Category: Parenting

A father and his young adult daughter are vacationing. In Venice, Stacey complains about the food. In Florence, she grumbles about her aching feet. At the Uffizi, she is grumpy about how her dad wants to spend nineteen hours staring at each and every painting in the eight-gazillion square foot

A man wants to get in touch with a US senator. He goes to a well-connected Washington lobbyist. “I need a meeting with the senator,” he says. “I can get you a connected with the senator” replies the lobbyist. “The charge will be ten thousand dollars.” “Ten thousand dollars?” the

Just as Edison is frequently invoked as knowing a thousand ways not to make a lightbulb, I am intimately familiar with how to run a marathon so as not to qualify for Boston. Having had the good sense to turn 50 and noticing the requisite time necessary to get a

There are myriad reasons not to be a family. There is only one reason to put up with your cigarette-smoking, nose-picking, inept, unpleasant, disruptive, opinionated, boorish grandparents, in-laws, cousins, and siblings. Did I mention that they are also offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate? Do I have to remind you that they

Wait a minute? He did what? He killed her? With a knife? Because she went on a date or didn’t want to marry him or preferred this Grayson guy? And now the abusive murderer is going to hang and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him? “Poor boy”? He’s called

The irony of my complaining about complainers is not lost on me, but consider what the following complainers and complaints have in common: A pediatrician griping about patients with runny noses. A high school math teacher grumbling about students who haven’t memorized the quadratic formula. A lawyer moaning about clients

John Irving wonderfully defined “gradual school” as where students go until they gradually figure out that they need to be somewhere else. I took several courses in myriad departments until determining that I needed to be elsewhere, specifically developmental psychology. The social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development of children, adolescents,

“Do people who run marathons know that they don’t have to?” suggests a popular meme. To which I might add, “do people who have kids know that they’re no requirement?” “You don’t get a prize” one of my running buddies says. She’s referring to training and racing and although, to

Had it been my turn I would have tapped two fingers against my left forearm. “Two syllables!” my teammates would have shouted. Holding up two fingers and then grabbing my ear, I would have communicated, “second syllable!” and “sounds like!” before going on to pantomime “fear” by throwing up my