Friday Night: Daddy, What’s God?
When your child asks you about God, it feels like you are being grilled on your beliefs. Never mind the tricky “Do we believe in God?” The straightforward “What is God?” can provoke palpitations....
View ArticleLearning to Swim
People didn’t often try to drown me as a child. Indeed, growing up two hours from the sea in God’s own county of Yorkshire — a cold, law-abiding place where antisemitism is illegal — any notion that...
View ArticleiDidn’t Bring My iPhone
I walked out to the park the other day without my iPhone and I felt free for the first time in months. I’ve only had an iPhone for two years, a cell phone for six years, and I haven’t worn … Continue...
View ArticleEverybody Wants to Go to Heaven
“Everybody wants to go to heaven, But nobody wants to die.” — Loretta Lynn I was tripped up by a country song — it’s an occupational hazard for those of us with blood or marital ties to Tennessee. As...
View ArticleYou Say Tomayto
My daughters are little aliens. At least they sound like it. My girls are at the stage where the words coming out of their still-forming mouths are caught somewhere between babytalk and the childish...
View ArticleMourning the Pet Goldfish
There are many ways to kill a pet fish, and Adam Gopnik killed ours from the pages of the New Yorker. With callous disregard to the feelings of Golder the goldfish (who was “golder” than her two...
View ArticleTestosterone — Huh? What Is It Good For?
You know what? You can take your damn testosterone and shove it. A “science” experiment at Northwestern University, (reported in the New York Times of Sept 18) has confirmed that having kids reduces...
View ArticleStickers: Like Crack for Kids
Cats have catnip, Californians have medical marijuana, and kids have stickers. Faced with the question of what to do during a long, wet afternoon, an intercontinental airplane journey, or just a...
View ArticleIn Loco Parentis: Why Teachers Rule
In wine, truth (in vino veritas); and in parents, madness (in loco parentis). At least that’s what we teachers would joke as the season for parent-teacher (and sometimes parent-student-teacher)...
View ArticleOccupy Science Camp
A motley crew of parents, nannies and hired hands were camping for the highly desirable Hollingworth Science Camp: first come, first served.
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