Almost my entire family life for the past 25 years has been about step-parenting, and it's been fine--practically Swedish. But there are rules and things to remember. One thing to remember is that moms get a lot of blame, too. Once, I was at a dinner of about 18 or twenty people, aged 25-60, and we started talking about our mothers--EVERYONE at the table hated their mothers. NOt step-mothers--their own mothers. Now, as a step-mother, this presents an opportunity for you. YOU are going to be more objective but also more sympathetic toward the kids. You never discipline or criticize them. If your husband is letting them run wild, you approach him when he's in a good mood (say, in bed) and explain to him how he might do things differently. But you do it calmly and good-naturedly. Yes, guess what, you have to grow up in order to be a step-parent--you have to learn patience, empathy, and you have to be able to psych out the situation and keep a cool head. If you can, you should indulge the step-kids from time to time (this is easier if the parents are relatively strict). You want to be the good cop. I knew one woman whose step-daughter was visiting for the first time ever. She was terrified--the divorce had been very messy. I advised her to take the girl to the mall at some point and let her have something that she really wanted--maybe a bit extravagant. She did. It broke the ice. The step-kids have to feel as though you are on their side, which means you are a little more sisterly than parental. It does help if the real mother is a narcissistic bitch, and such a thing is not uncommon. It can turn out with girls that the mother and the step-mother each become a bit of a rest from the other one, and the girls enjoy the difference. And then, as the kids and the parents get older, the kids come to realize that the step-mother will enable them to avoid the situation of the movie "Hanging UP'--dad dependent on the daughters and constantly demanding service....

indicate in the article whether the battery is replaceable when it loses its ability to take a charge, or whether th WHOLE THING must be replaced. I have a 10 year old Apple that gets reborn over and over--doesn't have to go to the dump. BUT is very heavy.

I've been in that position. I mean, people decide not to tell you things, lots of people, and they're going to tell her when they know she has cancer? And when they believe that he's found himself a venus flytrap? I mean, I'm not a big fan of EE, actually, but I think you are expecting too much of her, here.

in response to Waldman in Salon. They were the most vicious anonymous letters I ever saw until Deborah Dickerson started writing for Salon, and they convinced my that Salon readers are the most petty, insulting, self-congratulatory and shallow readers of any online journal, who especially could not (cannot) stand the idea that someone would write an honest, introspective first person piece and GET PAID FOR IT! I mean, posters at the Guardian can be mean, but not nearly as mean as at Salon. I even composed one that I posted for a while as a joke. It said something like, Dear (Author), Why did you bother to write this, you little twit. I am so much wiser and cooler than you, love Salon reader." I think Waldman is pretty brave to reconsider all of this, and do it with a sense of humor. I congratulate her.

drive them out! They are walking horrors! I don't even want to spend the money to imprison them.

play with squirrels--when my kid was 141/2, I handed him a few bucks and a bus map of our area (not urban) and I told him to explore. He went out and about for three or four days, learned to take the bus, and got a sense of geography. After that, if he didn't get up in time for the schoolbus, he had to take the public bus. Now he is driving, and his sense of geography and also having had to rely on himself has proven useful. I can't imagine how he might have been prepared for driving without the bus. And walking to and from the bus. At the same time, parenting is full of gambles. Giving them freedom is a gamble, hovering is a gamble. You can only hope that your gamble pays off. I have had five kids and step-kids, the oldest aged thirty. NONE of them has done the risky things their fathers did in the fifties and sixties, and I'm glad they haven't. Moderation and thoughtfulness are the key, not panic.

of the soul will come no matter what. We can investigate, indict, and incarcerate those who broke the laws, or we can sit on our hands and let those who get away with these things (like Karl Rove) back in power in another four-twelve years, and see what they do then (it will be worse). Either way, it will be painful (I admit that the first way will not be painful for me--I want to seem them humiliated and fried) but if we don't engage now, we will be destroyed the next time. And NO ONE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD will care.

when she was your age. She's alive now, almost ninety. But no one can stand her. Being an alcoholic amounts to having a certain type of personality--narcissistic. AA will help you understand how you seem to others and change. You should go to a few meetings even if you don't want to stop drinking. My mother never understood a thing about herself, and now she wonders why her children avoid her.