on a good note although we have our normal ups and downs all three of my children who are now 25yrs 30 yrs and 32yrs (rwo grown men now) have each called me at different stages and thanked me for being such a good mother to them. the thing you must keep in the fore front of your mind is that there is no such thing as a perfect parent and the person who comes up with that formula will be a rich person indeed. as said earlier we do the best we can at any given moment with the knowledge we have in that moment. i was pretty vigilant about hereditary mental illness and as each of them fought their own individual battles with depression I got them seen by a pdoc very quickly and only my daughter needed meds for panic attacks (beta blockers did the trick). all are doing well now and have the necessary tools to handle life and are good people who are good and kind to their friends and that is the most important thing. just love them, have as much fun as you can, do lots of talking late into the night take random days off school and keep giving yourself credit for the incredible job you are doing every single day, then you heave a big sigh of relief when the leave home and hand them a bill for 250,000 or so but unfortunately they still keep coming back! lol

Good to see you here, irish!

It must feel good to be told you're a great mom by grown children. I hope someday I know the feeling.

hi SulllenK. it took me a long time to accept it. I used to say that they turned out well in spite of me not because of me for years until i learned to give myself a break and acknowledge all the good work I had done with very little money and divorcing an abusive alcoholic/addict husband. One of my daughter's friends still reminds me when we meet of the times i used to stop the car so that we could all get out to dance if a good song was playing or to admire a sunset. good times!

I’m always being asked to smile. Lol I do dark humorist smirks unless I’m in a manic episode that’s way high then I’ll retake it.