I was looking at a draft of this post as an earthquake just rippled through New York. Several of my workmates felt it. I didn’t — I was dreamy, lost in a break from work, reading my own blog.

My niece made this heart in the sand. Kids are amazing.

Here’s the post I was looking at when the rest of NYC felt the tremor –

***Maybe I should stop looking for happiness and start looking for meaning.

In How To Land Your Kid in Therapy the writer Lori Gottlieb asks: “Could it be that by protecting our kids from unhappiness as children, we’re depriving them of happiness as adults?”

I’ve blogged about this  A Generation of Disconnected Kids And decided I’m going to walk the middle ground between helicopter mom/tiger mom and neglectful mom.

Gottlieb’s article is tearing up the blogosphere. Even the blog, The Quotidian Hudson, http://quotidianhudsonriver.com/, devoted to the awesome Hudson River, quotes Gottlieb’s article:

“Happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.”

That is something it seems we don’t teach much anymore.  As the founders/Jefferson put it, Happiness is not an unalienable right “the pursuit” is… (Robert Johnson)

I think part of my problem with over-parenting is that I am overly involved with my kids’ happiness. I need to step back and let them pursue their own happiness. Then I can pursue my own.

I can do less, but that means I need to ask for more help. Asking For Help.  And that’s not easy.

But remember my Number 2 Rule? Pile on the People!

And though everyone’s talking and blogging about Gottlieb’s Atlantic article. I hope the discussion on overinvolved parents (read mothers) doesn’t devolve into a mother-bashing session,  ’cause God knows, we mothers are doing the best we can.

That would be a nice after-shock to the article — if people had a greater appreciation for a mother’s work and helped one another out more.

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