This powerful question comes from Rom Mokak, Australia’s first Indigenous Policy Evaluation Commissioner. It is a question that the Yawuru people ask when a major decision is to be made for their community.
When I first heard this question, it made me think of what kind of steward I am for not just my children’s future but for their children and their children and so on. I…
This was how a recent contestant on The Voice described her childhood. She said it with a smile and followed a profile of her journey to The Voice stage. It described being raised by a single mom in a situation that was poor in material goods but rich in emotional ones. Second hand stores but first-rate parenting.
This phrase that summarized her experience, “She gave us everything we needed and some of what we wanted,” resonated with me on several levels.…
This week I watched a two-minute video and read a ten-page magazine article that hit me like a punch to the gut and left me staggering and wondering, “What to do?”
The video was of the sixteen-year-old environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, who had sailed from Sweden to address the United Nations. Her provocative and passionate speech left me feeling shamed and helpless. Watch for yourself. How do her words make you feel?…
It was my first experience driving on the left side of the road. A task made more challenging by the vehicle Enterprise had given us. Their self-proclaimed party van could seat eight comfortably and still have room enough for four suitcases and five backpacks.
The roads seemed incapable of holding both this van and the oncoming traffic – which apparently consisted exclusively of campers, busses and eighteen wheel trucks
They say that the drive from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye is majestic but I couldn’t tell you, as my eyes were exclusively focused on the road five feet in front of me every minute for four hours. …
Within one 24 hour period last week:
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.…
In 1905 Anna Jarvis started her campaign to recognize Mother’s Day as a national holiday – which was formalized in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation doing just that.
Less than a decade later, Anna was organizing a boycott for the holiday she helped create.
The story behind this turn of events is fascinating and instructive for how we choose to honor our moms today.…
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. …
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. …
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.…
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.…
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.”…
Grace is a social worker who bravely intervened to defuse a dangerous situation between a homeless man and the police.
Sean is in prison for stealing guns and trading them for heroin and is a suspect in the killing of Whitey Bulger.
Catharine is a legal scholar who pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment.
Rachel is the first transgender woman world champion, winning the gold in Masters Track Cycling.…
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.…
Recently my 10 year-old daughter participated in an event called, Battle of the Books. The premise seemed noble. Spark interest in reading by creating a program where students would be given five books to read over the summer. They would meet as a group to discuss the book and then in the fall, they would gather with students from other schools for a competition based on recalling the book’s content. Sort…
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.) …
Yes, you are bananas!
I mean this not in a figurative sense, like you’re crazy – but literally.
Anne Wojcicki is a co-founder of the genetics company 23andMe. In her recent “The Big Ideas” essay in the New York Times, she shared a pretty remarkable fact about how much of our genetic foundation, we share with bananas.
Instinctively, I would have imagined 5 or 10% would have been a good guess. …
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. …
Ted Williams was arguably the greatest hitter to ever play major league baseball. Yet his parents never watched him play a single game.
In her memoir, Educated. Tara Westover tells an incredible tale of being raised by survivalist parents and never went to school or to see a doctor as a child. She went on to receive her PhD at Cambridge and is now a best selling author.…
Years ago, I felt honored to deliver the eulogy at my Grandmother’s funeral. I talked about how the average person’s heart beats 30,000 times a day. This meant that during her 87 years, it had beat right around a billion times.
I recounted how her heart must have beat differently at different milestones in her life. Racing to her first picture show as a little girl, going gaga over Bing Crosby, straining while working odd jobs during the great depression, or nearly coming to a stop when she learned her first husband was killed in the war.…
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?’”…
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…
A recent study observed groups of people in public settings. They recorded that every ninety seconds someone does something for someone else. Hold a door. Pass the salt. Fulfill a random request.
Interestingly, only one in every six instances included someone saying thank you.
Some would say this is a classic example of some people who are selfish or ungrateful. While others are by nature are more selfless and altruistic.…
Yesterday, mothers around the country were rightfully treated to breakfasts in bed, flowers, and hand made and hallmark cards alike. All expressing a well-deserved sentiment – you are appreciated.
In case you’re still feeling that you’d like to do something special for mom. Consider the following three stories and the gifts they inspire.
One. In last week’s episode of the HBO series, Being Serena, we were given a front row seat to the birth of Serena’s William’s first child, Olympia. …
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. …
