You Don’t Have to Be So Serious
"It’s exhausting to be a kid. Because they’re clever and creative and you’re not. Because they’re pure and idealistic and you’ve been hardened by the world you’ve seen. Because they’re still uniquely ...
30 Sep 20202min
Who Are You Studying for Their Sake?
"What kinds of books do dads like? Well, according to the displays at Barnes & Noble and Costco, it’s almost exclusively books about war and history. Have you ever wondered why that is? Why did your d...
29 Sep 20203min
Nourish This Wonderful Trait
"Sometimes, when parents fall down on the job, it falls to someone else to do the job. The primary and most important influence on Queen Victoria, for instance, was not her mother but her beloved gove...
28 Sep 20202min
Teach Them to Believe in This
"In August 1933, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a letter to his young daughter Frances who was away at camp. It's a beautiful, personal letter from a man who was flawed—failed by his own parents—but tried,...
25 Sep 20202min
What Story Are You Telling Your Kids?
"There are a few versions of history you can tell your kids. You can tell them the propaganda version—the fables, the self-serving myths, the lies that dictators or the jingoists like to traffic in. Y...
24 Sep 20202min
Your Feelings Don't Count
"Parenting just demands so much more of you, just more than you ever even thought yourself capable of giving. You do it because you want to, because you love them, of course, but also because you have...
23 Sep 20202min
You Have to Do This. We Need It.
"There is a reason that this metaphor keeps popping up. Cormac McCarthy talked about 'carrying the fire' in his haunting novel The Road, which he wrote for his son. Now Alanis Morissette puts her own ...
22 Sep 20202min
Don’t Be Like These People
"We’ve come to call them 'Karens,' but the truth is that being an entitled, obnoxious ass transcends gender. It has nothing to do with the haircut, and everything to do with thinking that you’re the c...
21 Sep 20203min
