As a young mother with our first little baby gazing at me with trusting eyes, I remember feeling overwhelmed with the thought of raising this child safely in this very scary world. How could I keep her safe from physical and emotional harm? What could I possibly do to ensure that she had a happy childhood and a socially secure and spiritually stable adolescence?

Okay, so you’ve probably seen the movie National Lampoons VACATION. It is where the Griswold family's cross-country drive to the WallyWorld theme park proves to be much more arduous than they ever anticipated. Chevy Chases cracked me up when they reached the park to find out it was closed, not so funny for the family.

The other morning, I was digging around for something in the back of my closet when I found a framed photograph I’d stashed there in one of my fits of manic tidying.

Is there something the matter with me? As a wife? Because here’s the thing: I don’t always like to do my “wifely duty.”

Last night I did what I ordinarily do around eleven o’clock. I shut down my laptop computer and put it away, then closed the book I was reading and set it on the lamp stand next to the sofa. I brought my water glass and my wine glass into the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. While my husband went outside to smoke his last cigarette for the evening, I climbed the stairs and readied myself for bed.

When my oldest son started his first day of Kindergarten I, like many mothers, cried the minute he sat down in his classroom. He was a big boy now. He was entering a new phase in his life, yet I still remember the first day I held him in my arms as a newborn.