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 …
Author Archives: Matt
Today in the Annals of Incompetence
Most parents get very little proper training in the art of raising children. But you know what? We learn a lot of it along the way. Diapers are changed at first tentatively, then smoothly, so that eventually you can do it at 2 a.m., in the dark, naked, without your glasses—indeed, without remembering that you …
I Scream (and Scream and Scream) About Ice Cream
The weather in New York has been warm and gorgeous of late, and that means the beginning of a particularly NYC-ish phenomenon: screaming about the overreach of entitled parents in Brooklyn! I’m just kidding—that’s a year-round phenomenon. But the latest case hits home with me in a surprising way. Here it is, courtesy of the …
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How to Raise a Bilingual Child
We rarely give actual advice on this blog, and for good reason: We generally don’t know what we’re talking about. This post will not be much different, except that it’s loaded with hubris. In short, I’ve spent the past two weeks with my 3-year-old daughter here in Taipei, and I’m seriously impressed with her ability …