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.

The trouble with most problem-solving books for parents is that they start with the idea that the child has a problem. Then they try to tell us how to fix the child, or else, after blaming the parent, they suggest how we can fix ourselves.

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

A sense of worthiness is a child's most important need.

Suddenly we have a baby who poops and cries, and we are trying to calm, clean up, and pin things together all at once. Then as fast as we learn to cope--so soon--it is hard to recall why diapers ever seemed so important. The frontiers change, and now perhaps we have a teenager we can't reach.

We do not have to get our children to learn; only to allow and encourage them in their learning. We do not have to dictate what they should learn; only to discern and respond to what it is that they are learning. Such responsiveness is at once the most educational and the most loving.

Awareness of having better things to do with their lives is the secret to immunizing our children against false values--whether presented on television or in "real life." The child who finds fulfillment in music or reading or cooking or swimming or writing or drawing is not as easily convinced that he needs recognition or power or some "high" to feel worthwhile.