Kid stories
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Looking for dump trucks
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson My two-year-old grandson, Liam, is obsessed with dump trucks. One morning earlier this month, I popped him in the stroller and set out on a mission to find a few in our neighborhood. With so many new houses in progress, I was sure we’d spot several dump trucks at work. But no. The daily brigade of construction vehicles hadn’t arrived yet. Disappointed, we returned to the backyard to play with a mini sandbox filled with toy excavators and dump trucks. (Liam is the only two-year-old I’ve met who can say “excavator.”) Suddenly, the little guy’s…
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Preparing for the empty nest: An essay about letting go
“It is not what you do for your children; it’s what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” ~Ann Landers As I post this, a good friend is on the expressway, driving her only daughter to start her first week of college in another state. I’m reminded of an essay I wrote a few weeks later after I settled into my newly emptied nest. The piece was first published in Metro Parent magazine, and later republished in Guideposts. To read it online, click here. Today our son is a married man with a family of his own — yet the topic of launching our kids to adulthood…
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The family columnist
We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” ~Stacia Tauscher Using our kids as fodder for Facebook posts, blog posts, or newspaper columns is hardly new. But it was a thought-provoking exercise for me to revisit my own column-writing days in a “Home Forum” essay for The Christian Science Monitor. While I approached the piece with a light hand, some darker issues lurked between the lines. How much ink is appropriate to give our kids? Are we bragging or exploiting? How do we know if we’ve overstepped personal boundaries or violated our children’s privacy? Please click here to read the essay.…
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