Like most Americans, I experienced the trauma of September 11, 2001, through my television. My wife, 1-year-old daughter Lauren, and I had just moved to the Cleveland, Ohio area, and I was a stay-at-home dad. That morning I was in my living room while Lauren watched a children’s show. Our landline phone rang, and my brother-in-law said: “Turn on the news.” I changed the channel over Lauren’s protest. Smoke billowed out of the first tower. Watching a national tragedy unfold in the presence of a 1-year-old made an already surreal experience even more bizarre. I was unsure what to do … [Read more...]
Dreams Need to Stay Alive for Parents as Well as Their Children
My wife approves of my keeping one mistress. She happily walks in on me as I’m cozying up with an Abraham Lincoln biography, a Wall Street Journal op-ed page or the latest edition of Time magazine. If she’s out of town, I’m never alone long. I'll quickly get intimate with Charles Krauthammer, Neil deGrasse Tyson or an elegantly stated case against the anti-fossil fuel argument. But only one at a time: I don’t have the stamina I used to. These late-night visits to the native English language are my after-hours escape and salvation. You see, I’m an English-language copywriter living in … [Read more...]
Goodbye is What Good Parenting Should Eventually Lead to
I’ve heard parenting described as a vocation where the goal is to work yourself out of a job. Seems pretty accurate to me. As a longtime stay-at-home parent, I see myself doing it all the time. In fact, as I write, the washing machine is spinning noisily and the dryer is droning away, and I didn’t start either of them. My 14-year-old twin sons are doing their laundry today, a job I did for them for years. I showed them the ropes a few months ago and now, begrudgingly and with a bit of prompting from me, they’ve been doing it on their own. Late last week, I found one of them riding the … [Read more...]
First Job for Teens Brings Many Benefits Beyond Paycheck
onr “I feel important.” That was my younger daughter’s surprising answer to a mundane question. I had been wondering why she liked her job as a hostess at a busy restaurant so much, especially since it was her first “real” job as a teenager beyond watching kids or walking dogs. Frankly, I had expected the job would not appeal to her. I was wrong. But shortly after she announced this surge of self-esteem, I remembered my own first real job as a teenager beyond mowing lawns or shoveling snow. My employment history began one summer at a grocery store in my hometown where I bagged … [Read more...]
Fun Times Slip Like Sand Through the Parenting Hourglass
I used to be a lot more fun. There was a time, it feels like years ago, when every free moment was seemingly spent amusing my kids (and myself in the process). But lately, that isn’t the case. Granted, these days there is far less free time to speak of; plus, the boys no longer consider me their primary source of entertainment. Both factors render my services more or less unnecessary, which is a justifiable excuse for the dulling of my comedic timing, but it’s more than that. I often feel like I’m actively avoiding fun. To be fair, some of the blame can be placed upon our family’s … [Read more...]
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