They're Your Kids Not Your Friends Author:Shirlee Smith Shirlee Smith is the single parent of five children and has been a foster parent to more than a dozen other babies. There's nothing theoretical or ambiguous about her parenting. She has worked to give them all what they most needed - not a friend but a mother with real love and principles to last a lifetime. "I have been determined," she sa... more »ys, "to raise them to be responsible, productive citizens not caught up by the trappings of a society flaunting violence and materialism." For her parenting is serious business. Everything is important including the music her kids listen to, the clothes they ache for and the friends they keep. Now she shares what she has learned and what she has fostered in a highly readable, very down-to-earth book marked not just by practical wisdom, but by wit, warmth, challenge and encouragement.« less