I am at Saint Marys college now. My first day of class we were all assigned to read "Shitty First Drafts" by Anne Lamott. Inside i was chuckling. I didn't feel like blurting out "I KNOW ANNE I KNOW HER!" because, you know, i am in college now, we need to be mature. instead i sat there reading your article. It dawned on me then that you, came into Ms. Grahmans fifth grade class and taught us an English lesson. I don't remember exactly what the lesson was but it was also the same day I got punished for calling a kid "Chicken Balls" ( ironic because chickens don't have balls....) anyways Anne, I just had to drop by and leave a comment. originally i wanted to email you but, I couldn't find your email.

And regarding your story, i loved it. It brought me right back to my little child hood. The story reminded me of my mother. She ran into a couple experiences of her own with my two older brothers as well. Luckily I was the youngest child so i simply watched, learned, and let it never happen to me. tee-hee.

Also, I read some of the reviews and was startled at some of the notes left behind. People who would write "You slapped your child" made me a little hot on the inside. You know? i mean 30 or so years ago teachers were slamming kids hands with a ruler to they bled. I think a parent is allowed a break here or there. I don't know. maybe i shouldest have said that. I just felt the need to drop by. I just felt grateful.... I had Anne Lamott come speak to me in the 5th grade. At the time it really didn't mean much to me. Like i said, after you left i called a kid chicken balls.

I just wanted to thank you, Anne, for this story. I've read it twice now and sent it to many friends with 17 year old boys. My husband and I were just saying last night that it would be nice to know someone whose son was like ours at 17 and is now past that stage, having moved on to a happier, more satisfying way of being in the world. I look forward to reading more about Sam, because i trust that with the kind of love, support, faithfulness and honesty about life that he has been raised with, as well as his own strong will, he has all the inner resources he needs to live just such a life. I keep praying that we find ways to forgive each other - to trust our love for our own son - to trust our experience of his return each time we think we'll never "find" him again - and to trust that he knows we are here for him - even as he is moving out, into his very own life. So Anne, how's it going these days? Thanks for writing your life. it is such good medicine!

If I were you, I would be careful with that "Families aren't democracies" shit. It's appropriate for little kids, but not for teenagers. I still don't know how to forgive my father for saying it. I'm 35, and he died almost 10 years ago. I think of the son of a bitch as the devil's daily breakfast--and I want everyone who knows me to know that.

"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God."--Benjamin Franklin

Pardon my racial insensitivity, but teenagers are the new niggers. For more on this subject, I recommend The Teenage Liberation Handbook, by Grace Llewellyn.

When I was home long ago with two young boys and no money and a giant house to try to manage, I used to wonder what my neighbor Julia thought of me when she heard me yelling. So one day, over the back fence, I said "Julia, you must think I'm awful." And Julia (who had raised five kids through the great depression) said "I always say, 'you never know what happened before.'" I am astonished at the self-righteous perfection demanded by the letter writers to Anne Lamott's story about her teenager. I have a son who has known how to push my buttons for 50 years. Sons know how to do that. But I think if you asked him, he would tell you I have been a pretty good Mom. let's have a reality check here.

I can't believe the naive nonsense I've been reading from people who are shocked and outraged at....well, let's just enumerate all the horrors Lamott is inflicting on her boy:

1) she slapped him--once!--and intensely regretted it and sought the counsel of others about having done it. Wow, what a horrible parent. C'mon, people--frankly, if an adolescent that you're housing and feeding and clothing and caring for and loving and fretting over speaks rudely and contemptuously to you, a slap might very well be very much in order--in fact, it might be an utterly apposite response, and far less harsh than many parents might deliver with similar justification. How sharper than a serpent's tooth and all that.

2) all of this blather about how she's unfairly "wielding power over him" due to the fact of, um, owning the car she lets him drive and the home she lets him sleep in and the food she lets him eat. Some even suggested she should simply give him the car as a gift, to eliminate the power issues at work in their relationship having to do with him having to ask her if he can use the car, and her decision to withhold his access to it when he misbehaves. Puh-leeze. She owns the car. She lets him drive it so long as he do so safely and does his chores. The minute he refuses to do something she reasonably asks him to do, like wash the very car she generously lets him drive (or the dishes, or his hair), she absolutely is entitled to withhold the privilege of letting him use the car. And if he compounds the problem with open disrespect and rudeness, well oh my, he might get slapped. The car isn't his. The food in the fridge isn't his. He gets all of this because his mother loves him, and also because he demonstrates that he's willing to do his part of the work in their lives. No work, no goodies. Period.

3) all of this asinine advice about not holding him to task if he doesn't do a chore--"find another chore for him to do" and all of that. Good lord, what folly. I love my children and they love me, but if my son doesn't mow the lawn when I ask him to--if he were ever to simply refuse to do it outright--he'd be literally barred from the house until he gets his act together. No meals. No car. No TV. No nothing. And if he were to speak to me rudely and contemptuously? You know, I wouldn't strike him--it's just not my style. But I'd do what I've done before when this sort of thing occasionally emerged: walk upstairs and start carrying all but the most rudimentary furnishings in his room out to the garage, to be put away until he gets his act together. He'd have a bed, a nightstand, a desk, a chair, and a lamp. And his clothing. No stereo. No computer. No TV. I've done this before and believe me, it works: it reminds a child what he gets for free from loving parents, and what he's taking for granted, and what can just as easily be taken back. And yes, that's certainly "wielding my power over my child." Absolutely. I pay the bills and put food on the table and clothes on his back. He has a lot of freedom but there are fundamental boundaries: do as you're told and don't ever speak rudely to me or your mother, EVER. That's not brutal, old-school parenting--that's loving, effective, practical parenting. It works.