I loved this, encouraging and truthful. A few side roads in thinking I took when I read this: 1. This is the kind of reader I am with good books too. I “dialogue” with them, making notes all over the margins and underlining and questioning. Of course I know I’ll never get a response from Dostoevsky or even the Dalai Lama by scribbling all over the words on their pages, but commenting and questioning, interacting and analyzing, thinking and opening ourselves to change are the very, very best parts of what make us human beings the exceptional beings we are. It is a real privilege we have of literally interacting with other writers in this forum, hearing from our readers and responding to writers in real time. Like you, I have found it is so much more than I imagined. 2. With the ideas and attitudes in this essay, you are going to make a great mom. I am almost thirty years past my first baby but I remember those days of thinking my new identity had to include being home to catch Magnum P.I. at 3:00 nap time. I wish I could do it all over again, but my advice to you is to “take your own advice” with your child(ren) in this great post: Clap a lot. Listen even more than you think you can and then always try to comment. When you can be positive, do; when you can’t, go for patience before (or if) you respond. Read alot and teach them young how to “dialogue” with everything they (read or watch). You have a lot of wisdom and a great spirit and your family and the world will be enriched by your sharing both. Give yourself a lot of claps today, Jane