Let Me Tell You Something by Caroline Manzo Page A

sure every member of my husband’s family was at the actual recital.
    It didn’t matter. Lauren was so devastated that Al and I weren’t there she never wanted to dance again. She literally stopped dancing and didn’t pick it up again until middle school. She still talks about it to this day. And it breaks my heart like it just happened yesterday—especially since that sister’s marriage didn’t last!
    These days, as young adults, all three of them want to spend time with Al and me. We have a natural, tight bond that was built by those hours upon hours of togetherness. We experienced every laugh, tear, and triumph as a family. And now we have a friendship that honestly means everything in the world to me.
    My top five moments as a parent
    Â Â 1.  Watching Albie graduate from Fordham
    Â Â 2.  Watching Lauren develop Cafface and open her first store and gain self-confidence
    Â Â 3.  Watching Chris leave his father’s business to start his own
    Â Â 4.  I was there for each kid’s first steps and first words. Nothing is better than those memories!
    Â Â 5.  Watching my three children navigate the celebrity world with grace
    That’s why I always tell my friends to drop everything for their kids when they’re young. You get one shot at it. Your baby will only ever get one childhood. You can’t press “rewind,” and the memories are a million times better than years of regret.
    The secret to being
good parents is to never
disagree with each other
in front of your kids.
    People are always asking me two things—what are my secrets to a long happy marriage, and what are my secrets to raising three good kids? The first thing that comes to my mind actually answers both: Al and I have never disagreed in front of the kids. Ever.
    We understood from very early on that if kids sense a weakness between their parents, they’ll exploit it. Kids are crafty, and they are always testing authority. If they think they can pit one parent against the other to get their own way, they’ll do it. If you show your kids even the slightest crack between you and your husband, they will manipulate it like crazy, and before long, you’ll be at war with your spouse!
    Before you even think about having kids, make sure that you and your spouse are on exactly the same page when it comes to how you’ll raise your kids. You need to know that you both have the same standards on exactly what’s appropriate for your children and what’s not.
    The easiest way to start the united front of parenting is to answer every request from your child by asking what your spouse already said. Did they already ask Dad if they could do something? And if so, what did he say? And no matter what Al had said as his answer, even if I didn’t agree, I would go along with it.
    Of course we held different opinions at times on how to handle the kids. The worst thing we ever disagreed on was curfew. Chris started working long hours at The Brownstone in his teenage years, so if he wanted to hang out with his friends, he had to do it late at night when he was done with work.
    My husband had grown up working at The Brownstone, so he understood Chris’s request and OK’ed a 2:00 AM curfew as a result. I have never understood parents who think it’s fine for kids under twenty-one to stay out that late. What’s a nineteen-year-old kid doing out at 1:00 AM ? Get into trouble, that’s what.
    I didn’t react when Chris told me that his father had approved a 2:00 AM curfew. I waited until Al got home to discuss it privately. I explained my thoughts, but this time, Al wouldn’t budge. He wanted Chris to work but also to be able to enjoy himself, the way Albert himself had done when he was a teenager. So we came up with a compromise: Chris would have to tell us where he wanted to go, and we’d approve late nights on a per-case basis. That