Six Steps To Raising Independent Kids

This column reveals my Fail-Safe Formula for a Mutually Happy, On-Time, and Successful Emancipation (or FSFMHOTSE), which, incidentally, means something in the lost language of Easter Island. (As they say, “If only the stones could talk.”) And so, here it is.

As will become obvious, my formula does not necessitate changing locks, putting said child’s possessions on the front lawn, having him kidnapped and taken to Mongolia, hiring lawyers or scary-looking men whose last names end in vowels, or any other such nonsense. Furthermore, I know my formula works because my wife and I employed it to successfully emancipate two children who remain happily emancipated to this very day, thirty-plus years later.