We were watching The Empire Strikes Back the other day and I got to thinking: was Yoda the quintessential parent? Think about it. Take his opening speech to Luke, for example, and sub out “Jedi” for “Parent.” “Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained parents . My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A parent must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind... Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A parent craves not these things.” Pretty powerful stuff and definitely better than anything I got in prenatal classes. Or how about “ wars not make one great.” I think of that every time I argue with the bairn over emptying the dishwasher or picking up the Lego bits and pencil crayons that I incessantly step on. The way he talks to Luke is always firm, strong and decisive.  There’s no backtracking or cute-ing out of or namby-pambying around with Yoda. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”  Take that ambivalence. “There is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today.”  Take that sass mouth. “Always with you what cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?”   Take that discouragement. “How do you get so big eating food of this kind?”  Take that junk food. “ Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not.”  Take that…oh, actually that one might be best saved for the bedroom… And he does have a very valid point when he says “ When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good, you will not.” Wonder what kind of moisturizers and facial serums they use on Dagobah….