Can The Twig Be Unbent?

     I guess I was a little harsh yesterday on  Barbara Bowman's mother. (See yesterday's post).  She was probably truly clueless when she allowed her 17-year-old daughter to go off with Bill Cosby. 
     All of us  parents suffer episodes of cluelessness from time to time, though hopefully not often with such devastating consequences as were suffered by young Barbara Bowman.
    So having  run the gamut  - and sometimes the gauntlet - of parenthood myself and having received plenty of slap-down criticism in the process,  I'm usually pretty reluctant to judge another mother. 
    Unless it's a real Dina Lohan of a mother.
    Dina Lohan is Lindsay's mother, manager, drinking and wild partying buddy and partner in DUI.
     In fact a few years ago when  Lindsay Lohan was in her early twenties, her high-profile self-destruction heyday, I used to say that Lindsay Lohan should come and live with me.  That I'd watch out for her, make her go to psychiatrist appointments, therapy appointments, to the gym, and out for long walks;  that I'd get her to her acting lessons, and that if she couldn't find  an acting coach  here in Columbus  we'd  fly  her acting coach in from  LA  and the acting coach could live with us, too,  probably do them all some good; that I'd make her good, healthy food and give her TLC and a nice, quiet place where she could recover and read over scripts.
    It just seemed to me that what Lindsay Lohan needed back then - and maybe still needs - more than another go-round in some bogus Hollywood rehab clinic or  more jail time was some serious super-mothering, complete with chicken soup, cups of hot tea  and chocolate-chip cookies.
    Maybe Dina Lohan's problem is that she needed some serious mothering, too.
    And maybe there are 10 million psychologists out there who would read this and shake their heads.