DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: Starting in the 1970s when I was in college I was not only involved in student government, but I was also a member of several groups actively taking a stand against the war in Vietnam and Nukes, and supporting Civil, Gay, and Migrant Workers’ Rights.

These days I applaud the young people on either side of the Gaza War for speaking their minds publicly, and if necessary, forcefully. I do not agree with both sides of the argument, but I love their passion.

What has bothered and hurt me is how seemingly indifferent nearly all my friends from my youthful protest days have become. They packed away their caring for any cause beyond their own little personal worlds. While I was standing up with the young people at UC in May, my closest, oldest friends were planning trips to Disney with their grandkids and anniversary trips to Europe.

What kind of example are we Baby Boomers setting for future generations if we do not stay true to our social causes and commitments? --- FEELING LONELY

DEAR FEELING LONELY: Even if people don’t change fundamentally, we do tend to wrap ourselves around our current circumstances. Often that means a continuing shift not of values, but of what’s foremost in our lives.

The friends of your younger, politically active days may still hold true to the values and politics they embraced in the past. It’s simply that they have arranged their priorities in a different order than you, and that’s a normal, expected aspect of growing older, not necessarily a betrayal of those earlier times.

By remaining openly dedicated to your convictions and politics, you’re playing an important role in demonstrating to younger generations that age needn’t dampen the fire you still carry for the causes in which you believe.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My older brother and his husband played the Bitcoin game early on and struck it rich, and I mean rich. This year for Mother’s Day they sent our mom and my brother-in-law’s mom to Cancun as their gift. My wife and I gave our mothers a brunch and a little gift from our twins.

This year my brother told us they are arranging a game of golf for my dad, who has played since he was in his 20s, at Winged Foot Golf Club in New York through their broker, who is a member of the club. I don’t play golf, but apparently it’s a big deal to get to play there.

Our Father’s Day plan for my dad is for him, my son, and me to have an afternoon on a local fishing charter owned by a buddy of mine in early July. Not exactly a day at an exclusive world-class golf club.

My brother never says anything out loud, but I have caught sneers between him and my brother-in-law when we present our gifts to our parents.

They have the money to go big, and we don’t. I know that, so why does it still bug me whenever I think about it? --- LOVE MY PARENTS JUST AS MUCH

DEAR LOVE MY PARENTS JUST AS MUCH: It’s a waste of time and energy to fret about who’s giving what gift to people you and your brother both love. He’s doing what he thinks will be a treat for your parents, as are you. That he can afford more extravagant gifts doesn’t mean they are any more or less from the heart than yours.

Stick to your budget and let him stick to his. The point of a gift is to honor the recipient, not compete with other gift-givers.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My dad raised me and my sister as a single dad from the time she was seven and I was five. All the time we were growing up he never had a girlfriend or even as well as I can remember went out on a date. He said he wanted to protect us from outsiders who didn’t have our best interests in their minds and hearts.

Now that my sister and I are grown, every time someone, male or female, shows us any attention, he tells us that person is only interested in having sex with us and isn’t interested in us as people.

We’re not stupid. We know that there are people like that in the world, but not everyone is. Both my sister and I have both male and female friends and there isn’t anything going on with any of them beyond friendship. When we have been interested in someone as a boyfriend, we know better than to even drop a hint of it around our dad.

I find it sad that this is how it is, especially since my sister has been seeing a super nice guy for almost a year now, but she won’t let our father know about it. It is like we have to keep our love lives a secret from him, and that hurts me to feel that way.

Doesn’t it seem wrong not to share something so important with the dad who gave up so much to be a good father to my sister and me? --- CAN’T TELL HIM

DEAR CAN’T TELL HIM: I’m guessing that in your father’s mind, he still needs to protect his daughters from danger and pain. That was his job since you and your sister were little, and it’s probably not easy for him to ease up on that very natural parental instinct.

However, if you’re going to have a continuing relationship with your dad, you and your sister will have to help convince him that you’re adults now, and that it’s up to you to decide on who you have relationships with and what the natures of those relationships are.

One thing that might help is if you were honest with him and directly let him know you want him to get to know the other people who are becoming important to you, rather than feel that you need to shelter them from his potential judgments.

If he has a chance to see you’re making sound choices, it may help him believe you and your sister are now grown women, making your own ways in the world.