Two of my best friends sent their daughters off to college recently. I sent mine off to pre-K-3. Molly and I weren't sure how it would go. Months back, when we enrolled her at our neighborhood public school, just three doors down from us, Larkin liked the idea. "What's happening in September?" we'd ask, and she'd chorus: "I'm going to school!"

We knew it couldn't be that simple. I recalled her initial miseries at the kiddie room at my gym: the tears and the agonized clinging; the time she tantrumed herself into a semi-conscious state on the floor, and I had to be summoned to get her.So hersummerlong acquiescence seemed like the calm before the storm.

And sure enough, last week the hurricane began to swirl into shape. If we mentioned school, she frowned and fell silent. Then one day she turned to me and announced, "I don't want to go to school." At orientation day last Thursday she seemed… Read More

Posted Friday, August 7, 2009

Becoming a father at my age -- I call it "late-onset fatherhood"-- has its trade offs. You're wiser... but wearier. Physically, 2009 has been a rough year for the late-onset dad. Partway through a dismal season of rec-league basketball, I began to notice that my left hip ached after every game. I took Advil, cut my playing down to once a week. After the season ended, I gave my body a 10-week rest, no running, no… Read More

Posted Monday, June 29, 2009

When it comes to figuring out life with a toddler, parents tend to be either Read-Up-On-It types or Follow-Your-Common sense types. Sophie, the friendly Polish woman who cuts my hair, is a common senser. Sitting in her chair, I'll tell her about the latest issue with Larkin that Molly and I are trying to hash out. Maybe I'll mention an article I read; I'll sum up the pros and cons of this or that policy. What… Read More

I read a cover story in the New York Times Magazine about a 10-year-old basketball prodigy already receiving the attention of college recruiters, marketers, and coaches. The article gave an astonishing and perplexing glimpse into the world of ultra-competitive youth basketball, in which kids play on multiple teams, flying around the country and staying in hotels, while receiving all sorts of free swag from athletic goods companies. It's all about being a future "prospect." Two 10-year-old hoop stars have already been… Read More

Posted January 7, 2009

By Christmas we'd had every kind of weather here: two walloping snowstorms; a balmy 60-degree day of respite; a drenching rain; then deep freeze again. Icicles hung from our roof, giant stalactites that let loose in thundering avalanches, waking us in the night with a sense of dread.

That's not all that woke us in the night. Three nights running, circa 2 a.m., Molly and I sat bolt upright in bed as Larkin shouted hysterical complaints… Read More

Posted April 15, 2009

Every night, we read Larkin bedtime stories, dream-world fantasies designed to comfort and lull. But almost every day the real world serves up the opposite -- "badtime stories" (the phrase comes from New York Times parenting blogger Judith Warner) that frighten and unsettle. Our local paper reports on an 8-year-old boy who killed himself with an Uzi at a gun show his father took him to. The details of the boy's death are unspeakably horrifying, and as… Read More