Driving my daughter to school this morning, I heard my morning radio show discussing a new study out that says if you want your kids to be passionate about art or athletics, you need to leave them alone.

Published in the latest Journal of Personality, the study was a collaboration with scientists from the Université de Montréal, the Université du Québec à Montreal and McGill University. And, according to Yahoo! News LiveScience, the study “focused on what psychologists call autonomy, the basic need to feel like you’re acting based on your own values and desires, not those of others. Controlling parents chip away at their child’s autonomy, by pushing them into a hobby, the researchers say. So when the kid picks up his clarinet it’s not out of a desire to play music, but due to a sense of obligation or a fear of disappointing his parents.”

The morning show hosts were divided about the results, with some pointing out the benefits of parents pushing kids to stick with things like piano lessons.  As one blogger said (in a post with a title I loved - ”They Say: Leave Those Kids Alone“): ”It’s a tough balance for parents to strike. We want our kids to learn the art of perseverance. We don’t want them to quit simply because they aren’t getting their way. Often pushing them to stick with it just another game or practice allows them the chance to finally ‘get’ how to make that jump shot or master ‘Three Blind Mice.’”

Me? I had a total flashback to when I faced that decision a couple of years ago. I blogged here then about my daughter’s desire to quit piano and got a lot of great feedback from our readers.

Today, our daughter’s only extra-curricular is Girl Scouts, but we do continue to make music accessible to her by providing her with instruments to experiment on in her own play (Santa didn’t bring her the full drum set she asked for this year, but compromised with a much smaller digital drum that’s, expectedly, seen a small amount of use). She is still expressing no real passion for an instrument, but does talk about voice lessons. And, very recently, she’s begun to talk about joining a swim team, which seems like a good fit because she is such a fish in our own backyard pool.

So, as we contemplate these activities, I’ll be heading into them with good advice our readers gave me before, and now also scientific study to help me feel better about not pushing too hard. That’s the sort of balance one of the study’s author’s talks about.

“I’m not telling parents to let their kids do whatever they want without limits,” Mageau said. “The most important message is to focus on the child’s interests and not to impose one’s own on them.”

The other day my 17-year-old came home from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he is spending six weeks this summer immersed in Art. (I didn’t realize quite how much I missed him until suddenly there he was, grinning at me in the kitchen, and as I wrapped my arms around him I thought of that line in the poem by Walter Dean Myers, “Love that boy, like a rabbit loves to run.”)

When I tell people that he’s loving the long hours he’s spending in the school’s clay studio, how he goes back after dinner, and how he wants to major in Ceramics in college, people often nod about how wonderful that is before they ask something along the lines of, “So how’s he going to make a living at that?”

I can’t blame them, really. It’s crossed my mind a few times, as well, even though I’m not truly worried. And about 25 years ago, it crossed the minds of my own parents, too, which is why my mother said to me, when I announced then that I wanted to be writer, that I might want to have a backup plan.

She wasn’t trying to be cruel; in fact, she just wanted me to have what she lacked: independence, and self-reliance, and the ability, when the guy you marry turns out to be a shit in a lot of ways, to not have to take it. It’s true that money can’t buy happiness. Yet ironically, I’ve noticed — and my mother certainly knew — that the lack of it can bring plenty of misery.

A few weeks ago my friend Paul Williams created something he called the Killer Phrase BINGO. We’re all familiar with the game BINGO: Fill out the game card, trying for five in a row to win and shout, “BINGO!” “One key reason new and potentially innovative ideas don’t get implemented at companies is because skeptics and scaredy cats kill ideas when they’re first proposed,” Paul wrote. “They use killer phrases like: ‘We’ve tried that before’ and ‘Yeah, but….’”

And so it goes in parenting, too. How many of the phrases do we use, as parents, because our own parents said them to us (here’s where I’ll admit to “Don’t make me turn this car around!”) or because we can’t bear to see our kids in pain (”Don’t make the same mistakes I did…”)? How much of our own parents do we bring to our own roles in the job, all over again?

Once, when my mother and I were having an uncharacteristically frank discussion about sex, she said to me, “Your generation didn’t invent sex, you know.” But didn’t we? Isn’t it up to every teenager to figure it out mostly on his or her own?

In that way, too, every generation thinks it invents parenting. Or, maybe, it’s every person who is reinvented as a parent: Sometimes, we are inspired by our own upbringing, and sometimes we exorcise it. And sometimes, as is the case with me, it’s a little of both.

In any case, Paul created this BINGO card for parents strictly for fun. But then again, you could use it for awareness, too—a reminder, of sorts, that we didn’t invent parenting, but we certainly can guide its evolution.

What’s your parenting style?

T-Mobile says I’m a hard-ass. Well, actually they called me “Sgt. Strict.” But same diff. In either case, it surprised me, because while I’m not exactly a pushover, I’m sure not a drill sergeant, either.

For example: Your teenage son is dating a girl he met on summer vacation, who lives four hours away. You…

…think, “A girlfriend he never actually has to go out with? Perfect!”

…quickly up his cell phone minutes.

…have him figure out how much it will cost him in gas to visit her twice a month.

…keep him busy with extracurricular activities. He can see her over winter break.

Or:

…tell him if they pick a movie theater halfway between their two houses, you’ll drive him there.

What would you do? Discover your parenting style in this fun (and yes, a little silly!) quiz from T-Mobile:

Take the Mom to Mom Quiz here.

This picture pretty well sums it up.

A Mom is (generally) the child’s first and primary teacher, the one who tirelessly guides and instructs in all manner of knowledge and behavior.

It’s a role that is immensely rewarding (usually), frustatingly thankless (often), and absolutely crucial.

I’ve had the privilege and joy of being married to such a woman for 28 years (well, OK, 28 years tomorrow), and she has invested heavily in the upbringing of our five boys. She goes about this Mommy gig day after day, year after year, steadily shaping young lives. Has it been easy, without disappointment or heartbreak? Hardly. But what worthy endeavor is?

Plus, she’s had to put up with me. That’s Amore.

There is simply no way to calculate the value of a great mother, and no way to adequately pay tribute to a woman like Sandy. She doesn’t blog, doesn’t Twitter, doesn’t want an iPhone. But in our home network, she’s the prime connector. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be the mother of my children.

And, after 28 years, I still cannot imagine a better best friend.