Coretha Henderson made her 14-year-old daughter stand on an Oklahoma City street corner wearing a sign that said:

"I don't do my homework and I act up in school, so my parents are preparing me for my future. Will work for food."

That was two weeks ago, and since then Henderson has been praised and vilified. Some saw her action as bold; others saw it as cruel and unusual punishment, as abuse.

But abuse is forcing your child to sell drugs to the pay the rent so you can sit on your butt and watch "The Young and the Restless." Abuse is not making your child understand that they will be responsible for their lives.

I saw Henderson's actions as the unusual result of a mother's love. Sometimes it takes unusual to get a teen's attention — because some of our teens don't get it.

Some recent studies have found that many college-age youth may be maturing too slowly because their parents planned their time, their schedules and their lives.

An Annie E. Casey Foundation study last year also found that millions of today's young people 18-24 are "disconnected" — neither working nor in school — who have neither "the skills, supports, experience, education, nor confidence to successfully transition to adulthood," Douglas W. Nelson, president of the foundation, wrote.

A friend mentioned a divorce case where a mom told the judge her ex-husband needed to increase child support so her daughter could have a car like all her friends. The judge agreed!

I had a chat with my daughter about some of her peers who want to be Paris Hilton without the cash or Beyonce Knowles without the pipes. They are living unrealistic lives with unrealistic dreams. Some are not focused on school and class and college and potential careers because they, particularly the girls, want to depend on other things to carry them.

I had a message for them: Depending on looks, luck and men could get them a job on that street corner we were just passing by.

Coretha Henderson, 34 and a mother of three, knows her own child. Her actions on Nov. 4 reportedly led her daughter to improve her behavior.

But she has paid the price, becoming a topic for talk radio and having the police send a report to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, whose officials declined to confirm even the existence of an investigation.

I hope the department issues a report, the Henderson Report, which says if more parents cared about their children as much as Coretha Henderson did, that department would have fewer cases.

Parents must wake their children up, show them the world being made for them, complete with bills they will have to pay for the increasing costs of Social Security, Medicare and current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The basic running costs for those two conflicts now is $6 billion a month, according to the Washington Post.) Our kids will be paying these bills in the next 10-20 years, so they must learn to stand on their own.

And working for food won't pay those bills.