India, April 12 -- Ask any parent and she will say, without hesitation, that she wants her child to be free: to find her own path, to live her own life, to become herself. Most parents mean this. And yet the same parent will lie awake worrying about whether the child is studying enough, whether the career she is choosing is secure enough. She will offer advice that was not asked for, correct choices that were not mistakes, and feel a disappointment she cannot quite account for when the child goes her own way. Her feeling for the child is real; of that there is no doubt. But something else is also happening, something quieter, something she may never have put into words.

Look more closely at what a parent actually carries into the room wi...