"You don't love me!"  How many times have your kids laid that one
on you?  And how many times have you, as a parent, resisted the urge
to tell them how much?

          Someday, when my children are old enough to understand the logic
that motivates a mother, I'll tell them:

          I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with
whom, and what time you would get home.

          I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover your hand-
picked friend was a creep.

          I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out
of it to a drugstore and confess,  "I stole this."

          I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you
cleaned your bedroom, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes.

          I loved you enough to not make excuses for your lack of respect or
your bad manners.

          I loved you enough to ignore  "what every other mother"  did.

          I loved you enough to figure you would lie about the party being
chaperoned but forgive you for it....after discovering I was right.

          I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall and fail so that you
could learn to stand alone.

          I loved you enough to accept you for wha you are, not what I
wanted you to be.

          But most of all, I loved you enough to say no when you hated me
for it.   That was the hardest part of all.
 

                                                    Erma Bombeck