I steal a lot of material from my children’s lives. First, because their lives have not been very—how should I put this—linear so they’ve given me lots of material. And second, my kids aren’t my demographic so I can pretty much write anything I want to about them and, chances are, they won’t read it.

Funny story: last week my twenty five year old’s boyfriend of six months came to my house and broke up with her. It was super extra awkward because she doesn’t even live at my house. He waited until he’d finished having dinner with the family and broke up with her on his way out. It was a—how should I put this— dick move. Before I reacted I had to think, as I’ve learned to do in these situations WWABMD? I know you can figure out the two W’s and the D. This abbreviation started with Jesus and has trickled down into the lexicon of phrases we use cleverly and ironically to suit our own purposes. But WWABMD stands for “What would anyone but me do?” I can be a little—how should I put this—emotionally reactive so sometimes I need to take a deep breath, focus, and think like somebody else for a moment.

Now that my two children are in their twenties, I find myself thinking WWABMD quite often. So often in fact, I’m thinking of putting it on a bracelet. People could wear it between that red string that confused celebrities wear and that yellow rubber Lance Armstrong one. When my girls were little and someone hurt their feelings, solutions were simple. No birthday party invitation? Invite a friend over. Invite twelve friends. Invite all the girls in the class except for the one little brat that excluded my kid in the first place and get a bounce house and all of the Disney princesses and puppies and cupcakes—WWABMD. See where my mind goes? This is why I have to take a moment to rein myself in. I want to spare their feelings, make sure they don’t hurt and go to great and excessive lengths to accomplish this.

Younger children will forgive a bit of overly enthusiastic parenting. But with an adult child you tread a very fine line. The break up with the—how should I put this—asshole last week was not my daughter’s first heartbreak. Let’s take a moment to talk about Dillweed.

Dillweed is my daughter’s ex-boyfriend from college. After college they moved in together. It was a—how should I put this—effing disaster. When my daughter made the decision that Dillweed was way cooler at school than he was sharing her bathroom, she broke up with him. Just as the weeping and wailing died down (honestly, my husband can be such a drama queen) Dillweed’s mom called from her home far, far away in another state. Seems she heard that my daughter had given her son the boot and Mama Dillweed was not having it. Now, Dillweed’s mom could use a bracelet for sure. If not a WWABMD bracelet then a breast cancer one, a charm bracelet, hell, silly bands—anything she could use to smack herself in the head before she makes a decision to call the parents of her twenty four year old son’s ex-girlfriend to yell at them for what their daughter did. The only thing that would have made Mama Dillweed happy is if I’d given my daughter a time out and made her promise to marry Dillweed so his feeling wouldn’t be hurt. Dillweed’s mom continued her rampage with more phone calls and emails then she flew across the country, packed up Dillweed, paid a couple grand to ship his car, and bore him safely home on the wind beneath her wings.

Much as I mocked Dillweed’s mom (and I did mock her. After all, mocking is kind of my—how should I put this—schtick) I kinda got where she was coming from when Mr. Dick Move made his move last week. My daughter came back into my house crying hysterically because instead of the “goodnight” she was expecting on the front porch, she got “I think we should take a break from seeing each other.” I wanted to follow Dick home in my car so I could yell at him for being such an insensitive tool. I wanted to call his mom even though I’ve never met his mom and email his entire extended family so they would know what an awful jerk he is. I just wanted to make him hurt as much as he had hurt her.

I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I sat on the floor next to her while she cried. I put her to bed in her childhood room and I slept nearby on a sofa just in case she “needed me.” After a couple of days of dissecting Dick Move and their relationship with her girlfriends, she was pretty much over it. I did her laundry, made her some food and sent her on her way. I may have taken a moment here and there to consider WWABMD, but in the end I did what—how should I put this—a mom would do.