It was a moment of weakness, and it didn't last long.

My college freshman almost had me convinced that I ought to change the house rules for her younger sister.

The logic sounded reasonable, the timing seemed right, and I could almost envision myself jumping into the minivan and driving to the cellular store to pick out an inexpensive cell phone for Amy, my 12-year-old.

Then, in a fit of common sense, I spent 20 minutes on one of those Mommy-blogger sites. Simply perusing the headlines reminded me of all the reasons why we don't get cell phones for our children until they hit high school. Ditto for Facebook.

"There's no 3 in texting," one story is headlined. "A new way to monitor kids on Facebook," is another. "How to REALLY talk to your kids about cyberbullying," offers another.

Not to mention all the stories about teens, tweens, technology and sex, an alarming connection in today's culture.

Now, before you get defensive and start telling me all the reasons why these things are safe and appropriate for our children, know that I'm not judging your house rules. We're just not changing ours.

Driving across town recently, I counted no fewer than a dozen cars sporting those annoying bumper stickers. No, not "Got tofu?" The ones that say, "My child is an honor student at such-and-such school."

Based on their bumpers, it seems most of the children in town are on the honor roll. Either I live in a place where high achievers breed like mosquitoes in a swamp, or those stickers are not difficult to come by.

The truth is, the bumper sticker that ought to be slapped on the back of a minivan or two is: "My child was sent to the principal's office."

I'm not holding my breath.

It's been two weeks since Josie Lou Ratley, 15, was brutally beaten at a school bus stop outside the Deerfield Beach Middle School in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

She's been in a medically induced coma since the day of the attack. Doctors report she isn't getting any worse, but she isn't getting better either.

The story made headlines because another 15-year-old beat Miss Ratley — a high school boy named Wayne Treacy — who became angry over text messages sent to him by Josie Lou disparaging Treacy's late brother, who committed suicide last fall.

The texts prompted Treacy to announce to friends that he planned to kill the girl, and by all accounts that's what he intended when he pounded her head on the concrete sidewalk several times, and then kicked her repeatedly with his steel-toed boot.

The two teens didn't actually know one another. In fact, Treacy almost attacked the wrong girl until his girlfriend directed him to Miss Ratley.

According to reports, Miss Ratley had allowed the boy's 13-year-old girlfriend — a schoolmate — to communicate with Treacy by using her cell phone for text messages.

One report indicates Miss Ratley found the nature of the relationship between Treacy and her friend inappropriate and said so in texts to Treacy, which escalated into the insensitive and unkind message she apparently sent regarding the boy's late brother.

Treacy has been charged with attempted first-degree murder. He's being held in a juvenile detention center while authorities decide whether to charge him as an adult. His girlfriend also has been charged as an accessory to attempted murder. (Her name has been withheld due to her age).

Meanwhile, as she waits at her daughter's bedside for an outcome that looks increasingly bleak, Miss Ratley's mother, Hilda, bravely urged the public not to let the event simply pass by, but to use it as a teachable moment.

A magnanimous sentiment, but just what should the lesson of this teachable moment be?

An Open Letter to My Four Children:

I don't care what President Obama says, you may not remain on our health care policy until you are 26.

For the record, you also may not move into the basement and install black lights or hang Che Guevara posters (or posters of Barack Obama in the style of Che), nor may you consider our laundry room an intergenerational gathering place.

At 26, you will have been a legal adult for five years and will have obtained an education or professional training. You will have been taught to drive, cook, operate a power drill, call the cable company when the service goes down and, most important, prepare your own income-tax return.

You will be old enough to get married, enter into a binding legal contract, start a business, buy a home and even rent a car.

Twenty-six isn't terribly old, but it's old enough to know better. It is not adolescence, no matter what the American Psychological Association says.

Not to worry. We have confidence in you. Adulthood is not as hard as it looks.

Love and kisses, Mom.

The television hanging above my head in the waiting room airs an episode of the syndicated talk show "The Doctors." The topic? Sex.

But not just sex. Graphic sex. The guest talks candidly to the show's regular cadre of physicians about exactly how she contracted HIV, and she's not using any euphemisms.

Call me repressed, but I just don't want to share this moment with a roomful of strangers. As my teenagers would say, "AWK-ward."

On the other hand, I've never felt awkward talking to my teens about sex. It's a subject we've discussed openly in our home since our children were young. At every age and stage of development, we've addressed their curiosity and need for information about human sexuality just as we talk about other issues of health and morality.

It turns out for all our culture's "sexual liberation," today's parents are still too reticent to discuss sexuality with their children. This month's edition of the journal Pediatrics includes a study that shows when it comes to communicating with children about sex, America's parenting can be summed up thusly: too little, too late.

"Many adolescents report little or no communication about sexuality with their parents," the study found. Worse, "Many parents and adolescents do not talk about important sexual topics before adolescents' sexual debut."

Past studies have suggested that many parents underestimate their adolescents' sexual activity, assuming their children are not engaging in sexual behaviors. One such study found 58 percent of teens reported they were sexually active, while only one-third of their mothers believed they were. Perhaps this is why so many parents miss the chance to influence their teens' choices to become sexually active.

Yet one thing is abundantly clear: Parents who make their moral beliefs about sex known to their children and clearly express their disapproval of adolescent sex have a positive influence on their children's attitudes and behavior. These conversations also serve to strengthen relationships between parents and adolescents, and closer relationships also are a key to avoiding premature sexual activity.

There had to be a dozen mismatched suitcases - big ones - all stuffed to capacity and secured with luggage straps, but the one I noticed first was a small, pink overnight bag with a teddy bear sticking out of the front pocket.

Its owner stood in the airline-ticketing queue clutching an American Girl doll while all around her, family members hugged and cried.

It didn't take long to figure out what was happening; the little girl's family was moving from Michigan to Hawaii, where they hoped to find work. The ambivalence on her face seemed to say this move wasn't a happy family adventure.
 

It took me a while to figure out what was so different about us compared with the other families in church on Sunday. Unlike most of the children in the surrounding pews, my four children didn't eat Cheerios. They didn't ask to go out for a drink. They didn't kick their siblings or tug on our sleeves or have to be taken to the bathroom. In fact, they sat still and listened to the homily.

OK, so they're mostly teenagers. But still. It was nice to be reminded that time passes in ways that make family life a bit easier, at least in certain situations.

It's time to pull out the blood pressure cuff, and I'm not suggesting this as a do-it-yourself health care solution, though by the looks of things, it could come to that. Given the reforms suggested so far, "DIY" may be a viable alternative.

As if there isn't enough political news to elevate our national blood pressure, a new study released this week in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine says the blood pressure levels of America's children are elevated thanks to - drum roll, because you're going to be shocked by this - TV and screen time.

Just when you thought it was safe to park your child in front of a television set for six or eight hours on end to watch every manner of questionable - even depraved - human behavior (MTV's "Real World: Cancun," anyone?), it turns out it's not just media content that endangers child health but the very act of consuming media.

"You'd better get over here," the school secretary said. "Something's up with Katie." "Something" turned out to be a post-tonsillectomy bleed that began 11 days after surgery. It continued on and off for four days and included two ambulance rides, several long nights in the emergency department and, eventually, a 3 a.m. emergency surgery, a blood transfusion and a week in the hospital to recover.

Most families would look back and recall kindergarten. We look back and remember "Katie's tonsillectomy."

That was 15 years ago. There have been countless episodes before then and since involving my four children that brought me into the health care system to varying degrees. As any parent will attest, most of us mark time with medical stories, as in, "That was the summer Jimmy had staples in his head" and "That was the year Betsy had a stress fracture and couldn't run."

They're everywhere and you simply cannot escape them. They follow you to church on Sundays. They sit behind you on airplanes, in restaurants, even in the waiting room at the doctor's office. They disrupt family reunions and days at the beach.

They're the unwelcome but ever-present subtext to countless moments of irritation and unpleasantness. And now that it's summer, they're out with a vengeance, just waiting to raise your blood pressure and steal the peace of mind you hoped to find with a good book in a park, or over coffee with a friend, or while enjoying a movie with your spouse.

It's not politically correct to admit that you don't like them, but let's all confess our contempt for these ruthless killjoys and demand that someone do something about their growing numbers and the inescapable destruction they are causing civilization as we know it.