Hobbit Versus Harry: Who Will Triumph?

So JP’s reading, as I’ve noted here before, continues to improve as he approaches six years old. This leads to interesting opportunities, not just for his own reading, but for what I might choose to read to him. One of my fondest memories from childhood was my father reading The Hobbit to me and my …

Ballet Dads: The Next Hot Political Bloc?

One of the things I most looked forward to, after our family’s return to Brooklyn from Taipei, was taking Sasha to her Saturday-morning ballet class, held in a church in Cobble Hill. This is not because Sasha is a Natalie Portman-in-the-making. I mean, she’s a fine dancer for a 3-year-old, but she’s more into the …

The Myth of French Superiority

These days in New York, parents have an inferiority complex: The French, we keep on thinking, are doing it better than us. Their kids grow up to be smarter, better behaved, more adventurous eaters, and why the hell can’t ours be more like theirs? A couple of weeks ago, for example, Karen Le Billon wrote …