She smiled ruefully

My Zombie post and the comments thereof have obliquely caused me to reminisce fondly about the prerogatives enjoyed by every childless couple, which include but are certainly not limited to: infallibly judging parents’ competence by the public behavior of their young children, and believing everything that preschoolers say about their mothers. Oh, the days :D !

This is as good a time as any to trot out John Wilmot’s well-worn quip: “Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.”

It’s quite pleasantly liberating to realize that a baby isn’t headed straight to the state pen if you let him cry for a few minutes, and that a toddler’s eternal welfare doesn’t hinge on whether you let him have a monster cookie last Thursday. The real question is why we ever allowed ourselves to be talked into thinking that it does. (Speaking, as usual, only for myself. All you better-adjusted people out there quite probably never attained the level of paranoia I had as a first-time parent.)