Mathoms, etc.

Call it my lack of maternal instinct, but sometimes I either shake my head or marvel at my friends and co-workers' parenting skills. From letting her daughter get away with not combing her hair so now she has a knot in the back of her hair, to a daughter speaking disrespectfully and the mother just taking it, to a son walking around with poop in his pants and dragging it around the bathroom floor, THEN the mom having to clean it all up, to talking ever so calmly to a boy throwing a tantrum, running around from one activity to another, or dealing with illnesses. I don't know how parents do it. The enormity of the responsibility you have towards properly raising this other person is mind-boggling to me.

Someone told me a story about her son today. She's been trying to exercise and lose weight, and her son offered her some of his Easter candy stash. She told him she's on a diet, and he asked what a diet was. She told him she's trying to eat healthy, eat right so she won't be fat (a word she told him never to use). And the little 6 year old gave her a big hug and told her that he will always love her, whether she was skinny or fat.

That's one way of knowing you've done right by your kid, and that there's a good chance he is, and will be, a decent human being.