Trust is an individual pursuit. A trusted friend is a great find. The journey begins with being trustworthy. Remain aware that some people cannot be trusted and that there will always be people whom you will decide not to fully trust. Be appropriately careful with your trust. This is not living with suspicion but rather living with good boundaries and self-awareness.

Here are some pointers toward recognizing trustworthiness:

• He can be trusted with information; however, he does not pry.
• He is usually as willing to speak about his own life as he is to hear about your life. (Professional therapy excluded).
• She does not need access to the details of your life and is quite comfortable if you say that you are not ready to talk about She is helpful, when you have requested her insight, but resists.
• She has a diverse, enduring circle of friends.
• She does not abdicate responsibility for her life, even in the
• He displays growing integrity at every level of his life.
• He does not persistently attempt to be “one up” with stories or jokes or make himself the focus of every conversation.
• She has developed a good sense of humor about herself.
• She does not offer unsolicited guidance or insight.
• She is highly respectful of people under every circumstance.
• He can track the development in a conversation, respond and develop themes of thought rather than appear to have his mind made up.

High maintenance people require constant attention and approval. They crave to be the center of almost every conversation and will often become symptomatic (moody, resentful, loud, threatening) when they are not. They analyze every move, thought, word and action of others, and then read more meaning into things (statements, looks, sighs, attitudes) than was ever intended. They are easily hurt, quickly offended, quick to rebuke when they do not get the kind of attention they think they deserve. Threats of withdrawal or desertion become a way of life.

High maintenance people are difficult, sometimes impossible, even in the most relaxed of circumstances. They pick fights, find fault, and personalize almost everything. They argue with people who are closest to them for no apparent reason. They often pick on strangers (waiters, helpers). They often live in a world of cut-off relationships where others are idiots and no one understands.

What can you do if you are in a relationship with a high maintenance person? You can do very little that will not hurt, offend, or get a reaction – but you must make a stand. High maintenance people seldom benefit from pity or patience or empathy. They will only benefit from being constantly challenged to grow up.

I see a lot of over-mothering – mothers who willingly, sometimes compulsively, offer their lives for babies and children. Mothering so overcomes them that there is no room for anyone or anything else.

Themselves included.

And, it’s fully understandable. The much anticipated (or unanticipated) baby arrives and changes everything.

Babies are very powerful. They deliver many a parent into a promised land of new meaning and purpose.

The power, I have often thought, is inversely proportional to their size – the gravitational pull of Earth on a mother, at a time she is so honestly and purely vulnerable. And, of course, if her life is already subject to pain (and who’s life is not?) she is all the more vulnerable to “solving” her incompleteness in the baby.

Sadly, while the baby restores meaning, purpose, and hope, the child was never deigned to BE (to embody) Purpose, Meaning, and Hope (that’s reserved for Another Baby).

As inviting, seductive, and honorable as it may appear, losing our lives for our children serves no one anything worth having, especially, and with glaring irony, the very children whom we love.

Children were never capable of handling worship and they don’t respond to it very well.

I am, I believe, uniquely (but not singularly) positioned to see this. I am not, of course, a mother, but I come pretty close. I have had the joy of the solo adoption of two babies from birth.

I know, I know, before you fire off angry letters, it is not the same.

My first son’s mother approached me to adopt her unborn son, and my second son came to me in an equally unusual manner. Remarkable women, in my book, women who both carefully calculated that their sons would have something from me that neither could see themselves offering.

My sons are now 19 and 14 and have been with me from hour 1 (I was at his birth as the labor coach) and day eight respectively. Being a solo dad in a bi-racial family in the Mid-west of the USA has held more than a few surprises.

At the news I would adopt, people warned me about the dumbest things: nappies (diapers), three-hour feeding routines, and sleepless nights. They warned me about how my life would change as if children are only an inconvenience. I was informed, on more than a few occasions that my sons are black – as if it were something of which I was thoroughly unaware.

But, no one, absolutely no one warned me that the babies would enter my life and take it, yes, take it from me.

No one warned me about the power of love.

No one warned me that I’d rush to protect my sons when protecting them was, in that instance, not in their highest interest.

No one said that if I was not intentional about maintaining a life of my own I’d dissolve into my sons’ lives.

Yes, Over-Mother. I think I do understand. I think I do understand that you love your child more than your own life. That’s clear. It is my impulse, too. I struggle with this day in and day out.

But, if we really want to empower our sons and daughters, we’d better ourselves live and love as fully now as we hope they will fully love and fully live one day. How else will they learn?

1. Turn the phone off when you are in meetings, at the theater, or while you are paying for your groceries.2. The person present (in front of you) gets your attention over the person absent (at the other end of the phone).

3. Don’t text, read text messages, make or receive calls, play electronic games, when you are in a conversation with someone or having a meal with someone.

4. If you expect an “important call” that will warrant taking a call while you are engaged in another conversation, have the decency to announce your intentions ahead of time.

5. If you must use the phone in a public area, talk quietly.

6. If you happen to call a “wrong number” have the decency to apologize.

7. Turn your phone (and computer) off for the entire weekend — give your family your undivided and un-distracted attention.

Four gifts for our elderly parents when we ourselves are adults: 

• Regular phone calls and frequent visits. Everyone likes to be in the loop with the people we love. If you’re too busy as an adult to make regular contact with your parents, you are too busy. Something about your life probably needs re-assessment.

• Room for your parent to think and to speak and to tell stories you, the adult son or daughter, may well have heard a thousand times. Stories are obviously a powerful link to past and serve to re-ignite the soul. Your parents’ repeated telling of the same stories is providing a valuable service.

• Opportunities to be with your children. While a grandchild is not a commodity to be passed around, he or she is the promise of hope to a grandparent. As much contact as possible should be encouraged. Of course there are exceptions. If your parents are relatively sane and sober (when your child is present) then there is much to be gained from encouraging contact.

• Hearty celebrations of milestones. Ignoring or forgetting a parent’s birthday is the same for some as ignoring the parent. If your parents’ birthdays are something you regularly forget there’s something deeper going on with you that may need your attention.