Category: Parenting

From Beryl Bainbridge’s 1974 novel, The Bottle Factory Outing: As a child she had been taught it was rude to say no, unless she didn’t mean it. If she was offered another piece of cake and she wanted it, she was obliged to refuse out of politeness. And if she

“Is this the person to whom I’m speaking” queried the irrepressible Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the operator. As a youngster staying up late to watch Laugh In, I missed the wit. Of course this is the person to whom she’s speaking, who else could it possibly be?” Instead, I focused

Another thought on how steep the pyramid is, on how important it is to communicate to our children that competition is debilitating, that how they feel about their accomplishments matters significantly more than what those accomplishments might actually be. Here is Eugene Wigner (fictionalized account) on one of his elementary

Moms get blamed for everything. Everything their kids do, say, or think. The belief that moms are responsible for every nuance of their children’s behavior is so deeply engrained in our lifestyle that it’s hard not to notice without doing two minutes of Internet research or thinking critically for an

“I am despondent. My daughter did not graduate at the top of her medical school class. She won’t get a good residency placement. It’s the end of the world as we know it, the sky is falling, where did I go wrong?” Or… “I am pleased and proud. My daughter

Spending some time on one of my favorite college campuses recently, I could not help but notice a five-dollar bill on top of the book return box outside the college library. I watched as a sporadic procession of students glanced at Lincoln’s paper portrait on their way into the building.

How frequently do you enjoy being told that you’re wrong? By whom? Under what circumstances? You need to change; you are not okay as you are; you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny. Nobody wants to hear that. I bet you’re pretty happy with your religious beliefs, for example.

 Needing to be up at oh dark hundred the next morning, I improvidently began Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil, a mesmerizing thriller involving “creating” a certain type of child by mirroring his environmental and genetic makeup. No spoilers–the plot twists and turns like a racetrack–just this advice: if you’re