I have no doubt that over the years my children will find plenty of things about me to criticize. But something tells me that twenty years from now not one of them will sit on some therapist's couch complaining because their mother didn't spend enough time vacuuming up glitter.

No, I said. I didn't remember that. There was so much to remember, sometimes the best thing was to forget.

As for me, I've chosen to follow a simple course: Come clean. And wherever possible, live your life in a way that won't leave you tempted to lie. Failing that, I'd rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for who I am not. So, I tell my story. I write it down. I even publish it. Sometimes this is a humbling experience. Sometimes it's embarrassing. But I haul around no terrible secrets.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way but for me part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.

It's a great thing when a man knows how to dance, she said. When a man can dance, the world is his oyster." Adele, Henry's Mother

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too.