PARENTING September 10, 2001 Issue

'Mom, are you practicing what you preach?'

By Megan Elizabeth Cole

As I prepared dinner, I was gripped by snatches of a TV newscast about two young girls who'd been molested. I was still reeling from the details when my 14-year-old daughter, Heather, called out that she was going for a jog not far from our home in a reserve of indigenous bush. Despite the fact that I'd seen her off on dozens of runs there for her cross-country training, all my protective motherly instincts rebelled.

"No!" I barked at the idea of Heather jogging alone in such isolated surroundings.

"Oh, Mom!" she scornfully reproached me. "You're always reminding me that I can never be out of God's care. Are you preaching one thing and practicing something else?"

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