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What’s on that post-it note?

In the corner of the sixth grade classroom, there was a chart with twenty or thirty hand written post-it notes attached. Each represented a student’s recommendation for their non-fiction essay. 
 
Approximately half were about global warming, several more about hurricanes.  A few would write about inequality or racism. By my estimate at least 80% of the suggested topics were about large societal problems.
 
My initial thought was how conscientious and social minded these students must be – which was admirable. …


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Father’s Day Presence

This was the seventh father’s day for my youngest daughter. It means that all three of my children now have had a father in their lives longer than I had one in mine.

And I wonder to what benefit?

The absence of a father in my life inspired me to be ever present in my own children’s lives.  

I thought this would mean that they would see me as the greatest Dad ever. …


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Searching for the King

Growing up I absolutely idolized Elvis Presley. His rock and roll greeted me after Friday Little League games as I walked into the bar where my mom worked.  His movies kept me company on Saturday afternoons. His gospel music was my church on Sunday. 

Why I was so drawn to him is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it was his devotion to his mother – which I shared to my own. Or…


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Polar Opposites

It stood almost ten feet tall and weighted close to a thousand pounds. We were less than four feet away, separated by two trainers and a steel fence. Feeling small in its presence, it was literally awesome.

While most of the onlookers were equally mesmerized watching the polar bear go through its training exercises, it was impossible not to notice the five-year-old girl who sat just in front of me.…


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What Do You Do When You’re Wrong?

In response to last week’s post, several readers wrote me to point out an error. I incorrectly wrote, “Mr. Rogers invited the postman, Mr. McFeely, to come soak his feet in his pool.”  

In reality, he invited Officer Clemmons. Mr. McFeely is white while Officer Clemmons is African-American – not a minor point considering Mr. Rogers was trying to make a statement about integrating public pools.

My initial instinct was to hope no one else noticed and ignore it.  …


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You Can Do Hard Things

This is a phrase my wife has recently used several times with our children. When I first heard it, it immediately struck a chord.
 
As a child, most things seem a little hard at first – tying your shoes, getting your own breakfast, reading a book, riding a bike.
 
It is by only by doing these things ourselves, that we eventually master them and what at first seemed hard eventually becomes second nature.…


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They Were Everywhere

On bookshelves, under end tables, on the dining room table, behind the sofa, and under chairs. In the hallway, kitchen, bedroom, living room and yes, the closet. They were spread to every corner of our home like the Starks to the kingdoms of Westeros.
 
Legos, Legos and more Legos. Our home had turned into a literal Lego-land. Constructed sets abounded – tree houses, ski lodges, yogurt shops, pet hospitals, ice skating rinks, pizzerias and amusement parks.…


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The True Meaning of Eve

For millions of children around the world (and perhaps an equal number of adults), today is a day of incredible anticipation.  For tomorrow, they will wake up uncontrollably consumed by the excitement that comes with presents nestled under and around the Christmas tree.
 
The very nature of any “eve” is one of anticipation and even anxiety.  As the great Tom Petty once sang, “the waiting is the hardest part.”…


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Don’t Turn The Page

I really wanted to write something positive today. Then I saw this.

The first time I had seen that picture was last Sunday.  It was on the front page of the New York Times.  My seven-year old daughter had just crawled up on my lap and asked me who that was. I told her that this picture was of another seven-year old girl who lived in Yemen and because of the war going on in that country could not get enough to eat.…


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The Child or The Road?

Uncertain times raise the stakes for raising a child.  We project our own fears upon their future and our anxiety seeps into our actions and ultimately theirs. 

This manifests itself in ways big and small, many of which are chronicled in the new book, The Coddling of the American Mind:  How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.  (Ironically, the title itself may unwittingly add to this anxiety.) …


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How To Tell The Truth

My six year old daughter stepped off the bus with a very long face.  “Daddy, you’re going to be so mad at me. I did something awful at school today.”
 
Embarrassed, upset and ashamed, it took twenty minutes for her to work through her tears and tell me that she got in trouble for talking in gym class. A crime that was punishable by sitting alone on the stage at the front of the gym. A…


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Who’s In Your Class?

China, Columbia, England, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Peru, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States — twelve students representing eleven countries.  This is the makeup of a masters level class I’m teaching this fall at Parson’s School of Design.

As I sat with them discussing what we’d cover over the course of the semester, I couldn’t help but think what they would teach each other and me – just by the very nature of their diverse life experiences.…


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Freedom From or Freedom To?

After running around attending to the needs of various kids, I had just poured a fresh cup of coffee, grabbed my book and sat down to relax.  

As if intentionally timing her request to my first sip, my daughter summoned,“Daddy, get me a glass of milk.”  This is the exchange that followed:

“You realize this vacation is for Mommy and Daddy too, you know. …


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The Truth About Parents

This week, I read the obituary for Gudrun Burwtiz. Her father was Heinrich Himmler – the Nazi architect of the Holocaust. The focus of the obituary was her undying loyalty and defense of her father that continued throughout her lifetime.

Last week, I attended a lecture by Caroline Fraser, whose book Prairie Fires examines the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder – author of the Little House on the Prairie series. …


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The Space Between Hope and Despair

In the film First Reformed, a reverend and environmentalist are experiencing existential crises – each waging a battle between hope and despair. In one exchange, the environmentalist shares his conflicting feelings about being an expectant father yet having to answer for the catastrophic effects climate change will have on the earth his unborn daughter will inherit as an adult.  He asks, “What will I say when she looks at me and asks – ‘You let this happen?’”…


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A Father’s Day Blessing

I didn’t even see her. I had walked in and out of our local supermarket with my eight-year-old daughter to run a quick errand for a next day’s class picnic.  Once we were both buckled in the car, she said, “Daddy, didn’t you see the woman holding the sign saying – Homeless. Pregnant.”?

I said I hadn’t and now was in a rush to get home as it was well past her bedtime. More…


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Full of Fluff?

It is one of the most influential social science research studies ever conducted. For the past thirty years, it has served as a foundation for most work on the subjects of willpower and grit.  
 
The Marshmallow Test, as it is referred, was a simple experiment that offered kids a marshmallow to eat.  However, if they could wait 15 minutes – while sitting alone in a room with the marshmallow in front of them – they would earn a second marshmallow. 
…
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This Is Impressive

Pride is a feeling of pleasure derived by the acts or qualities that we admire. It is natural to take pride in our own achievements or from those closest to us.

To be impressed is an altogether different matter. It is a feeling imposed on us. It represents something so unusually good that we can’t help but remember it. It suggests something has been forcibly pressed upon us in such a way to leave a lasting mark.…


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I Was Afraid

We stood eighty-five feet off the ground, walking a hundred feet across a slender 4-inch wide beam. My six-year old daughter inched step for step in front of me until, after what seemed an eternity, we reached the platform that ended our adventure.

This all took place at the world’s tallest indoor ropes challenge course. While we were tethered to a safety harness guaranteed to stop any fall, it did not allay my fears as much as one would think. A…


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What Only You Can Do About Gun Violence

Last week in Florida another school shooting ended 17 lives and forever damaged hundreds more. In an all too familiar pattern, afterwards people took to social media sharing their sorrow, their prayers, and their outrage.

This pattern is familiar because it has repeated itself all too often. Since Sandy Hook there been over 200 school shootings.

It is often said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.…


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What My Daughter Taught Me About Standing Up

With great pride I sat in our local community center the morning of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Our eight-year old daughter squirmed on my lap squeezing both of my hands in anticipation.  In just moments, she would be called up to accept the MLK Art Contest winner for her elementary school.

She had built a miniature replica of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. …


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An Unexpected Christmas Blessing

Early Christmas morning, my brother had just unwrapped a train set he was eager to set up. My sister, just weeks after taking her first steps, was overwhelmed by the spectacle of a giant tree in her house with presents all around.

As my siblings enjoyed these early moments of Christmas morning, I apparently chose this inopportune time to enter this world.

My mother was rushed off to the hospital. …


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How Much Do I Have To Give?

The school lost everything. An after hours fire melted crayons, turned paper to ash and pencils to tinder. The supplies had just been donated as part of a foreign aid trip to this Nigerian classroom and now needed to be replaced
 
When our daughter brought the note home from her teacher requesting any used supplies, it included an unnecessary apology for adding one more request on top of the flood that come in for donated coats, toys and food to mark the holiday season.…


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Do Children Cry Happy Tears?

This weekend my youngest daughter and I went to see the new movie Coco. The movie is a multi-layered parable about how family connections transcend time.

The penultimate scene shows a boy singing a lullaby to his great-grandmother who suffers from dementia.  The song, Remember Me, was written by her father and they would sing it together each time he said goodbye to her when she was a little girl.
…
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Thank You

As Thanksgiving approaches, I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for all of your support and interest in these weekly notes.

Thank you for taking a few minutes each Monday morning to read these emails.

Thank you for your emails to me filled with kind words and your own personal stories.

Thank you for forwarding these words to your friends and colleagues.

Thank you for posting them on social media.…


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