It is amazing to those of us who are parents that God would give us the most precious gift in the world, a small child, and not give us a manual on how to raise that child. If you buy a computer, you get a manual, or a car or a VCR but with the most intricate and complicated gift in the world, a human infant, there is no manual. Having children is not for the fainthearted. As somebody put it, "Children may be deductible, but they are also taxing."

I appreciated the story of one mother with four small children at home. A friend gave her a play pen, and she wrote a thank you note. "I love it. I sit down in it in the middle of the living room. The children can't get to me for hours."

We can appreciate that.

America's favorite father, Bill Cosby, has an amusing routine in his book on father…