Category: Parenting

My column this week is a “slippery slope” or “reducio ad absurdum” about what could happen if the kind of thinking in this piece: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonma/2012/04/01/why-to-start-preparing-for-college-in-sixth-grade/ were to flow to its natural conclusion. Here’s an except from the article that appeared in Forbes: “My other daughter is a different story. ‘Cutie

Here’s a riddle you may enjoy: What do Winnie the Pooh and Atilla the Hun have in common? Of course, the answer will be supplied next week–unless a gentle reader posts a reply in the comments section on the website. In the meantime, the following hint–from Groucho Marx–may be of

Better writers than I have tried to describe that truly torrential, bone drenching, incessant rain storm where the water comes down in sheets, shows no signs of abating, and has soaked you through the skin going back generations. Not seeing any of these writers at a campsite on top of

Here’s a joke from 40 years ago. Let me know if you recognize it: A man comes home from work to see his two year-old son on the kitchen floor happily playing in a puddle of spilled milk. In the next room, the man observes his older son, age five,

Not, how do you win a chicken? I can only assume that there are any number of country fairs across our great nation that allow you to put down your cotton candy, pick up a baseball, and win a chicken. Referenced here is the “game” of chicken involving two cars,

Everyone wants to eat in a health food restaurant, right? Because it’s healthy. You can’t spell “Health Food Restaurant” without the word “Healthy” and it says “Health Food Restaurant” in big letters right there over the door. The menu is replete with healthy choices–low carb, no sugar, gluten free, and

“Can you shut up?” doesn’t actually mean “Can you shut up?” “Can you shut up?” means “Will you shut up?” Because presumably, the speaker is physiologically capable of shutting up–unless there is some new disease (foot in mouth”?)–of which I am unaware. The question is whether or not the speaker

My family and I were at a restaurant recently where we observed a nine year-old at dinner with his family. The young man was intensely connected to his screen, suckling greedily on his video game. Both hands were cemented to the keyboard; his headphones were successfully obliterating any stimulus not

Not so many generations ago, fiddlers in particular and musicians in general, were considered to be time wasters of the worst sort. Idle hands were the devil’s playthings; those hands on musical instruments were the least productive. Music was considered the “gateway drug” to alcohol, dissolution and shame. Today, frantic