Are You a Pushover Parent?  If you're a softie with your kids
(but wish you weren't), it's not too late to get an
authoritative backbone. Here's how.  By Charlotte Latvala  By
Bernard Opitz/Taxi/Getty Images  Special Offers  As I walked
through my living room not long ago, picking up dirty socks and
empty pretzel bags, I muttered, "Why is it that no one but me
cleans up around here?" Even though my two older kids (Mathilda,
15, and A.J., 13) were sitting within earshot, they didn't
respond; Mathilda was absorbed in her school-issued laptop;
A.J., his parent-issued iPod Touch. "Why am I cleaning up your
mess?" I said, much louder this time. Silence. I tried a third
time, almost shouting. A.J. looked up from his iPod, made eye
contact, and...shrugged.  Here it is, I thought: proof that I've
failed as a parent. My greatest wish, at that moment, was to
rewind the clock to the preschool years and post that chore
chart I never quite got around to. While I was back there, I'd
add some oomph to my parenting style, wh