Boys who nibble on goats—what to do when kids bite

January 1, 2010

Happy New Year.  Now that it’s 2010 I thought I would get right into a nuts and bolts parenting question.  While not every post can possibly apply to every reader, my hope is that general principles, combined with the ethic of caring about each others’ children as well as each other, may at least be […]

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Instead of a resolution… set a New Year’s Intention

December 31, 2009

Whether or not we make New Year’s resolutions, we tend to think about either making some or not.  We tend to tell ourselves that after the holidays are over we are going to get into better shape, eat better, commit to this or that course of action—we make resolutions, or we think about what we […]

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Miss Havisham on the couch

December 30, 2009

Ever since I saw David Lean’s film version of Great Expectations on TV as a kid, I have been fascinated by the character of Miss Havisham who, having been jilted on the morning of her wedding, has stopped all the clocks and lives on for years in her wedding dress, one shoe on, cake rotting […]

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Love you Guys

December 29, 2009

My kid was at a sleepover recently, hanging out and catching up with a good pal who went to the same elementary school, but who goes to a different middle school.  Seventh grade can be tough in all sorts of way and the kids worked hard to step up to it.  I was particularly delighted […]

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Titanic Avatars: movies, myth and the collective SELF

December 28, 2009

If the self is like a bowl (see http://tiny.cc/Htik4), it is also like a ship.  Thus it seems fitting that in a culture gripped by collective narcissism (i.e. lack of cohesive selves) Titanic, a movie about a grandiose ship that gets a gapping hole and sinks back into the ocean of the unconscious would be […]

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Diversity and Unity

December 27, 2009

Happy Kwanza!  For those not clear about it, Kwanza was created in 1966 by a professor of African Studies, Dr. Maulana Karenga, who stressed the need to preserve, revitalize and promote African American culture.  It is not a religious holiday but a cultural one and thus available to Africans of all religious faiths who are […]

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Boxing Day

December 26, 2009

Boxing Day, a holiday in many countries (but not in the U.S.), is traditionally celebrated on December 26th.  The name derives from the tradition of giving gifts to those less wealthy than one’s self, gifts that were stored in a “Christmas Box” and distributed the day after Christmas. I have also, probably incorrectly, been told […]

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Time to put in “kitty brain”

December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas! My wife once had a dream; I seem to recall that it was in the midst of much stress, in which she was told to take out her brain and put in kitty brain.  For years that has been code to remind ourselves to chelax, often in the midst of parents falling ill, […]

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Twis

December 24, 2009

  Twis the day before Christmas and so I thought I would honor one of my favorite parenting heroes—Thomas Coram.  One hundred years before Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, Thomas Coram created the London Foundling Hospital in Lamb’s Conduit Fields, Bloomsbury. Coram had no children.  He was a ship’s captain and after he retired […]

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Ashes and Diamonds—Santa, Cinderella & Bert

December 23, 2009

 Around this time of year, at least for children of a certain age, there is a lot of thought about Santa:  is Santa real, how does he get everywhere in the world in one night, how does he get down the chimney, etc.?  While I have no idea about those things (although I suspect that […]

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