How do you solve tough problems? Maybe you pick at them until they’re gone. Maybe you dance around them until they’re contained. One thing I like to do is to step away and examine them as an outsider, from a completely different perspective. In other words, get out of the trees and look at the whole...Continue reading
Category: Parenting
Lasers May Be Fun, But They’re Not Toys
Unless you’re on a desert island, chances are there’s a laser within just a few feet of you. In fact, there’s a pretty good case to be made that our lives wouldn’t be the same without them. If you’ve got a cat or a dog, you’ve probably used a laser pointer to entertain yourself by...Continue reading
Breaking the Mother-Son Dynamic: Resetting the Patterns of a Man’s Life and Loves
Thomas Wolfe says, “You can never go home again.” However, to go forward, I have to go backward from time to time. I return to the places where the dreams began: my hometown and the small college where I did my undergraduate work. That’s where I’m sitting right now, writing these pages. Through the windows I see the amphitheater...Continue reading
When Noise Makes You Crazy
Most of us have negative reactions to certain sounds, the most famous of which is probably chalk or fingernails on a blackboard. (Interestingly, as chalk and blackboards go the way of the floppy disk, many people are just as bothered by the sound of dry erase markers squeaking on whiteboards.) But there’s a big difference...Continue reading
When Being Number One Is Bad News
It’s no secret that guilt plays havoc with our health. People who feel guilty for extended periods of time are, on average, more depressed, more anxious, more stressed, and have a weaker immune system than those who go through life without the guilt. They’re also more likely to engage in risky, destructive behavior, including self-medicating...Continue reading
How I finally forgave my father
For years, I questioned why I had to experience the gruesome, heartbreaking death of my eight-month-old puppy Ezra. It seemed so horribly tragic, meaningless, and preventable. I was fourteen years old, and for 10 years I had experienced what felt like two separate lives as I visited back and forth between my divorced parents. The...Continue reading
Getting Out of the Fast Lane
The eggs didn’t fertilize. No sperm was found. The embryos fell apart in the dish. The pregnancy test was negative, again. To boot, you’re out of money and utterly and totally exhausted. Your mind is an empty room on a cold, gray day, filled only by the scattered noise of rustling leaves outside. And now...Continue reading
7 Tips for New (and Not-So-New) Dads About Kids’ Health
Just a few months ago, my brother welcomed his newborn son to the world. Imagine the differences between his experience and the experience my own father had when we were born. Case in point: When my mom was delivering me in the hospital, my dad had no idea how to help during labor. Flustered and...Continue reading
Are We Less Fertile Today?
How big was your family a couple of generations ago? Dial things back a half a century and you’d see that having 3 or 4 kids was pretty much average in America. Now, having 2 kids or fewer is the norm. What happened? Are we less fertile? I know what you’re thinking: so what if modern...Continue reading
