"Do you want the children's menu?" the hostess asked, flicking her eyes over my girl on her eleventh birthday. It seemed awfully small for The Cheesecake Factory, a place with a menu that sells advertising. We took it, anyway.

When we got to the booth, the little angel informed us she is no longer allowed to eat from that menu, as it is for children ten and under. We told her she probably wouldn't get arrested or anything, but she seemed proud of the fact that it was LEGALLY AGAINST THE LAW for her to order off that menu.

I sat there scarfing down the tiny bread that comes in the little basket and is just enough to kick your blood sugar into high gear but not enough to take the edge off your hunger if you ate a really little lunch because hello, you were going to The Cheesecake Factory, her birthday favorite and grandfather of America's portion-size issues, for dinner, and while I tried to make myself chew instead of just swallowing the doughy goodness whole, a sea of children's menus flashed before my eyes.

Hot dogs

Chicken fingers

Cheeseburger sliders

Cheese pizza

Macaroni & cheese

Applesauce

Fruit cup

French fries

Scoop of vanilla ice cream

It's not that I'm nostalgic for the children's menu. It's full of food that we all pretend is disgusting and then lick off our kids' plates after we finish our salad and they leave half a perfectly good chicken finger for which we paid hard-earned money, dammit. I don't miss the little kid days, actually. She was adorable, to be sure, but when I look back at the pictures we took of that time, I can see the exhaustion in my face and remember the feeling of OH MY GOD I CAN'T PLAY POLLY POCKETS ONE MORE TIME OR I WILL SCREAM AND I'M NOT SURE I WILL BE ABLE TO STOP SCREAMING PLEASE GOD SOMEONE PASS THE ATLANTIC.

It's just ... that at some places, at least, it's no longer an option. Another milestone, so to say. You hear everyone say it and you can't believe it's possible at the start of the journey, but eighteen years really isn't that long. I was a senior in high school more than eighteen years ago. I've been married for almost fourteen.

My marriage can't even eat off the kids' menu.

As my daughter would say, *poof*. Mind blown.

I look forward to the next chapter of her life, even though I'm a little afraid of the teen years that linger not that far on the horizon, and OMG, middle school even closer. Thank God she still can't finish a cheeseburger. Pass that plate, sweetheart. I got your back.

[Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on BlogHer.com.]

Last Saturday, I packed my bag, drove to St. Louis and attended the young adult literature/anti-bullying Less Than Three Conference hosted by New York Times best-selling young adult author Heather Brewer.

I knew it would be interesting, but I didn't know it would be life-changing. The sessions ranged from cyber-bullying to self-bullying to school bullying to LGBTQ bullying and were led by young adult authors who had written novels discussing -- in some fashion -- bullying. By the end of the day, I learned every author up there had done what I myself have done: They wrote around the thing that hurt them.

A.S. King: "All bullying is embarrassing to the victim."

Heather Brewer gave the keynote address. "Fourth grade is the first time I remember wanting to die," she said, and the air in the room expanded in an instant. My daughter is in fourth grade. A little piece of my heart broke off and floated away imagining a fourth-grade Heather.

She told a story of trying to hang herself in her closet as a teen. When the bar broke, she didn't tell anyone, because she was unsupported at home and didn't have a friend -- not one friend -- until she was a freshman in high school. When she made that one friend, everyone said they were lesbians, because the only reason someone would hang out with her had to be sexual favors. Her teacher laughed at her the day someone wrote "LESBO" on her folder. She carried the folder all year to show it hadn't hurt her. She didn't care about being called a lesbian if she had a friend. All she wanted was a friend.

T.M. Goeglein: "Never think no matter what you say, it won't help -- if you have the chance to say something positive, do it."

Heather wasn't the only one. Every author had a story. They could remember the exact names of their bullies and see the faces of their bullies in their mind's eye. That these talented and successful people shared that shame drove home how universal the experience can be and how powerless anyone can feel at the hands of a bully.

Carrie Ryan: "The reason it gets better is that we make the choice to make it get better."

At the end of the day, I left St. Louis and drove back to Kansas City wondering how my life might have been different if I'd been one of those teens attending the panels, if I might not have fallen prey to anorexia, if I might have learned to love myself more and ignore the voices in my head telling me the rules were different for me. And I wondered if kids who bullied other kids in my high school might have thought twice if they'd heard Heather's story. "In every school, there is 'that kid,' and it is acceptable to pick on 'that kid,'" she said. "I was 'that kid.'" I remember several "that kids" I knew while growing up. I remember standing by. I remember joining in. I'm so ashamed to say that, but it's true. I never was a ringleader, but I was a follower of leaders. And really, there's no excuse for any of it. There are reasons but not excuses. By the time I was in high school, I knew better and I don't remember being mean, but by the second half of high school I was lost to the voices in my head forcing me to run bleachers and eat fewer than 800 calories a day even after it grew painful to sit and I grew fine hair all over my cheeks as my body tried to protect itself from my mind.

Ellen Hopkins: "You have to ask the person, "What is the reason behind self-harm?" Because there is always a reason."

Maybe I would've been different if I would've had the chance to hear successful adults talk about overcoming, surviving, moving forward. Maybe I would've been different if I'd had my nose stuck in Heather's story. "I'm in every school, and I'm usually quiet," she said. "Give me something to hold onto."

Give me something to hold onto.

Posts on Bullying

• Holli Long writes about being a safe person to talk to.

• Julie Ramanow writes about dealing with adult bullies in the workforce.

• Becoming Supermommy writes about being raped and abandoned in the snow at 14.

• Another Piece of Cake writes a thank-you note to her bullies.

Anti-Bullying Resources

• PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center

• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

• I Choose

• Project Anti-Bully

Cutting and Self-Harm Resources

• S.A.F.E. Alternatives (Self-Abuse Finally Ends): 1-800-366-2288.

• Mind Infoline – Information on self-harm and a helpline to call in the UK at 0300 123 3393.

• Kids Helpline – A helpline for children and teens in Australia to call at 1800 55 1800.

• Kids Help Phone – A helpline for kids and teens in Canada to call for help with any issue, including cutting and self-injury. Call 1-800-668-6868.

Support for LGBTQ Teens

• National directory of Gay-Straight Alliance school organizations

• The Trevor Project

• Welcoming Schools

Eating Disorder Resources

• AED Academy for Eating Disorders

• EDA Eating Disorders Anonymous

• Eating Disorder Coalition for Research, Policy and Action

• Eating Disorder Foundation

I rounded the corner of the path, trailing a tarp of yellow leaves and two tweens, thinking about how this seventy-five degree day was perhaps it, perhaps the last perfect day of autumn.

And I saw this.

I dropped the tarp, and the three of us stared at it without saying anything for a few seconds. We'd been in the woods before, but not this deep. The neighbor asked us to go deeper so the leaves wouldn't blow back in his yard.

It is the perfect tree in every way. It has sturdy, low branches for climbing, hedge apples for decor and obsession and thorns for an element of danger. The girls named it Hedgepoint.

They stayed in the woods for four hours. I'd long since hung up my rake and washed my car and was reading a book when it was finally time to go get them.

When I was growing up, we used to play Narnia in the thicket next to my parents' house. There was a special fallen tree and a lane and a creek with a bridge over it. Every child needs a perfect tree in her life, and now my girl has one. I'm relieved, as the age for properly respecting a tree like Hedgepoint has nearly passed her by.

I'm not sure I'd ever really seen a hedge apple before I moved to Kansas City, but I read these trees were planted to prevent soil erosion after the Great Depression.

Whereas I played Narnia, they played Boxcar Children. It doesn't matter. Doesn't every child pretend to live in the woods without parents at some point?

The most amazing tree ever in the history of the earth.

October 23, 2011: The first time my daughter said, "I hate you."

Somehow I made it until second grade, seven and a half years without hearing those words. I knew it was coming, the closer she got to tweendom, the faster and harder the attitude came, and these past few months have spawned a love of pop music and a need to wear fashionable shoes, and I knew it was coming.

Today she and a neighbor friend got in a fight, and I said the friend couldn't stay for dinner. Even though I'd said she could an hour earlier. Even though I'm not sure my girl even wanted her to stay. The friend burst into tears and I dug in: "If you two are going to fight, the day's over," I said, despite their protests, despite their cries of agony. I only had one child for many reasons, and one of them is this: I don't break up fights.

On the way across the street to walk the friend home, she said, "I hate you." Quietly. But not under her breath. And though I've been expecting it all these years, my skin tingled and my stomach twisted.

We deposited the friend at home and I deposited my girl in her room to ponder her sins. And then I went to the sink and stood, washing cupcake pans and crying as though my heart would break.

Beloved rubbed my shoulders as he passed by.

"I know this is part of being a good mom," I sobbed. "But it sucks so much."

He rubbed my shoulders again and left.

We made up less than an hour later. She's an impetuous seven. I told her how much it hurt me while knowing that I couldn't appear to be the destroyed mother, that I had to be the locked door. Children need boundaries. Children need something strong to rail against. The worst thing I could do for her is to let her manipulate me because she hurt my feelings.

I know this.

But this, October 23, 2011, is the first day my daughter said she hated me.

And I'll never forget it.