With Mother's Day on Sunday, I'm again missing my own mom (who died in 1995), but I'm also asking, and more fervently with each passing year, "What kind of a 'mom legacy' am I giving my own kids?"

Like so many American schools, mine has adopted a "character counts" curricula, this one developed by the Josephson Institute on Ethics in Los Angeles. The six "pillars" of character, each with its own distinctive color, are respect, trustworthiness, citizenship, fairness, caring and responsibility.

I hesitate to begin a column with, "This recently happened to a friend of mine ..."

Leave it to the French. This week, France decided to make it illegal to "glamorize the ultra-thin."

So, what happens when adults act like grown-ups and seek to protect the kids in their care? A lot of good things, it turns out.