By BETSY HART, Scripps Howard News Service

I watched my three daughters sitting on our trampoline. It was late on a sunny afternoon the day before school started earlier this week. The girls, ages 13, 10 and 8, were simply talking. Endlessly -- about everything and about nothing, about feelings and dreams and about the end of summer.

I sat working in the yard at a distance and took it in and smiled.

And there she was in all her glory: GI Jane on the front page of this past Sunday's New York Times. An American soldier in Iraq, huge assault rifle in her arms, a woman on a mission.

Maybe it's because I have three young daughters that I shuddered.

I did it again. Racing through the store, I grabbed an item I needed, only to find out I'd paid for less.

In other words, one doesn't want to be around my house when I get up early and discover "fat-free half-and-half" in my refrigerator. Talk about a contradiction in terms and a big "yuck."

I'm pretty sure I have a bigger clue now about America's, well, "growing" weight problem.

Let's review. I was thrilled when my kids were at their Kanakuk Kamp in Branson, Mo., recently. For starters, I could turn what I consider the three-meals-a-day drudgery over to someone else.

In the classic Hollies song, "He Ain't Heavy, He's my Brother," the group sings:

"The road is long

With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where ...

But I'm strong

Strong enough to carry him

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

So on we go

His welfare is of my concern

No burden is he to bear

We'll get there. ..."

I'm often intrigued by the conversations I overhear when I am having my hair cut. OK, I admit that it's something of a guilty pleasure to read People magazine while listening to various discussions among people I don't know, and finding out what they are concerned about and interested in.

The Chicago Sun-Times headline read, "Job Seekers Putting Health Benefits First" The story last Sunday chronicled a divorced woman in her mid-40s, college educated, presumably healthy, who lost her job last year. Right now she is a contract employee without health insurance.

In a few days, I'll mark the fifth anniversary of the afternoon I watched my husband finally walk out of our family life after 17 years of marriage. This time, he wouldn't return to it. The kids were 10, 8, 5 and 3 when he left.

My sister was the first of us five kids to graduate from college. It was the 1970s, and I was in attendance to see her walk across the stage. Good thing, too: It turned out that although my father was shooting pictures, he was doing so, it was later discovered, without film. The only pictures salvaged from that day were a few photos I snapped on my crummy camera.

Could it really be that the era of "over-parenting" is, well, over?