Good mother's always say so

When a child does something wrong, it is the parent to suffer, the parent to blame. That is the lot of being a parent. A good parent has admirable kids, a bad parent has shameful kids. My mom had the best kids. Everybody knew it, because she said it was so.

Whatever mistakes I made as a child, they were MY mistakes, not hers. That was our secret, my mistakes, but OUR secret.

No one ever needed to know the truth about me, or the lies about her.