Our role as parents is to prepare our children for 60+ years of living independent lives, not provide 24x7 stimulation for years that won't even be remembered. I went to a birthday party for a one year old and was flabbergasted. I thought one year old birthdays should be a family affair - a cupcake with a candle, grandad with the video camera, a song, and that's it. Instead it was 20 kids with parents, and the attendees got gift bags. Gift bags! They were already getting cake and ice cream and games - wasn't that the 'gift'! I thought the gifts were reserved for the birthday celebrant?! Apparently not - apparently impressing the parents of the attendees has become as or more important as the happiness of the birthday child. It was excessive, ridiculous and nauseating, and anyone suffering from depression for letting this sort of crap define the meaning of their life deserves it.

Mothering is only a competitive sport because wome make it so. Women are their own worst critics and enemies about *every*thing - weight, behavior, style (you'll never see an article about age appropriate dressing in a men's magazine but women love to censure one another on this front) etc...but especially motherhod.

Children are part of a family, *not* the family entire. They aren't the even the nucleus - that's the parents, the marriage. Parents must have high self esteem in order to have adequate resources to devote to their children. Not children-derived esteem, but SELF-esteem. It seems to me most of the depression I seen in modern mothers has to do with the fact that they have nothing to fulfill them but their children, which of course isn't enough. My boyfriend has other interests besides his daughter - skiing, snowboarding, biking, travelling, language, art. He pursues all of them with vigor. I think he's a better dad for it, and she is certainly benefitting as well - it's much more fun to describe/show her how to trim a wick for a candlelamp while 'camping' in the backyard than it is to read Strawberry Shortcake for the thousandth time, for both of them.

Loving, developing and nurturing yourself does not take away from your child - quite the opposite. I can't imagine my boyfriend feeling guilty for telling his daughter, as I've heard him "can you play by yourself for awhile, daddy wants to read the paper". Having an ordinary adult life is something he is entitled to and must have - he sees it, rightly, as making him a more complete and balanced adult and therefore father. I can see by his daughter's behavior, happiness, the light in her eyes, that he is right.

Does a woman need to highlight her sexuality in ANY endeavor in order to be considered 'a woman' ??

Of course HIlary - and any other woman running a serious enterprise - should squelch her sexuality. Men should too for that matter. In all jobs in which the execution of the job isn't ABOUT sexuality, sexuality is irrelevant. Georege Bush doesn't walk around in a leather thong, after all. Nor does he wear tight-fitting t-shirts on his casual days, nor does he leave he first 3 buttons open to display manly chest hair. Men don't seem to have any confusion at all about what amount of sexuality is 'appropriate' to highlight in the professional enviors - none. Women should follow suit if they wish to be taken seriously. If, on the other hand, they wish to remind people of their sexuality and have it considered on par with their ideas, then by all means, show the cleavage, but take the consequences.

There is nothing wrong with breast feeding. But what's the harm in keeping it private? Does it really have to be splahsed across a magazine cover for everyone to see? I mean, why? What's the point? By the same token, we don't need to see a picture of a woman sitting on a toilet, a guy standing before a urinal, a teenage boy with his hand up the skirt of a teenage girl. All of these pictures depict totally natural behaviors and don't reveal any of the 'naughty bits'. It's not prudish to not want to view someone else's private moment. It's politeness and it should work both ways.