Her blue eyes twinkle in the sunlight and a sly smile forms at the corners of her mouth. Her shirt, may be close to being a size too small, rides up as she tries to straighten her back against the door frame. Her chestnut brown hair falls in little ringlets at her shoulders as she tries to squeeze a few more centimeters out of the measurement. She raises her little feet off the ground while I gently remind her to keep them flat. "How much I grow?" she asks me desperate for me to show her how big she has become but I'm just not willing. She is our last child and she is growing too … [Read more...]
Raising Strong Girls is Not Enough
In a vacuum, the notion that we dads and moms and other parties involved in the childhood business will positively impact the world simply by placing more decent, kind, confident, strong, and loving girls into it is a fallacy.
A Utopian dream. A marketing ploy. A wish upon a star. Raising strong girls is not enough.
Raising strong girls is not enough because a strong girl, even the strongest of mind, body, will, and spirit, can too easily be fractured into a thousand unrecognizable pieces, a glass bottle of glitter shattered on a Venetian tile floor, by a … [Read more...]Open Letter to a Frustrated Mom
One rainy, winter day in the recent past About 12:30 p.m. at Papa Gino's in Kingston, Mass.. Dear Frustrated Mom, I feel for you. I genuinely mean that. We have all been there. It's one of those days where nothing seems to be working out and the odds are stacked against you. Two young kids, a busy schedule ... all the stress you could ever ask for ... and you simply can't catch a break. Oh yes. Been there, done that! I bet every person here knows what it feels like when you get a raw deal of a day like that. It is just awful. Plain and simple. I've only caught one small glimpse … [Read more...]
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet – Toddler Edition
I swore that when I became a father it would never happen on my watch but it did. No matter how much I tried there was nothing I could do to make him stop. My son had become “that kid” on the plane. “Jake” was the name everyone on board dreaded. Jake was “that kid” for whom my wife and I spent the entire two-and-a-half-hour flight from Florida apologizing. All we could do was repeat our pathetic plea that “he’s really a sweet little boy once you get to know him.” It started with one of his toys. We brought his Leap Pad with us to keep him distracted. We never thought he’d refuse … [Read more...]
Parents’ Phrase Book a Help in Translating for Your Child
The Parents’ Phrase Book by Whit Honea is exceptional in many ways.
Parenting books tend to either talk down to you as if the author can’t believe society allowed you to reproduce or take every thing so deadly serious you start to wonder why society allowed you to reproduce. This book does neither. The Parents’ Phrase Book speaks warmly, easily and with great humor and understanding, respectfully treating parenthood and childhood as the wondrous yet challenging times they are. Whit Honea, who has more writing credits for online parenting sites than Spock … [Read more...]Preparing Your Child for Sports When You’re Not an Athlete
The other night I read a really great blog post about sports parents who never played and giving advice to their kids. It made me think about when my kids will be old enough to play organized sports, perhaps as soon as the fall for my oldest. I never really played organized sports sans three weeks of junior varsity football and a few seasons of corporate softball. What kind of authority am I to give advice or even coach? Honestly despite my love of sports most of my experience came from the wrong side of a TV or a computer. I spent way more time covering sports as a journalist than … [Read more...]
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