Dear Mommy,

Once I found myself in a situation so conflicting that I no longer cared for my own happiness.  The most tempting decision to make would have hurt me, but I no longer cared.  But I knew that it would hurt you to know that I had hurt myself.  Despite not caring about anything else in my agony, I could not bring myself to hurt you in that way.  I knew that you loved me. 


All the times you have bemoaned not being a good disciplinary parent, all the times that you have thought that if you had only been a little stricter I would have done the dishes, all the times when you've cringed as I told exaggerated stories about how we never did any work when you bribed us, and you would give us the cookies anyway...  Well, all those times, the underlying message you clearly gave me, was that you loved me.  Consistency in discipline techniques could only have hindered, what your heart naturally told me without any book of tricks to tell you how to raise me.