There is nothing wrong with telling a kid who lives under your roof that if he screws up and costs you money, he will have to pay off the debt in chores. And if it comes to pass that he does not do the chores and then sasses you and you slap him, you are wrong, but so is he.

Single parents have an enormous job, and letting kids know who is in charge is essential to doing the job right. Clearly she loves him, she hemorrhages when he has a paper cut. She apparently loves him too much to let him run the show; she knows that will hurt him more than a slap ever could.

I love my parents, but they were good at setting limits, and I always knew that it was their house I lived in, their cars I drove, and their time I wasted when I argued with them. This motivated me to move out and find my own life, and since about the age of 18 I have never wanted to move back in and reprise my role of child.

Ironically, I also think I had a great childhood. I always knew I was not in charge, I worried about very little. Whatever it was, they would figure it out. Just about the time I wanted to figure it out for myself, it was time for me to go.

As a childrearing method, it works just fine. I can't believe so many people think this is abusive, or misguided. Maybe Sam went along with publishing this essay because he knows that too many of his friends are being raised by people who don't know how to be parents.

I can't think of any way to approach this except directly and openly. Invite the teacher out for coffee in the park, or over to your house, and tell her how touched you were by her story. Tell her you were moved enough to do a lot of soul searching about how to help the girl in the dark woods, that you want to stick around to help for as long as it takes, and ask her what she wants. If she cannot articulate it, ask her if you can help her to think about getting help, and/or help her to explore the avenues for bringing the gym teacher to justice. Some victims start healing first through therapy, and some are drawn first to the idea of punishing the perpetrator.

I just don't think you can decently go about inviting her into a "relationship" of any kind without telling her why. Cary says "First, befriend her. Let her trust you." But if the entire purpose of your interest is to dig into her past trauma, plunk her in therapy and hunt down a pedophile, then failure to signal that from the beginning is likely to lead to heartache and further trauma. The teacher is not a small child, this is not a made-for-TV movie, she is a real adult and deserves to be treated as one. If she is not interested, then you must respect that. It is her story.

Mommy is told by her daughter that she cannot talk now, she is having dinner with her partner. Mommy jabbers on, and this happens frequently? Making Mommy and Daddy mad or sad makes daughter physically ill? They do a bed check each night? Chat 7-10 times a day? I agree that the anthropologists need to be called in to study this tribe of well-attached folks. But marriage to a non-chatty fellow who declines to particpate in the bedtime rituals and does not want to be adopted by Mommy and Daddy? Surely that is a mixed marriage doomed to fail.

Marriage is nothing if not a sharing of values. Sure, we might have a few non-negotiable issues that our partner agrees to live with. But this sounds like these two violate each other's essence.