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Refining Our Focus on Our Daughters In the pre-air-conditioned, pre-TV (in our house) fifties when I was growing up, it was a regular occurrence on hot summer evenings for the phone to ring—there was going to be a hamburger fry at McClelland Park. I loved the picnics and getting together with our friends, but I didn’t like McClelland Park. There were no swings or slides; there was nothing for kids to do. It would never have occurred to my folks to take that into consideration when planning these get-togethers. Everyday life all those years ago was organized around adults, not children. Routines and schedules were largely arranged to suit grown-ups; children were on [...]

I can remember how quickly Mom and I could slide into a shouting match when I was a teen. All would be going along well; perhaps we were standing in the kitchen talking about school or what I wanted for my birthday. Out of nowhere would come the explosion. “We’ll need to see,” I can hear Mom saying to my suggesting that all my friends come for a slumber party to help me celebrate. “That means it probably won’t happen,” I spouted back. And we were off and running. Never mind that an hour earlier I had turned down an offer from one of my buddies to sleep over at her house on Saturday [...]