As it was growing up, my mother told me that her strategy for raising me was to foster resiliency and self-sufficiency.
She was an Assistant District Attorney in New York City in the 70’s, so she must have known that there was no way she could legitimately simulate the conditions necessary for me to practice these traits… In fact she took the opposite approach: I grew up in Portland Maine at a Private School where she taught. You could call this sheltered and privileged and you would be right.
But through a number of parenting decisions, she found ways for me to be exposed to tough lessons and certain real ambiguities. She wanted me to work from a young age. She assisted me in moving to Amman Jordan, and then again to Beirut Lebanon. She celebrated my work with the military in Europe and Central Asia and always encouraged me to stick with the trials.