My kids are the most beautiful, brilliant children in the world (you probably think yours are, but that's only because you haven't met mine yet).  And while I suspect I may not be totally objective when it comes to judging their superlative qualities, I'd always hoped I could be objective enough to recognize when my children were in trouble and needed my help.  So I was a little scared by the University of Michigan study that revealed that more than forty percent of parents of clinically obese kids believed those kids were "about the right weight."

 How could parents be so blind?  As in anything, there are complicating factors.  Up to half of obese kids have at least one overweight parent, so those parents might see a diagnosis of obesity in their children as a judgment of their own choices.  And the social stigma attached to obesity may make it hard for parents to admit to doctors what they really do already know about their kids.

Even so, still scary.  If so many parents fail to notice something as obvious as weight, how can we have any confidence in our ability to notice the far less blatant indicators of problems with drugs, or alcohol, or sex?  I just keep telling myself that unconditional love doesn't mean accepting my kids as they are.  It means loving them as they are, while constantly helping them become the best they can be.