If you're looking for humor, you might want to try back tomorrow. If you're looking for reflection or tips on how NOT to parent your kids, you've stopped in the right place.

Like most people, I find my family dynamics to be very interesting. I recently shared some info with hubby that surprised him, but it also allowed him to put together some puzzle pieces. He had several "aha!" moments that night. I have lots of "aha!" moments and lots of theories about why people act the way they do in my family.

Several people in my life know that I have issues with my mother. They also know that I attribute a lot of my good qualities to her. Not because she modeled these good qualities; it's that I was so turned off by her bad behavior that I did a complete 180.

I'm starting to realize that perhaps I should have just done a 90 degree turn; at least when it comes to the way I raised my kids. Because I never felt a safety net beneath me, I became too much of one. Because I was disciplined so harshly, I became too soft in the discipline department. Because I was made to feel that everything I needed was an imposition, I gave too freely.

I was a single parent, their only parent really, for 13 years and had plenty of time to devote to running my kids lives. I became their alarm clock, their financial adviser, their bank, and pretty much anything else they 'needed'. I didn't really give them much of an opportunity to solve problems on their own. It wasn't that I forced my opinion on them, I just never pushed them off the pier to teach them to swim, so to speak. If they had a problem, they came to me and I solved it for them.

I moved out of my house and in with hubby in 2003, when my boys were 20 and 22. Until then, I saw my boys pretty much every day even after they'd recently moved out on their own. I still cooked for them, and still solved their problems.

BJ's house was over an hour away, so now the boys were even more on their own. Son #2 was the least affected by this. He's always been fairly resourceful and relied on me very little. Son #1 relied on me more heavily- too heavily. Once hubby and I started co-mingling funds, I knew that I had to stop handing money over all the time. Needless to say, the boys were not prepared with 'swimming' lessons and so they started to fail miserably. It was very hard to watch and I've lived with a lot of guilt over pulling the rug out from under them.

I learned to 'swim' at the ripe age of 17. I was on my own financially and never looked back. I even got married and had two kids by the time I was my youngest son's age (something I'd never recommend to anyone, by the way.) So I have a really hard time relating to all of this, all the while knowing that I've created the situation.

They're learning to swim now because thankfully they're both smart. They're still not quite prepared for REAL life and the oldest son still tries to use me as a safety net more than he should. I've learned to push back because I know that he'll never be on his own until I cut those ties completely. I'm looking forward to the day when I can have a phone call from him that doesn't end with, "oh yeah, I hate to ask but.."

So, where does it all end? I wonder what kind of parents my kids will be. Will it flip-flop the opposite direction again? Will their sense of entitlement cause them to be selfish with their kid, or did they like the way I parented and become similar parents. Even better, maybe they will do a 90 degree change and just be normal parents....

...is there such a thing as 'normal' parenting?