In the range of things toddlers have to learn and endlessly review--why you can't put bottles with certain labels in your mouth, why you have to sit on the potty, why you can't take whatever you want in the store, why you don't hit your friends--by the time we got to why you can't drop your peas, well, I was dropping a few myself.

It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been--and even then thereare surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are?

With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.

Our humor turns our anger into a fine art.

Divorce exposes absolutely ever buried assumption about marriage ... how a husband's sense of entitlement and a wife's sense of duty turned the principle of 'our money, our kids' into the reality of 'his money, her kids.

One year, I'd completely lost my bearings trying to follow potty training instruction from a psychiatric expert. I was stuck on step on, which stated without an atom of irony: "Before you begin, remove all stubbornness from the child." . . . I knew it only could have been written by someone whose suit coat was still spotless at the end of the day, not someone who had any hands-on experience with an actual two-year-old.

When trouble comes no mother should have to plead guilty alone. The pediatricians, psychologists, therapists, goat herders, fathers, and peer groups should all be called to the bench as well. . . .