Lee this is such an important issue and I am so glad you addressed it! We cannot "own" our children's successes or failures. We can celebrate and commiserate with them but ultimately they must decided what life they want to live. And we can not be perfect parents but we can be good enough Thanks so much for writing this!

As a parent of a child soon leaving high school ... this is perhaps the best thing I've read all year. I tend to overworry about the "what if..." and having a hard time letting her make her own decisions for fear her failure will reflect as bad parenting.

Thanks.

Refreshing to "hear" someone say that. I wish I'd learned that when my kids were tiny and I was reading all those idiotic parenting books that prey on parents' fears of being pariahs if their kids aren't perfect. Thank God we all moved beyond that phase and I've got two pretty darned good adolescents!