This tug-of-war often obscures what's also happening between us. I am your mother, the first mile of your road. Me and all my obvious and hidden limitations. That means that in addition to possibly wrecking you, I have the chance to give to you what was given to me: a decent childhood, more good memories than bad, some values, a sense of tribe, a run at happiness. You can't imagine how seriously I take that - even as I fail you. Mothering you is the first thing of consequence that I have ever done.

Appreciation is the purest,strongest form of love. It is the outward-bound kind of love that asks for nothing and gives everything.

How seriously can I take myself? I'm just one of six billion people, right?

We'll bury our mothers and fathers - shuttling our children off for sleepovers, jumping on red-eyes, telling eachother stories that hurt to hear, about gasping, agonal breaths, hospice nurses, scars and bruises and scabs, and how skin papers shortly after a person passes. We will nod in agreement that it is as much an honor to witness a person leave this world as it is to watch a person come into it.

He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime.

I am an average mother in almost every way, so yes, much to my regret, I do yell at my children.

Raising people is not some lark. It's serious work with serious repercussions. It's air-traffic control. You can't step out for a minute; you can barely pause to scratch your ankle.