In this corner… in the blue trunks, just back from a six-month stint in a third-world country digging irrigation ditches and setting up micro-loans for a women’s sewing cooperative, Ms. Attitude-of-Gratitude! This competitor drives her younger siblings to school, mows the lawn without being reminded, takes grandma food shopping every
What promises—expressed and implied—have you made to your children? Have you suggested that as adults they will live in a house bigger than the one in which they currently reside? Have you communicated that they will eventually earn more money than you? Did you tell them that they would go
I bought a lottery ticket yesterday. I know. I know. I was a math teacher. I know better. I get it. The odds of winning the hundreds of millions of dollars are effectively zero. I understand the expected value theorem. And I know that games of chance are attacks on
Back 40 years ago when I started doing this work and was convinced I knew everything, I would offer parenting advice–typically of the unsolicited variety: “treat your kids like adults;” “treat your kids like children;” “pay attention when they fuss;” “ignore their tantrums,” I should have been taken out behind
I am not proud that I remember the following unfortunate jokes from junior high. Nor am I gratified to admit that I found them amusing 50-something years ago. “Mommy, mommy, I don’t want to go to Europe!” “Shut up and keep swimming!” But when I hear of families who communicate
Gotta pay dues if you want to sing the blues suggested Ringo. And while I am hesitant to argue with one of the Fab Four, I have to imagine that there may be some blues singers somewhere who had a cushy go of it. Similarly, what about subtraction. It certainly
It was Teddy Roosevelt of all people who first pointed out that comparison is the thief of joy. Henry VIII didn’t get that memo, having joined five of his six wives in the great beyond some hundreds of years before the Bull Moose Party. I didn’t knew Henry personally, but
Okay, I admit it. My admiration for Joan Benoit is a little over the top. To be clear, Joanie has nothing to fear from me. I have never sent her a fawning text and have only seen her in person twice–in Los Angeles at the 1984 Olympics where she seemed
Who is the “monkey in the middle”? Who gets bullied? The new kid? The small kid? The smart kid? The unpopular kid? Don’t you want your book back? shout the tormentors. Here it is! But of course the new, small, smart, unpopular kid can never jump high enough or run
How much is six plus four plus five? Did you put together the six and the four first because six plus four is ten and it’s easy to add stuff to ten? Or did you notice that four, five, and six are all in a row so six plus four
Copyright © David Altshuler 1980 – 2024 | Miami, FL • Charlotte, NC | (305) 978-8917 | [email protected]
