Writer, Editor, Commentator
When you?re married with children, you need to do anything you can to keep your groove on, and a healthy fantasy life is key. Fortunately, child care duties can coexist with this important practice ? that is, if you call plunking your kids down in front of the TV ?child care,? and heck, I sure do! So while the kids are being entertained in the land … Continue »
My eight-year-old son wanted to have a sleepover party for his birthday, so we invited the usual suspects: the next door neighbor, a kid he's been friends with since infancy, and another long-time school buddy. Wanting to encourage my often-shy son to keep making new friends, I urged him to invite another nice-seeming boy named Gerry from his … Continue »
At a party I attended a few years ago, I was enchanted by a guy who gravitated towards me and my son and spontaneously began singing songs to us ? preschool classics like ?Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes? and ?Three Little Fishes.? When I asked him how he knew all that material ? he looked too young to be a father ? he told me that he used to work … Continue »
As I was preparing to leave the hospital after the birth of my son, a nurse sat me down and solemnly told me that it was very important, while breastfeeding, to ?avoid all spicy foods like Mexican or Indian.? I imagined a sari-clad wife cradling a newborn and looking on sadly as her Mexican husband cleared their refrigerator of tikka masala, … Continue »
At Halloween, there are few words that frighten me more than ?Bring your kids to the mall for our annual ?Safe Trick-or-Treat!'? It?s not that I?m afraid that Halloween is a thinly disguised occasion for devil worship. Some fret over Halloween?s alleged satanic origins, but even if it were conclusively proven that the first jack o? lantern were … Continue »
When Teletubbies appeared in 1997, the world got its first glimpse of a TV series produced specifically for babies, as well as its first glimpse of a future utopia in which infants would be born with television screens embedded in their torsos. Many were appalled at the prospect of a program being marketed to a pre-verbal audience, and the show … Continue »
In certain circles, having children is not the most fashionable thing to do. It?s often regarded as a curious, amusing, but why would anyone want to do that to their life? sort of thing. Strangely enough, I happen to be part of one of these circles, and I?ve got two kids. What was I supposed to do ? tell my friends that they?d better get on the … Continue »
The first time I took my toddler son to the playground, I wiggled my toes in the sand and looked around, feeling amused and delighted to be revisiting a place that, twenty-five years earlier, had been a near-daily part of my life. The sun was shining, my baby boy was beautiful, and all seemed right with the world. I handed my son the shiny new … Continue »