One recent morning, as I walked toward Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda—a Buddhist temple clad in 60 tons of gold and ornamented with precious gems—I was surrounded by children. Goddamn children. Maybe half a dozen of them. All seemed to be about 6 years old, and all were gamboling around, trying to beg money from me, either …
Continue reading “On Parenting Abroad: The Withdrawal Method”
Shortly after writing my last post about not wanting JP to call me Dad I got an email from my own father. He reminded me that at the very same age as JP–five and a half–I had gone to him one day after school and said that from now on no one would be allowed …
Continue reading “Who You Calling Daddy (Son), Revised and Improved”
Have you ever wished you could see inside your child’s brain? Not with a hacksaw and a sheet of curved plastic—I mean, anyone can do that. What I’ve always wanted was to watch it tick, to see little 3-year-old Sasha’s brain make new connections, to finally crest each hill of understanding. As it is, we …
We’re all in a post-Halloween sugar crash right about now. You too. I saw you sneaking KitKats by the fistful last night. But my crash is tinged with a little dose of further regret: did we knowingly humiliate our boy for Halloween? Of course we did, you say. Every pre-sentient (and I’m still putting a …
