Mom job evaluation

I've always thought of myself as a kind of dragon mother—breathing fire at the slightest infraction of the ethical code I imposed on my kids, rigidly enforcing my ban on sweets and weapons, ferociously demanding good grades. So it was eye-opening the other day when my daughter C told me she had been telling a new friend about me. "What did you say?" I asked, fearing the worst. "I told him you were a milk-and-cookies kind of mom," said C. Really? Sometimes C's generosity of spirit just floors me! Why didn't she trot out a list of grievances as I would have done about my mom when I was her age? As I do sometimes now at my age ...