati and she said, "Look, you're hanging the toilet paper wrong." Louise replied, "What do you mean?" The cousin said, "You're hanging it so it goes over the top. You're supposed to hang it so that the toilet paper goes down along the wall." I figured this is a subject everybody can relate to, and it was -- well -- different. And I wondered, "How many people really care?" Then I thought, "I care, and I bet thousands of others do too." So I printed it. I discovered 15,000 did care. I like to hang it down the wall. Talk about a compulsion! If I'm a guest in a home and the paper is hung the other way, I'll change it. I know this is crazy, but we all have our areas of nuttiness.
Q. When you started the column it didn't seem that you were as quick to recommend psychotherapy as you are now.
A. Actually, I do send my readers for professional help much more than I used to, but I am less inclined to suggest a psychiatrist. I tend more to send my readers to psychiatric social workers, psychologists, trained counselors, rabbis, priests and ministers.
Q. What's wrong with psychiatrists?
A. I am well aware that there are not a great many competent, caring, dedicated psychiatrists out there. The Karl Menningers in the field are few and far between. I am disturbed by the fact that 1 out of every 10 psychiatrists admits, get that, to having had sex with patients. If 1 out of 10 admits it, how many more do you think have actually been involved? I find this reprehensible. These people are so vulnerable. They trust their $ psychiatrist. He's father; he's God. To violate that trust is hideous.
Q. You seem to have changed your views on divorce since the days when you advised couples to stay together for the sake of the children.
A. Yes, that's true. I began to see an awful lot of children who were screwed up because the parents were screaming all night. I decided that it wasn't really great advice to say "stay together for the sake of the children."
Q. Did your own divorce, as your daughter Margo suggests in her book, make you more human?
A. I think I was pretty human before I was divorced. Mine was not a terribly painful, miserable, rotten divorce with animosity and anxiety. I just knew that my life was going to have to change, and I was determined that I was going to make it better. The divorce was going to improve my life. And it did.
Q. How so?
A. Well, I have to tell you. This may sound terribly selfish, but I love the freedom that I have. I don't have to worry about anybody but myself. I don't have to worry about a man's wardrobe, or his relatives, or his schedule, or his menu, or his allergies. I would not be married again.
Q. Because you couldn't give up the freedom?
A. Right. Since I've been divorced, there has always been a man in my life. I enjoy male company enormously, but I like to keep my personal life private, and I've succeeded in doing just that. But I cannot imagine my life without a man. I think when I'm 90 I'll still have a fella.
Q. I'm wondering about the effect of the women's movement on you. In the early days, you encouraged homemaking and homemakers, and yet you worked.