Dear LM,

It was my pleasure and privilege to both meet, as well as to read for you.

Your positive feedback and your down to Earth practical approach to your many challenges both with your partner and in bringing up your children deserve admiration and respect, and a heartfelt job well done.

We only really begin to learn about being a better parent when our first new born comes home from the hospital (they are all out of storks these days who are willing to pay the exorbitant and often prohibitive insurance premiums, in order to protect themselves financially from low flying jet aircraft), and we suddenly recognise the immensity of the challenge and responsibility which we have taken upon ourselves during one night of careless (?) passion.

So very little of what it takes to become a more effective and loving parent comes from books, especially in the opening years of the 21st century.

I feel it is long past time for parents to support parents wherever and whenever the opportunity presents itself to us, and that society will eventually recognise that this is by far the most important job on the planet. We hold the future of our children and in turn the future of the entire human race in our hands, but we can never own them or live their lives for them. We cannot permanently protect them from the storms of life, but this does not stop any parent who is worth being called Mum or a Dad from trying their best to do all this and much more.

Your reading is effectively telling me that while you have not experienced the best of relationships, the signs are that the worst of it is now behind you. From now on barring some temporary minor downward fluctuations which you will cope with magnificently as usual, your relationship will be on the up and up.

Take good care of yourself,

EoT