Tag: children

Riding bulls and inhaling bugs: 10 Lessons from Cub Scout ranch-camping

We hit the road for our first Cub Scout camping trip, to Westgate River Ranch, an outdoor oasis in the middle of anonymous, sprawling scrubland — a wonderland of vast fields, bulls standing sternly at fences daring you to come just a little closer, a rodeo arena with its dazzling orange dirt, a saloon, all on the wide and wild Kissimmee River. Other than a lesson on the joys of being immersed in the outdoors while with a couple hundred outstanding people, here’s what we learned: Continue reading “Riding bulls and inhaling bugs: 10 Lessons from Cub Scout ranch-camping” →

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Shocked? That’s good. 

The fires, the hurricanes, the earthquakes, the shootings. The calamities have been so repetitive that together they’ve created a numbing rhythm, one reliably following another, like the ticking of a clock.

It’s hard to be shocked these days. Continue reading “Shocked? That’s good. “ →

Dad’s dangerous baseball wish

I’ve been thinking about parent overreach after I stumbled across a not-all-that-recent essay in The Times warning parents against the rabid pursuit of “passion” for their kids, that laser focus and fierce discipline that some parents think is needed to produce tennis prodigies and Ivy League admissions and recital hall social-media brags. Continue reading “Dad’s dangerous baseball wish” →

I saw myself in seat 37F. It wasn’t pretty.

I was just on a flight and sat next to a guy and his son. The boy looked about 5, close to the age of my older son. As we chatted, the dad reminded me of me: thoughtful but not doting, attentive but still keen on carving time out for himself. He’d been watching a movie on an iPad while his son played a game on his iPad. Continue reading “I saw myself in seat 37F. It wasn’t pretty.” →