WHEN I was eight, I had names picked out for all of my future offspring (a dozen baby girls). At 13 I had my own babysitting business. After grad school, I was teaching a class full of fourth-graders. So by the time I became pregnant with my first child —a boy, go figure! — I knew exactly what kind of mother I was going to be: calm, organized and completely in charge.
Yeah, right.
(If only I’d gotten the Talmudic memo about teaching a child according to his way, back in those early days of motherhood. I would have understood that one-size-fits-all parenting didn’t actually exist, thus saving myself loads of stress. Ironically, it would be my kids themselves who eventually taught me this fundamental truth of raising children, enlightening me one by one, and each according to his or her own unique way.)