Here’s our pal Pete responding to this week’s Smartmom in the Brooklyn Paper.

Hi Louise – I just read your column in the Brooklyn Paper about not hearing from OSFO since she’s been at sleepaway camp, and all I can say is – Congratulations! If your 10-year old is successfully on her way towards healthy separation and individuation, then you have done your job as a mother. When we are at our best as parents, we are temporary custodians of those developing beings we call children, and from day one, our job is to help them to be more and more able to live without us in the world – to make their own friends, establish their own values, express their own unique gifts their way. Fear not, Louise, and remember, having just spent a week alone on Block Island yourself, blissfully separated and individuated from your kids, co-dependency is not love, or as Sting said: “If you love someone, set them free.”
Peter Loffredo