fictional thought. I do know IRL [...] Does the precocious kid who's buds with mom and/or dad turn out to be male, often?

Wait, in real life or in fiction? Because for fiction, you've just cited Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, and in real life, I know that I, for example, am friends with my mom. So all I'm coming up with is girls. But I don't watch Jack and Bobby.

In Jack & Bobby, not only does he co-parent his brother, he parents his mother. It's royally dysfunctional, and he knows and resents her for it, even as he does it.

But I would not say he's buds with her.

Really? I don't get the vibe that he likes her. They don't share many close and upbeat moments, and if they do, they're likely to be shared parenting moments, not actual friendship.

No. I missed a not in there that I put in on edit.

I think he resents her more than he feels like, "hey! Friend!"

Oh, absolutely. I cited him as the only boychild peer I could think of, although I'm still searching for one like Rory or Veronica who's actually not unhappy about it, and doesn't feel like their childhood was stolen.

The Salon kerfuffle has been interesting to watch, but "not publically humiliating your children" strikes me as good policy regardless of your profession, gender, or fame.

Yes, but... I guess I just don't get where the automatic assumption that honesty, even about difficult issues, equals deliberately humiliating your children. Sure, in some cases it might be. And things may get awkward here and there. (The suicide question and how it was/is being handled is a more complicated issue, and not one I feel able to address, except to say that I'm not disagreeing with Betsy.)

But so much of the commentary feels to me like "shut up and take it and keep a smile on your face while doing it - its for the children," that it's setting off a real squick for me. As though havjng a mental and emotional life, and having mental and emotional problems within that life, practically constitutes BadMothering in and of itself, and the only defensible way of dealing is to shove it deep down where no one will ever see.

What's a false tabloid?. Cause I don't understand at all.

HA! I've been going on about that all afternoon.

I just don't get where the automatic assumption that honesty, even about difficult issues, equals deliberately humiliating your children

How do you feel about it in this instance? I think, as a kid (pre-18 or so), I'd have been mortally embarassed at the level of detail, which is completely separate from the disquiet at learning that my mother has ranked her love in public, and I lose. She's posted elsewhere that she'd make one of her kids take a bullet to save her husband's life, and I can say that's the sort of public honesty I'd find mortifying for a host of reasons.

I love the PS...That's the best part, Kristen.