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But these days, Stephen and I are more and more indifferent to conventional modes of behavior. We're taking risks together for the first time in years, and in so doing we seem to be breaking free of the rigidity and fear that for so long dictated.

Over the past year Eduardo has helped us. And when the bills became so tremendous that it looked like we would have to stop therapy with him, Ed assigned me the task of editing his workbook, a book he would give parents and children regarding his often unorthodox approaches to troubled teens and culture.

We worked out a barter—my editing for sessions for Stephen and me. And through editorial reading of Ed's Play and Pride, I came to know his ideas and philosophies well.

Ed's office also became a refuge in the event of a disagreement. In the first months with Ed we discovered how easy it was to fall into the old patterns of rage and isolation.

“You need to practice detachment,” Ed would say, taking time out from a session he was conducting to look in on me. Having literally run up to his office, I sat weeping in the knife-throwing room.

“And go ahead and cry here.” He patted my shoulder. “But when you go home, don't. Don't cry in front of Steve if you can help it.”

“He's locked me out of the house.” I hated hearing myself whine.

“We'll work on this,” Ed reassured me. “We'll make it fair. For now, relax. Throw some knives, or play a little Nintendo. And when you're ready to go home, don't expect this kid's sympathy. Use your head. Climb in a window. Have humor. Practice detachment. And go in prepared to be effective.”

Through Ed's guidance, counseling, and coaching, Stephen and I have come to understand our relationship almost entirely through fairness, through what's fair to each of us in any given situation. Fairness—or the lack of it—was at the root of most of our problems, and by extension, Stephen's problems with authority.

“You probably raised Steve with two goals in mind,” Ed said to me one day. “You wanted to protect him, and educate him, right? I don't doubt that you've been a good mother.”

“You're right,” I'd said, tears coming to my eyes as I listened to him. “And thank you. You're the first person in a long time to say that.”

“Wait.” Eduardo smiled at me. “It gets better. You gave this kid a lot of freedom while he was growing up. I saw right away that Steve is the kid of a baby boomer, maybe the kid of a true child of the sixties. Come on.” He laughed. “I bet that once you thought of yourself as a real flower child.”

“Something like that,” I answered laughing, letting the tears come freely.

“You really wanted things to be different for him—different than they were for you. I'll tell you, Steve has a very sophisticated vocabulary for his sexuality, for instance. He seems real at home in it, freethinking, comfortable. That was your doing, right?”

“I worked at it for both my boys,” I said, blowing my nose.

“You really let them discover things without making a lot of moral judgments, let them wear the clothes they wanted, play with toy guns. You let them make a mess, even take risks you thought might be a bit dangerous. Stephen tells me you let him build fires when he was little …”

“That's because he was obsessed with fire,” I jumped in defensively. “I thought if I let him build—campfires, we called them—and oversaw it, let him explore his fascination in a safe context…”

“Did it work?”

“I think so …”

“See, you were right. You protected while you educated.”

“That was before” I'd countered. “Think of our lives as before and after. Before was good. After is hell.”

“It's hell because it's turned unfair,” Ed answered. “Kids like Steve have come to understand themselves as capable, independent thinkers by the time they reach their teens. Despite their problems with impulse control, even problems with conventional learning, they believe in their abilities to solve their own problems because— Steve's an example—they've been allowed to. Or because—like his street friends—they've had to.

“After a childhood of being allowed to make his