We drew the line at violent video games — never allowed. My wife monitored his web presence, and he knew it. When he went to stay at a friend’s, we always asked the parents the difficult questions — “are there any guns or liquor in your house? If so, how secured is it?”

Nothing about how we parented our son was fair, as compared to how we were parented. I was lost in a crowd of 7 kids in the chaos of an alcoholic household, and came and went as I pleased. My wife had to grow up young and really be a parent to her parents.

Amazingly, ours turned out incredibly well-adjusted, despite some big challenges faced in the real world. Now 29, we feel good about how we raised him, and the man that he’s become. Good, and proud.