DEAR ABBY: Our 25-year-old son was married a year ago. Without going into detail, suffice it to say, he messed up big time. He and his wife are being divorced. During the time they were together they lived in an apartment.

Although he emptied out the savings account along the way, we gave his wife a check for one-half of what had been there. She should not have to suffer for his bad choices. As far as the divorce settlement is concerned, they have nothing but the shower and wedding gifts. Isn't he entitled to half of them? Her family thinks not. Oh, by the way, we paid for half the wedding. -- THE IN-LAWS IN PENNSYLVANIA

DEAR IN-LAWS: This is a problem that should be discussed with your son's divorce lawyer. Because the gifts could be considered community property, that property should be divided according to an agreement between your son and his wife, or by the judge if they can't agree.

DEAR ABBY: I am not a licensed caregiver, but I baby-sit for a neighbor child, "Caleb." The boy is too young to talk and tell me if he's being abused, but I am concerned about his home environment. Caleb spends eight to 10 hours a day with me, and I have noticed that he's afraid of men and easily frightened.

Caleb's uncle, who lives with him, is violent and uses drugs. His mother breaks probation a lot, goes out after curfew and drinks. I don't think this is a stable environment at all.

Caleb often comes to my home unfed, even though the original agreement was that I would prepare lunch and snacks only. Now I'm doing much more than that.

Am I legally responsible to report my suspicions of abuse and/or neglect as a day-care would? And who exactly do I call? Please advise. -- CALEB'S CAREGIVER

DEAR CAREGIVER: You are not legally required to report your suspicions of abuse and neglect of the child; however, you are MORALLY required to do so. Child protective services should be notified about what you have told me. They're listed in your phone directory.

DEAR ABBY: As the senior population increases, the baby boomer manufacturers have gone hog wild. They have made it impossible for seniors to open anything that has any kind of seal. They have manufactured such closures that we seniors can no longer open bottles, jars, etc. without using a hammer, pliers or breaking our wrists.

Once I was unable to open a bottle of medicine that I needed immediately, as the seal could not be broken. Can you please get the message out to these corporations to devise a way to make closures that children cannot open but we seniors can? -- BROKEN WRIST IN ALABAMA

DEAR BROKEN WRIST: I'm sad to say this, but the food and drug manufacturers no longer seal their products the way they do just to protect children. There's enough concern about protecting the public that they want to ensure that people don't buy something that has been tampered with.

Many pharmacies will gladly "un-childproof" medications for customers if asked to do so. It makes opening meds literally a "snap." As to the other products, it may be necessary to ask your grocer to open your purchases for you before you take them home, or invest in an electric jar opener.

For an excellent guide to becoming a better conversationalist and a more attractive person, order "How to Be Popular." Send a business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $5 (U.S. funds only) to: Dear Abby Popularity Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)

DEAR ABBY: I am an HIV counselor in Chicago, and I'm extremely concerned about the number of clients I counsel who have cheated on their partners. These are people being tested because they're afraid they have HIV, and yet they actively choose not to protect their partners. The usual response I hear when I ask them why is, "If I start using condoms, or ask my partner to use them, she/he will know something is up."

I don't get it, Abby. Can you help me understand?

There has also been an increase of married men having sex with other men. Again, no protection for the partner. Are these people so concerned about themselves and their egos that they risk their partners' lives?

Please advise your readers that I could be talking to THEIR partners about HIV testing. Have you any advice for how I can counsel people who test positive and refuse to tell their partners? -- STUMPED

DEAR STUMPED: Consider discussing with your clients exactly how NOT disclosing will affect their partners and their children. If you can break through their self-centeredness and elicit sympathy for the people whose lives they are endangering, you might be able to make them understand the importance of partner notification. It's worth a try.

One would think that a rational person would want to protect his or her partner from a sickness that could be fatal. However, the patients you describe appear to be either clueless or willfully selfish -- people without a conscience who do not think about how their actions will affect others.

I personally think that someone who knowingly infects another with HIV is committing a crime and should be punished for it.

DEAR ABBY: My husband, "John" has a 13-year-old daughter, "Dana," from a prior relationship. He never married the mother, and I suspect he feels some guilt about it.

Dana has decided she would like to buy her mom a "mother's ring" for Mother's Day and has asked her father to pay for it. John agreed. He sees nothing wrong with such an expensive gift because he says he's doing it for his daughter, not her mother.

I know his intentions are only to please Dana, but I can't just bite my tongue and let it go. We are not rich people. We both work. The ring Dana has in mind will cost between $200 and $300. I feel that since the mother is married, that Dana's stepfather would be the one to buy this gift -- or at least pitch in.

This is the first time in the more than 10 years we have been married that something like this has come up. I don't think it should be our place to foot the entire bill for such an expensive gift. Am I wrong? -- WORKED UP IN WISCONSIN

DEAR WORKED UP: At 13, Dana is old enough to learn that money doesn't grow on trees. The gift she gives her mother should come from money she has either earned or saved from her allowance. If your husband is determined to buy the ring, at least a portion of the cost should be paid by Dana. I hope he will consider what I have said.

To receive a collection of Abby's most memorable -- and most frequently requested -- poems and essays, send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $5 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Keepers Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included in the price.)

DEAR ABBY: You printed a letter from a student who received detention for "respectfully disagreeing" with her teacher during a discussion of world events. In your reply, you suggested that the writer's comment may have been "disruptive," justifying the detention, and advised that it would have been more "diplomatic" to have voiced the disagreement in private. I take exception to your answer.

I am semi-retired now, but as a manager I had tremendous difficulty convincing subordinates that it was not only safe to disagree with me, but that I needed their frank opinions. I trace this to a situation described by John Holt in his 1964 book, "How Children Fail," in which he points out that the education system kills creativity, teaching students to anticipate what the teacher wants to hear and to feed it back to him/her.

I am currently co-director of the Master's in Health Physics Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology, engaged in the training of radiation safety professionals. It is essential that a safety professional be prepared to challenge his/her management when it proposes to do something that's contrary to law or regulation, or prejudicial to safe operation. The type of education described by Holt produces individuals who go along with management no matter what is proposed.

It is despicable that a teacher would conduct a "discussion" in which she entertains only opinions that agree with her own and punishes those that don't. The result for the students and our country is tragic. You should have supported the student. -- LAURENCE F. FRIEDMAN, PH.D.

DEAR DR. FRIEDMAN: You're right; I should have. And thousands of readers wrote to tell me so. (The e-mails, when printed out, weighed more than 15 pounds.) Read on:

DEAR ABBY: Your advice to the student to follow the "diplomatic" approach and wait until after class to comment was still reverberating in my mind when I moved on to a USA Weekend story, "First Amendment Rights Lost on Teens," describing a Knight Foundation poll of 100,000 students which found that the majority of them assign little or no value to their constitutional right to free speech. Your response to that student makes you part of the problem. -- UPSET IN SANTA CRUZ

DEAR ABBY: That teacher was behaving unprofessionally. I have been teaching for more than 20 years and have strong opinions of my own. One of them is that students be taught to think for themselves. The student should have been listened to with respect instead of punished. -- TEACHER IN EL CERRITO, CALIF.

DEAR ABBY: Any educator who uses the classroom to pontificate on his or her political or religious views and allows no dissent is more a tyrant than a teacher. Send that kid to my classroom and give the teacher detention! -- ENCOURAGES THOUGHT IN INDIANA

DEAR ABBY: Prejudice comes in many shapes and forms, and I applaud that student for standing up against it. Punishing a student for having a different political opinion sounds more like North Korea than the U.S.A. As it stands, these students are being cheated in their education because they are being taught about the world only through the narrow opinions of one misguided teacher. -- OUTRAGED IN DUBLIN, CALIF.

DEAR READERS: My answer left something to be desired, and for that I apologize.

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