Dr. Laura -

I love to listen to you, particularly when you work with people about "letting go" of the image of a perfect parent. It sounds harsh, but accept the fact you will never have the parent you wished you had and move on. I finally came to a similar conclusion regarding my son who has autism.  After years of trying to change him, or fix him to what I needed him to be, I accepted his limitation and my life and his got so much easier. He will always be autistic and mildly retarded. That will not change. I will always need to be responsible for his safety, but more important, he is happy, healthy, and has a great off beat sense of humor. Our lives got better when I quit concentrating on my image of him, and accepted who he was on his terms. He's 36 and on his own.  He has a job, friends, and loves TV wrestling. And we're both really good with that!

Holly