The New Republic

Last week, on the day that Sports Illustrated posted NBA player Jason Collins’s essay announcing his homosexuality, I was walking with Rebekah, our six-year-old. We were going to pick up our car at the auto mechanic’s shop on the corner, when across the street I spotted a neighbor going in the other direction, strolling hand-in-hand with her two-year-old son. They waved to me, and I said hi, and then we walked on. READ MORE >>

All parents outsource something. Even the most attached of parents, neurotically determined to be their children's omnipresent everything, outsource their children's education, unless they home-school. Although I know way too many parents who think getting a babysitter for one night a month is an unacceptable loss of control, they usually relent, eventually (or divorce). One friend of mine, who does not enjoy the water, lets his parents take his daughter to the pool one afternoon a week, where she is learning to swim with Grandma and Grandpa. READ MORE >>

Before we ever had children, my wife and I had answered that most vexing of questions for the modern parent: How would we handle television? We resolved that our future children could watch television, but only the same shows that we had watched at their age. We would raise little 1970s children. READ MORE >>

I have three daughters, ages six, four, and two, and they are all in bed by eight o’clock at night. My wife, who rises much earlier than I do, retires by 9:30 or ten. I, however, am a night owl, and I find it hard to fall asleep much before midnight. So usually I find myself with about two hours alone in my house, puttering about, wishing I had a better cable-TV package. Late in the day, I don’t have the energy to write, or even to read much. READ MORE >>