Kids want to know. The best thing we can do is give them reliable, accurate information.

I remember from my own middle school years some of the misinformation that floated around the school hallways as gospel. One bit that sticks in my mind is a group of girls assuring each other that if one of them took her friend's birth control pill for that day, she would be protected and could have sex. This is middle school (grades 6, 7, and 8).

In the 8th grade, one of my friends spent the last few months of the school year wearing a coat that she never took off, then disappeared off to Grandma's house for the summer and came back much thinner. I didn't figure out until the next year that she'd been pregnant all that time. She was 14.

I'm in the process of building my son his very own reference library for all those questions he's to embarrassed to ask (he's 11 and mortified by everything, yet of course curious too). I highly recommend two books by Robie H. Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley, called "It's So Amazing" and "It's Perfectly Normal." They have another one in the series for younger kids (age 4 and up) called "It's Not the Stork." These books are fantastic, well written, with accurate, kid-oriented color illustrations. When I can get my mortified 11-year-old to talk, I know he reads these religiously (at night by flashlight so no one can see him).

Move out.

Although your parents can't see it, and may never see it, age 25 in America is the time to live on your own. If you can swing it, go to another city. Find your own way, far enough from home that you can't be expected home for Sunday dinner, and you can use the excuse that it's too expensive to call every day.

A dear friend of mine made the mistake of moving to the other side of a major metro area from her overbearing mom, and it was still within free phoning distance. Her mom expected a call every day and visits every weekend. So she finally moved about 1000 miles away.

Find friends. From your country of origin if you need to, but just regular friends. Build your life. As Cary suggested, visit, phone, and send cards, but go away and be an American adult.

Your parents brought you here. Take hold of it. They won't like it, but go anyway. Make your exit plan and go.

... why I gave up this crap in college. And after all these years, there are still parts of me that are recovering from Catholicism.

Wanna know what the most heretical religious doctrine is that I've taught my own children?

(drumroll please)

"It's OK to make up your own mind about these things."

AND (another drumroll)

"It's OK to change your mind."

Wow. Two mind-bending concepts I certainly never got as a child.

Excellent question, Andrew.

The elephant in the living room is of course that we can't. We just can't. But no one wants to go there. Even if the average American had to live with the "deprivation" of living like a European (smaller houses, fewer cars, less stuff), you'd hear the screams all the way to the nearest Wal-Mart.

We can't have it all. But that's not the answer we want.

Not just what cars we drive, or where we work, but why we go where we do, how often, and for what.

Out here in the suburbs, where everything is engineered around the car, we need a long hard look at planning codes. We need zoning changes for more retail inside neighborhoods, we need more ways to get where we need to go without taking 2000 pounds of metal along. That means sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, park-and-ride lots, and bus service. Not sexy, not interesting, not the coolest new technology, but it's what we need.

An article in our local paper talked about the criteria for siting new schools.

Typically, suburban school districts (which in my area are growing) have set criteria for siting schools, usually centered around obtaining cheap land. In the suburban towns in Metro Portland, few suburban districts have laws or guidelines that allow for ease of transit, such as close to neighborhoods, easy for children to walk or bike, close to bus lines so teachers can avoid driving. Instead, new schools, especially large comprehensive high schools, tend to get built on cheap land near the edge of town. That means almost the entire school has to take a bus or car to get there. Yet the school districts are strapped for cash, they're doing the best they can with the funds they have available, and they'll pay in bus fuel in the future for their school siting decisions.

This is very much a state and local issue, yet it affects all of us in carbon emissions, and in the amount of school tax money going into bus fuel. Where we put our schools, especially in the car-centered suburbs, is very important. I'd like to see schools put on land currently occupied by dying strip malls (lots of acreage of parking lots), or any other location that means kids, parents, and teachers could get there easily and cheaply, without a car.

No one, and I mean no one, is getting rich off of their jobs working at a nonprofit credit union. Everyone is getting a fair wage, benefits, and so on, commensurate with their experience. The customer (me) is getting decent banking services, close to home, fair interest rates, and a full range of loans, credit lines, savings plans, life insurance, everything one ought to expect from a bank. My money is insured by the Feds in a sister program to the FDIC but for credit unions.

No one is messing with the due dates or interest rates on my credit cards.

The difference? I'm not getting screwed.

Now if someone could come up with a nonprofit, credit-union style insurance company, we'd be somewhere.