Disappointment . . . A Lesson Learned

Up until last week, disappointment and rejection were two feelings that I had never really thought about my daughter experiencing—at least not at the age of eleven. I’m not talking about small disappointments, like the time she didn’t get the present she had been dreaming about, or the rejection of not being invited to a …

An Unplanned Life

It seems that the most important decisions I have made in my life were made without any planning, and were for the most part made out of necessity. The first—and most significant—of these was actually one that was made for us:  becoming parents. The impact of this life-altering news did more than just turn us …

The Soundtrack of My Life

During the four-hour-long drive home from Boston the other night, I was able to enjoy something that is a rarity—listening to my own music. A standard road trip usually involves my daughter acting as the DJ, making musical choices based on her own whimsy. I spend a large portion of the trip begging her to …

A Difficult Lesson: Severing a Relationship

There is something that I feel compelled to explain, it is something that I often allude to in my writing, and it is something that I am afraid—if not explained properly—may be misunderstood by my daughter when she is older. Of all the fears I have for when she grows up, the one that I …

Don’t We All Need Therapy?

I know that a lot of parents joke about inevitably forcing their children into therapy as adults—trying to cope with the psychological damage we inflict on them when they are young. I often think the same thing whenever I find myself yelling irrationally at my children—especially my daughter—over their messy rooms, their seemingly constant fighting, …