In one of F. Scott Fitzerald’s funniest short stories, “Head and Shoulders,” a certifiable genius falls in love with a showgirl. The plot and moral of the story aren’t relevant for today’s email—though the story is highly recommended—instead there is a little passage in it that introduces a concept that is worth thinking about: “I…

Parenting takes a lot out of us. Being parented takes a lot out of a kid, too. Just think about how often our kids are criticized, how often they are corrected. We’re always telling them to do this and not do that. All day at school, their teachers are enforcing rules, letting them know how…

Without it, she would not have been the great writer that she became. Without it, she would not have pioneered a new genre, a new style, a new role for women in the world. She could not have produced great, enduring works of art without it—or rather, without him. Jane Austen, we said recently, was…

We have so many things we need to do as parents. There’s the logistics of it. The survival aspect of it (food and shelter). There’s the education we have to give them. There’s the experiences we want them to have. There’s the values and character we know need to be instilled. So it’s strange that…

We’re anxious for them to start crawling. We’re looking forward to when they start walking. We want to get where we’re going, for the flight to land, for school to start again. We can’t wait for them to fall asleep. We can’t wait until our kids can drive themselves to their friends’ houses, until the…

Douglas MacArthur was a man of routine, most military men are. So it shouldn’t surprise us that he built a family life around routine. But unlike far too many fathers who make routine a form of control, MacArthur’s morning routine was about fun—it was about starting the day off right. As the peerless William Manchester…

In just a few words, Whitman was able to get the essence of it. Not of America, not of the body and soul, or the natural world, as he so expertly and often did in his poems. No, it was his father he was speaking of, but really a generation of fathers, in fact, a…

There are way too many poor families. America does a horrendous job taking care of its families. The world is full of parents who have to worry about how they’re going to feed their kids, whether they can afford to send them to school or the doctor, who experience grinding, painful poverty. But today, we’re…

It drives us nuts. We told them to stop. It’s something they just have to grow out of, have to stop. The annoying baby voice they do. The screaming for no reason. The curse word they picked up at school. The insult they’re hurling at a sibling. The extremely loud heavy metal band they’ve taken…

You’re going to mess up as a parent, we know this. You’re going to say things you regret. Situations are not going to go like you wanted. Their feelings are going to get hurt. Connection capital will be depleted, even overdrawn. This is a given. What is up to you though, is how and whether…