View from the Control Tower

They were disappointed, and soon the pouting four-year-old came marching through the room banging a drum and chanting, "They're just trying to control us, they're just trying to control us ..."

Looking back, it may have been one of the funnier things I've seen. Ever. But at the time, it rattled me.

That dirty word again. But vying for control over assertive aunts and sassy sisters is sport; wielding it against your kids feels kind of sick. And potentially toxic.

I don't want to be that mom. The bully mom. The one who thinks she's carefully and invisibly guiding her children toward adulthood when in fact she's dragging and shoving and badgering them toward it — so they can run like hell to get away from her once they're there.

Still, isn't it our job to control them a little bit? Aren't there moments — and even broad because-I-said-so areas — where parental control is appropriate? Street-crossing: yes. Friend-choosing: no. Telephone manners, dessert portions, party attire: Um ... ? How do you know when issuing rules and censuring misdeeds is imparting an important lesson — and when it's just being a bossy tyrant whose children will write autobiographical screenplays and cast her as the repugnant villain?

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