When my son was still small, we unplugged the television. It had been a source of news and lazy, easy entertainment. It was even a babysitter when we needed a moment of quiet. Our neighbors and the other parents understood, but did not understand. There was a timid awe and…
In his poem “Born Yesterday”, Phillip Larkin looks at a new born baby and wishes, not that she is beautiful or smart or talented, but that she is ordinary. There is great value in our just being. There is something essential about remaining attentive to those around us, whatever the…
Something curious happens when we track satisfaction over the course of our lives. Couples meet, fall in love, get married and life could not be more wonderful. Then they have children and satisfaction falls. It plummets. Happiness only begins its rise once again after the little ones are hatched and…
Thoughts of peer pressure bring a parent’s worst fears to mind: sex; drugs; uncategorized acts of stupidity; the fact that our kids cannot be who they are when they are the most themselves. When they get home at night, there is no escape from the peacocking of peers on Instagram…
Everything I have learned in life that has mattered, I learned from my children. They are the “sacred Yes” about whom Nietzsche spoke. In positive psychology we study strengths. This is good and valuable and has taught us so much about people at their best, and about life’s luminous moments. …