I thought for a while that I would write articles about parenting... about its simplicity and its complexity... about the amazing small moments and the times when ten seconds is too long to endure. I began to write and what came out along with it were these shrines. My parenting shrines are about the more difficult moments of parenting. I imagine them sitting on the mantel in the little house of my inner world, offering solace in times that are muddy. Entrenched in battle with your five-year-old? Marge has been there, done that. Aching in the knowledge that you cannot by will alone keep your children alive? Maude understands. Spending too much energy on keeping yourself from child-induced social embarrassment? Adam is right there with you. Standing at the edge of your own "Well of Self-Doubt'? Agnes knows and she¹ll stand beside you.