"...you write about how teen-agers, particularly girls, need to hand off their “emotional trash.” In this metaphor, the parents—most likely the mother—serve as the girls’ emotional-garbage collectors. I wondered if this, in particular, is a place where parents have to get comfortable with discomfort—their daughter coming to them because they’re the safe place to throw her trash."

"By and large, our teen-agers are incredibly well behaved for the duration of the school day. They spend all day, nearly every day, with a whole bunch of peers and adults whom they did not choose, shuttling from room to room, doing things that they may or may not have chosen for themselves, and actually being quite gracious, patient, and polite through the whole thing. Usually, the way they make that bargain work is, in the course of the day, they catalogue all of the injustices and indignities to which they feel they’ve been subjected, and save them up to tell us all about them.

I do hear from teen-agers that this is part of what helps them to be their better selves..."

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