Category: Parenting

As anyone with a Ph.D. in physics can inform you, “dark matter is composed of particles that do not absorb, reflect, or emit light.” I mean, duh. What else would dark matter be? Admittedly, “dark matter is material that cannot be seen directly.” But there’s lots of stuff in that category. Neither

In round numbers it has been 40 years since my first half marathon, 40 days since my last. At some point, the definition of “last“ shifts. “Last“ always means “most recent“ until it doesn’t. Then “last“ means “final,” there was never another one. Absent actually dying on the course—an unpleasant

This just in: there is pot at every school in this country. Even ten years ago, there were day schools and boarding schools that were free of kids who use marijuana. Not anymore. Every school in this country has students who consider “weed” part of a good breakfast. Every school.

My buddy Michael can beat you at chess. You know the hyperbolic expression, “he’s so good he can beat you blindfolded“? In Michael’s case, the playground taut is totally true. He doesn’t even need to look at the chess board to stomp you. Blindfolded chess is a thing. And Michael

One of my mom’s favorite jokes was about the guy searching under the streetlamp for his lost silver dollar. “Where did you lose the coin?” his friend inquires. “I’ll help you look.” “I dropped it over there in the woods.” “Then why are you looking here under the streetlamp?” “Because

Having heard on the radio that The Irreducible Needs of Children had just been published, I emphatically sped across town. My flouting of conventional driving mores will be understood: Stanley Greenspan and T. Berry Brazelton are among our country’s most profound thinkers on child development. I didn’t want to arrive

A scant 40-something years ago, my friend Nina had a wicked crush on Brad, a hunky senior, two years older than we. Having determined from the “I-like-him-do-you-think-he-likes-me?” grapevine that Brad might not be averse to spending a Saturday evening with Nina, but still too shy to ask out a B-O-Y,

What do Winnie the Pooh and Attilla the Hun have in common?  Hint: your six-year-old daughter is more likely to help you with this inquiry than is your friend who has an M.A. in history and a Ph.D. in literature. Which movies or TV shows—first run or streamed—have an adolescent

Higher mathematics may be an unlikely arena from which to draw cogent parenting advice. Simple arithmetic, on the other hand, is the poster child for good sense. Expected value—even if you don’t know the name—is a transparent concept that we all take advantage of on a daily basis. I’m going