Our kids are not here to comfort us, to entertain us, or to validate us. Those things need to come from ourselves and from other adults.

One of the silliest lines ever said in a feature film came from Love Story, the 1970s hit, which immortalized the phrase, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." There are few people who would actually want to share a life with someone who held that concept near and dear.

We've all got to remember to pick our battles carefully, to be prepared to lose small ones, and to hold out for big ones.

No matter how children came to be living with just one parent, they need to be told, again and again, that your family's configuration is the result of an adult decision or an act of fate that has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Hard though it may be to accept, remember that guilt is sometimes a friendly internal voice reminding you that you're messing up.

Our kids are not here to comfort us, to entertain us, or to validate us. Those things need to come from ourselves and from other adults.

Parents, whether or not we believe in a deity, know that to witness a child's mind searching for meaning is a miracle.