It’s not that she encourages me to read her Live Journal or be FB friends, although a couple years ago she showed me how to crate a FB page. Since she knew I was not going to land on her neck and shout “Off with her head!” I knew what she was doing. It’s fair to say that once or twice I have cringed — but what would I rather have, silence and no communication, or to let her make her own mistakes? I made mistakes — and boy, do they make me shudder at times — and I survived. She will too.

IMHO those parents who snoop and pry — and I had a mother like that — not only lose their child’s love and respect, they are excluded. I pick my fights and my daughter knew that. Because we are honest with each other and I pick my fights, when I tell her frankly that something is, in my view, just unacceptable, she hears what I say.