So, did you call and lambaste your parents, immediately after reading the Times article when a parent's ' I love you' Means 'Do as I Say' or skip that step and just call your therapist?

What a conundrum. Was I loved? Liked? Is doing the best they could, enough??

Revisiting every 'time-out' you were made to endure, every 'yes…but' (YES, you did do that, BUT you didn't do this) and then, of course, fast forwarding to the next level– failed relationships, unrewarding jobs, and your own attempts at parenting would definitively be a recipe for a Prozac cocktail, with a Xanax chaser.  

The experts line up on different sides of the divide. Children should "earn" the love of their parents, says Dr. Phil and The Supernanny. ( And clearly, doesn't having your own TV show make you an expert?)

So what's a parent to do?

The latest scientific data points to something called "autonomy support." Sounds suspiciously like an undergarment. Anyway, along with unconditional acceptance by parents and teachers "one should maximize opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child's point of view."

I suspect those who accumulated this data rarely had to pick up one child from school while the younger sibling was busy having a meltdown in aisle 2 of the local A&P.

Nonetheless, the reason Therapists were invented was to aid and abet in the revisiting of all the traumas of our childhood. And with unemployment at an all time high, at least the mental health industry is alive and thriving, while the "experts" duke it out as to how to say "I love you."