Especially with our first child, we tend to take too much responsibility--both credit and blame--for everything. The more we wantto be good parents, the more we tend to see ourselves as making or breaking our children.

Parenthood always comes as a shock. Postpartum blues? Postpartum panic is more like it. We set out to have a baby; what we get is a total take-over of our lives.

As parents it is well to be aware of the tendency to equate energetic activity with contest. Our children's worth does not dependon their ability to trounce one another. And surely we can find ways of frolicking and being healthy and active together in some joyful, free way that is not an adversary relationship.

The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins walking. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.

The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.

We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.

Most of us would do more for our babies than we have ever been willing to do for anyone, even ourselves.