It's mail day. And we have been overwhelmed with responses to the story of Sharon Pederson, a woman shunned, alienated and forced to give up her baby for adoption because she was young and single. That story unleashed a flood of similar stories from other mothers, children and adoptive parents alike. And according to The Current's Kathleen Goldhar, they're just the tip of the iceberg. We hear from her and also get to some of your letters on the entitled generation,   erotic capital in the workplace and an update on a asbestos story and the Von Palleske family

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Part Three of The Current

Letters

It's Thursday, which means it's mail day ... time to read your thoughts on the week that was at The Current. And to help read letters with Anna Maria, this week's Friday host of The Current, Piya Chattopadhyay was in our Toronto studio.

Motherhood Interrupted: A story that really struck a chord with a lot of you. Monday on The Current, we brought you Sharon Pederson's story. In the mid-sixties, she was 19 years old, single and pregnant. Ostracized by her family, she was sent to live with relatives in Victoria, B.C. and thrown into a social welfare system that didn't care that she wanted to keep her baby.

After the documentary, Motherhood Interrupted, produced by The Current's Kathleen Goldhar aired, we received an outpouring of mail and phone calls. Clearly, this is a story that resonated with a lot of you and raised a lot of questions. So to answer some of those questions, Kathleen Goldhar who produced the documentary joined Anna Maria and Piya to shed some more light on this story and read some of our listener response.

Entitled University Students: 'The Entitlement Generation' is the tag put on to this current generation of university students by Ken Coates, a former dean and current professor of history at the University of Waterloo. He calls this generation of students the most spoiled and self-absorbed ever. Professor Coates is co-author of Campus Confidential: 100 Startling Things you Don't Know about Canadian Universities. And last Wednesday on The Current, he laid out his case. After we heard from Mr. Coates, we heard from you.

Erotic Capital: Last Thursday on The Current, we heard an argument for dolling up at the office ... to get ahead. Catherine Hakim is the author of Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom and she believes an attractive appearance is a a bankable commodity. And a lot of you had a lot to say about her argument. We shared some comments from our inbox and voicemail.

Von Palleske Update: And now an update on a story we aired earlier on The Current. In June, the CBC's Carol McDowell brought us the story of the Von Palleske family. Every day for 25 years, Wolfgang Von Palleske would come home from work throw open his arms and greet his wife and children with a big hug. He worked at an asbestos manufacturing plant near Toronto.

But what he didn't know was that every day, he came home with little bits of chrysotile asbestos clinging to his clothes. And every time he hugged his family, he was exposing them to the substance that ultimately led to his premature death. He died of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer usually caused by asbestos exposure.

Heidi's mother was diagnosed with the same thing. And since we aired that documentary, she has died of the disease. All this happening while asbestos is a material restricted in Canada but still mined in Quebec and exported to developing nations like India.

Earlier this month, we got an email from Heidi Von Palleske. She wrote to tell us that just four days before her mother passed away, she asked Heidi to record her dying plea to the asbestos industry - and our political leaders. We aired part of that video, a conversation between Heidi Von Palleske and her dying mother.

Also last month hundreds of health care professionals signed an open letter to Conservative MP Dr. Kellie Leitch, a prominent pediatric orthopedic surgeon, urging her to honour her medical oath and NOT support the Harper government's ongoing efforts to defend Canada's controversial asbestos exports.

And one final note on this story: A Walk to Remember Victims of Asbestos will be taking place next month, on October 1st, in Sarnia, Ontario.

Contact Us to share your thoughts about anything you hear on the program, we love hearing from you.

Other segments from today's show:

• Deputy Israeli Prime Minister Dan Meridor
• School Fundraising