Are parents rational (理性的) about their children? No. Parents aren’t rational because _______ isn’t rational. Young people can understand this about romantic love, but they find it _______ to accept this part in parental love.

My eldest daughter’s _______ the other day brought this up. “Let me ask you something, Dad,” she began to control _________ patiently that every experienced parent knows.

“I sailed around the Mediterranean when I was seventeen,” she said. “I hiked through the Pyrenees. I’ve done rock climbing and deep-sea diving and slept in rainforests. Right?”

“Right,” I said, “So what?”

“So this,” she went on. “When I go to the corner drugstore to pick up some shampoo, why do you always tell me to be _______ when I cross the street?”

There is no satisfactory _________ a parent can give to this.

All I could say in reply was that when I was 50, my mother would _______ me not to drive too fast. If I were 80 and she were still alive, I would be getting the _______ warning. No matter what the age, a child is a child.

There is something else, too, that children find it hard to understand. When they are far away, there is nothing we can do about their _______. Parents try not to ________ about it.

But when the children are close, the old protective urge quickly________, and it doesn’t ________how far they have been or what experiences they have got through.

Most ________ happen round the corner, not in the rainforest. The most instinctive (本能的) act of almost every creature is to ________ its young, and this reaction stays for a lifetime.

In the parents’ mind, a child ages but does not ________.Rational? No.But if we were rational, would we want children at all?

When my mother told me stories about Emily, her grandmother, who she admired, I was all ears. My mother drew a _______ between Emily and Jacqueline Kennedy, former US president’s wife. Mom described her _______ features: a long graceful neck and a tiny waist. “Emily was just like Jacqueline,” Mom said. “But their origins wouldn’t _______: Emily was graceful, soft-spoken, but possibly born a slave.”

Emily attracted me. Not until 2005 did my research on ancestry really start to _______ , for the reason that I was no longer _______. “When does your new job start?” asked my mother. “I refuse to take a job for at least a year,” I replied. My mother had no _______ with such words. “Anyway, you should have a job.” I remained _______ and didn’t explain it. But I felt I must _______ my job to collect more stories about my _______.

I ________ my mother’s line to a place called Cane River. I found the bill of shameful slave sale for my great-great-great grandmother, who was ________ in 1850 for $ 800. I had to write the stories. This time the novel Cane River was sold in a（n） ________ way.

One day, the phone rang, “Hello, this is Oprah Winfrey, the talk show hostess.” I couldn’t believe my ears. I responded in ________, “Hello, Ms Winfrey. What can I do for you today?” She told me she selected my novel for her book club, which ________ led to Cane River on The New York Times bestseller list and a ________ readership than I expected.

Dad is a retired NYPD Patrol Officer. In his precinct (管辖区) lived a family, which consisted of a ______ single mother and her four sons.

The three older sons were all ______ in crime as a career. Drugs, sale of stolen items, etc. The youngest who was about 10 years old was destined (注定) for the same. Many of the patrol officers knew the mom and in turn she knew them, some by first ______, as was the case with my Dad.

She was always very ______ when being questioned about her sons. On one visit, my Dad struck up a ______. During their talk she expressed her ______ about her youngest boy. She felt ______ in guiding him to the straight and narrow. The environment would not ______ it.

My Dad agreed. He offered the only solution he could think of ______. He asked her if she would allow her “baby” to spend the summer in the suburbs at our house.

My Dad had three sons and a daughter (me). We discussed the plan and ______ that it would be beneficial for her boy to see another side of family life which he had never been ______ to.

We had a new member to our family for the summer. He ______ the pool in the back yard and he made many friends. The whole neighborhood welcomed him and he loved the ______. At the end of summer he returned to his mother.

After he had gotten into some minor trouble with the law, he ______ decided to go to night school for accounting, and eventually ______ an office job.