Thursday - What do you mean by "mean?"

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that I must learn how to accept my role as a parent to my son, as opposed to a co-conspirator. For too many years, my role as the childless adult was more that of a playmate than a position of authority when I was around children. I enjoyed this. Other adults were serious, but I was fun. I could take the children's side on issues and be relatively safe. Now Jeff, who is a better mother than I am, has called me on this.

"Don't tell him I'm mean," he said to me the other day, "we're supposed to be a united front. We can't to undermine each other."

( A boy's Pull-My-Finger parent shouldn't be his mother; it's just wrong. )