It was a rainy Tuesday morning in June. I remember pounding rain on a copper roof outside my window; sheets of water splattering as a city darkened and pealing thunder brought with it the full force of a summer rainstorm; then fierce pain. Continue Reading »
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids edited by meghan daum picador, 288 pages, $26 The Dadly Virtues: Adventures from the Worst Job You’ll Ever Love edited by jonathan v. last templeton, 192 pages, $24.95 These days it is widely assumed that a . . . . Continue Reading »
My university experience, like that of so many others, was rich. I was a college athlete and editor of a campus paper. I had discovered a love for philosophy, and I was thinking seriously about going to graduate school. Life was great, an ocean of potential. And then I got the phone call that . . . . Continue Reading »
Everybody knows how important it is to read to toddlers. Apart from the emotional element, reading out loud every day during the pre-K years sends a child to kindergarten with a significantly larger vocabulary than a child without that experience possesses. And what happens in kindergarten and after is that the gap grows (because of what is called the “Matthew Effect”). Continue Reading »
Today’s students are more socialized and considerably more self-disciplined than their predecessors. To teach them is a joy, but they will risk nothing, not even for one facetious question on a minor exam. Continue Reading »
Contrary to the popular view, children are integral to . . . . Continue Reading »
We’re Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents’ Divorceby constance ahrons harpercollins 304 pages $24.95 It is often said that those who are concerned about the social and personal effects of divorce are nostalgic for the 1950s, yearning for a mythical time . . . . Continue Reading »
For the past two years, I have been the head “Library Mommy” at my daughter’s private nursery school. The children tell me what books they have or have not read, what books they have at home, and what interests them in the school’s library. The nursery school is full of bright, lively, . . . . Continue Reading »
In a famous passage from Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead gives this counsel to scholars in the various historical disciplines: “Do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which [controversialists] feel it necessary explicitly to defend.” More . . . . Continue Reading »
My April calendar reminds me that my oldest child celebrates her birthday this month. Which in turn reminds me of the mysteries and puzzlements of child-rearing. Which in its turn reminds me, once again, why I am a cultural conservative. . . . . Continue Reading »
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