As a news organization, the Herald commonly has a television screen tuned to one of the cable news stations. When a circular dirigible straight out of a comic book appeared bobbing on the screen last week, people took notice. As the drama unfolded, the crowd huddled around the screen grew (the only other time I can recall such a scene was the Obama inauguration). When the craft came down in a Denver area field and was found to be empty, I feared the worst for Falcon, the 6-year-old boy believed to have accidentially been carried away in it. As a mother, I knew even the death of a complete stranger’s child would weigh heavily on me. I was cheered and relieved to learn that the boy had been hiding in the attic of the family’s home in Ft. Collins. When reports emerged earlier this week that the whole thing might have been concocted as a stunt to draw attention for a reality TV show, my first reaction was sympathy for Falcon and his two siblings. “How wrong to drag one’s children into such a hair-brain scheme,” I thought.

With the parents facing possible felony charges, the children’s fate is uncertain. This article in the Chicago Tribune discusses the possible outcomes for them. The factors that must be weighed are the potential danger to the children from remaining with their kooky parents vs. the trauma of being separated from them. This is never clear-cut but the current thinking among child protection workers is that the presumptive best option is keeping families together. That is as it should be. Dr. Richard A. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, in a recent article for The New York Times, notes that we are innately predisposed to bond with our parents.

“Research on early attachment, both in humans and in nonhuman primates, shows that we are hard-wired for bonding — even to those who aren’t very nice to us,” he writes.

So children should stay with their parents under all but the most irreconcilable circumstances. And parents should above all strive to never betray that sacred trust.

In a nod to the wisdom of fathers, I’m passing along this from Aaron Unterreiner’s sports column in Sunday’s paper. In it, he shares his dad’s list of 26 ”Secrets to Success in Raising Kids.” I don’t know Mr. Unterreiner, but I know his son, and I’d say he got it right. Here’s his secrets (click here to read Aaron’s full column):

1. Above all, be friends with your kids — good friends.

2. Teach them to never be afraid to feel and to share their emotions.

3. Show them the beauty of love — all kinds of love.

4. Hug them often, and with meaning.

5. Tell them your stories; let them know your life.

6. Listen to their stories; work to understand their feelings.

7. Earn their respect; be their example.

8. Teach them respect for all of life.

9. Spend time alone with them.

10. Pray with them; teach them the goodness of God.

11. Do something wild with them, something only a good friend would do.

12. Encourage them to write.

13. Cry with them; laugh with them.

14. Run with them.

15. Teach them family tradition; gather often as a family.

16. Encourage them to be involved in life and involve yourself in all they do.

17. Hit fly balls to them.

18. Treat them like equals, and watch them rise to the challenge.

19. Show them how to stay one step ahead; teach them to be leaders.

20. Help them with the realities of life, not what you may want life to be.

21. Be friends with their friends.

22. Let them live their life, but hold their hand when their hands need holding.

23. Be firm in your beliefs; they only know what you and the world teaches them.

24. Teach them there are no bounds to life; they can be what they want to be.

25. Kiss them good night, and hug them in the morning.

26. Take this job and its responsibilities seriously — the rewards for success are awesome; the consequences of failure are devastating.

Lately I’ve been having pangs of guilt about how little quality time I get to spend with my firstborn. It seems these days most of our conversations start with “Leo, don’t …”. Gone, it seems, are the days of settling in side-by-side to our easy chair with a pile of books to be read one by one (now we’re lucky to get through one). I see his spectrum of emotions broadening daily and I want so badly to be there shepherding him through these complex new feelings, keeping out the coyotes that can settle in to one day become adult neuroses. But there’s just not time …

I’ve heard a lot of women talk about having mourned the end of their firstborn’s only-childhood. I think we all sense that, with a second child, that relationship will be forever changed. A good friend of mine said it took her a year after her second daughter’s birth to get over the grief of having lost that unique bond. In a way, I see it as a sacrifice we make for our children — we relinquish our supremacy in our firstborn’s heart to make space there for a sibling. As complicated as relationships between siblings can be, I fundamentally believe that there is great psychic comfort to be had from knowing that there in someone in the world who knows just what it was like to grownup in your (insert adjective here) family. So I remind myself that it is more my loss than his that I am mourning — he gained a companion and co-conspirator, or at least an object of torment for entertainment.

Given all this, I respect (and envy a bit) couples who choose to have only one child because that is what’s right for them. In fact, I’m hugely comforted by the ability of children of all configurations of families to thrive so long as they’re rooted in love.

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Money has often been cited as a top reason couples fight and divorce, and, in tough economic times, it becomes an even greater stressor. This first-person story by a New York Times economics reporter is about how he and his wife found themselves at the brink of financial and marital ruin as a result of a home purchase made shortly after their wedding (both have children from a previous marriage).

The striking thing about this engrossing cautionary tale is how it can happen to anyone, including people who should know better, people who previously had been responsible managers of their money. The article illustrates — and I have learned from personal experience — that we are most vulnerable to making disastrous financial decisions on the heels of major life changes.

In my case, I had a triple whammy: I learned I was pregnant, got a new job and moved out of the country within a matter of months. When I arrived in Mexico City ahead of my husband and four months pregnant, my mission in life was to find and furnish a place for us that would feel like home, a sanctuary in the big noisy city. My credit card, which I had always dutifully paid down each month, was smoking from all the swiping as I went about this goal with the singular focus that only a pregnant woman in full nesting mode can. I would have fleeting moments of panic about my ballooning balance but always reasoned the worry away with the belief that with my new, higher salary, I would have it paid off in no time. I was still thinking as a childless, single person when almost all my income was discretionary. It wasn’t until the baby was born and credit card maxed out that I realized how deeply in the red we were. I was so angry with myself for having introduced this bête noire that was forever scratching at the glass of our new-parent bliss. For what? We wouldn’t have been any less happy eating off a card table and sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Three years later, we’re still digging out but have made significant progress. Like millions of other Americans, we’ve come to appreciate the joys and virtue of frugality. (Full disclosure: I continue to be susceptible to overspending for shoes, organic produce and decent beer or wine). 

So, having heard examples how couples should not — never, ever — manage their money, here’s an interesting discussion on investment Web site The Motley Fool, about finding financial communion in your union.

My Mother’s Day got an early start. At 2 a.m., with my baby waking up to be fed. At 4 a.m., when my toddler materialized at the bedside because he had a dirty diaper (no, we haven’t tackled night-time potty training yet). At 5:30 a.m., when the baby was up again. And finally at 7:30 a.m, when my toddler materialized again, with an effervescent, “time to get up!”

Me (whose idea was the nun outfit?), my mom, grandma and brother circa 1975.

As all-consuming as motherhood is these days, it’s hard to imagine that some day these boys will probably live far from me, and, if they’re like me and my mother, call once a week, if that. That may seem fatalistic to think, but really it’s not. Though I may not talk to my mother frequently, and see her less, I feel that she is with me everyday. Every time I’m rushing to throw together a meal that is somehow fast, nutritious and appetizing to a 3 year old, she’s there guiding me, reminding me what she made. Every time I feel like the scramble for us to get dressed, fed, packed and out the door on workday mornings is just to much, I remember how she did it with preternatural patience and grace. When my 3 year old says, “Hey, you know what?” and I say, “What?” and he says, “I love you,” she’s there, having shown me that all the burdens of motherhood become feather-light when accompanied by those three words.  She’s with me everyday because, without her example, I don’t know how I would have found my way down this road that has brought me so much happiness. And even though my children will one day go out into the world as their own beings with little involvement from me in their day-to-day lives, I will be there, informing the decisions they make, guiding the relationships they form. Knowing that those are good (most of the time) and fruitful, will be all the reward I need, just as the capacity to live a good and fulfilling life was the greatest gift that my mother gave me. And keeps giving me. Everyday.