On the surface, it would seem that our children have never had it so good. We, their doting parents, will do anything for them, and they know it. The sacrifices we make for them we wear like badges of honor—the early mornings spent watching them play soccer in the rain, the endless batches of cookies baked for school sales, the countless miles logged chauffering them to their various activities. Determined to correct what we judge to have been the mistakes of our own parents, we have chosen to make our commitment to our kids absolute, our involvement in their lives total. Sometimes, though, something happens that makes me wonder if our approach is flawed, and that it is only the commanded unconditional respect, which they mostly got both from us and from the other children with whom they came in contact. Now that we’ve become parents ourselves, their assured authority remains a remote mystery, a totem we grasp at but can never quite acquire. This is nowhere more obvious than in the ambiguous messages we constantly send to our own offspring.

Take our efforts to transform our kids into bright, articulate youngsters. From an early age we encourage them to speak up, no matter how inane or off topic their comments. Is it any wonder that eventually they turn into chronic interrupters? 

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