All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like a clean glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them—a mother's approval, a father's nod—are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand: their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

　　參考譯文：

　　所有的父母都會傷害孩子。誰都沒有辦法。孩子就像一只潔凈的玻璃杯，拿過它的人會在上面留下手印。父母很少會對他們的孩子放手，所以，孩子就對他們的父母放手。他們向前走。他們向遠處走。那些曾經(jīng)讓他們感到自身價值的東西——母親的贊同，父親的點頭——都已經(jīng)被他們自己取得的成績所替代。直到很久以后，當(dāng)他們的皮膚變得松垂了，心臟變得衰弱了，他們才會明白：他們的故事和他們所有的成就，都是基于父母的經(jīng)歷建立起來的，就像生命之河里的石頭，層層疊疊。