Reflections on marriage, parenting, family life, aging parents, and the relationships that define us. These essays explore the joys, responsibilities, and challenges of family across every stage of life. There are numerous letters to daughters all the way from birth through college.
My wife and I have been saving since literally almost her birth to pay for our daughter’s college tuition. Year after year we put money in her 529 investment account for college. Each month we would put at least a few hundred dollars into it. The money added up. Then in November of 2025 – … Read more
My daughters are on the verge of adult life. One is already a freshman in college. So I have less and less to say to them about how to choose a career or a spouse, or any of a dozen other topics. “Little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems,” parents more veteran used to … Read more
Dear Grandfather, I write this letter to you approximately 36 years after your death. We lived some 375 miles away from you when I was growing up, so I did not have the opportunity to know you well. And by the time of your funeral in 1989 you had been in the throes of deep … Read more
Dear Elizabeth, I write you this letter upon the request of your Science Academy teacher. He says he will hold onto and deliver this letter to you when you are on the cusp of graduating from high school. That is approximately two and half years from now. So here it goes: Beautiful daughter, you are … Read more
The Mimi’s Restaurant at 3375 E Main St. Ventura, California went out of business in February of 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The building at that location has been an empty shell for several years. But I still remember the evening we took our toddler to eat there. It must have been sometime in 2008. … Read more
A Concerned Father’s Bequest: Confidence and Competency Yesterday I read the unhappy news of a murder in the 12600 block of Riverside Drive in Los Angeles, California, some 47 miles away from where I live. Almost 30 years ago I dated a woman who lived in the Valley Village neighborhood almost right next to where … Read more
Patience. It is such a small word. But there is a lot in it. Our relationship to time, and our ability to endure it, changes drastically across a lifetime. It seems like forever from your seventh to your eighth birthday. Time moves slowly. Everything is intense. Impatience is all. By the time one enters middle … Read more
Indecision. A time of transition. Change: The process of leaving one situation and entering another. The world might look like one thing at the end of it. Or it might be totally the opposite. You might arrive at place x. Or at place y. It can be stressful. You arrive at a turning point where … Read more
I often think about the old question: How much of a person comes from their “native temperament” – the DNA they were born with, and how that influences their behavior? And how much comes as a result of how they were raised – the values they received in their upbringings? This is the infamous “nature … Read more
When my younger daughter was in sixth grade, my wife and I received phone calls from other parents complaining that Elizabeth played “too rough” with their daughters. Surprised to hear this, I gave these comments some thought. What is the nature of my younger daughter? I reflected. What does she need? What would be best … Read more
I am currently well into the new 2024-2025 school year. But I am barely hanging in there. The goals I wrote down are simple to understand and two in number: That is it. But, WOW, that is turning into quite the challenging task. From getting them both out of the house on time to drive … Read more
The ancient Spartans refused to give sway to their fears of a foreign invasion by building walls. “The walls of our country are the tips of our spears,” they reportedly claimed. The Spartan army was feared such that attacks against their interests would be dealt with outside their homeland. But it is understandable: one ruminates … Read more
So I just turned 57-years old. I wish I were 58. Or 61.5 years of age, more specifically. Speed up the years! Why? Because I could retire then. I am in the final full flush of my career: meshing decades of hard won experience while still being young enough to put in the exhausting work … Read more
I have been coaching high school tennis for four years now. I do this because my daughter was on the team, and I wanted her team experience to go well. So I became the coach. “If you want a job done well, then do it yourself,” I thought to myself. After all the isolation of … Read more
My daughter turns 17-years of age today. I am a bit dumbfounded. Last year she turned 16-years old, and that date is very much wrapped up in her gaining a driver’s license. Here she was 14 months ago taking her first driving lesson – My daughter was a high school sophomore at the time. This … Read more
What to do in the summer of 2024? Two summers ago I traveled to Costa Rica with my family: Last summer I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with my older daughter: What about next summer? What should I do? Where should I go? I’m not sure. I’m sort of tired of Latin America. Was Puerto … Read more
I don’t know why. And I am not sure when it happened. But I ask my peers – parents with children still at home – if they spend more time, energy, and money parenting than their parents did. They always say, “Yes.” I have heard and read about this trend towards relentless and intensive parenting. … Read more
My older daughter last week won her high school league finals match with her doubles partner in girls tennis. It was a tight match against quality competition, and it could have gone either way. As her father (and coach), I was emotionally invested in her winning. She won last year. I hoped my daughter would … Read more
This is far from the first time I have written about my unease over social media piped into my daughter’s brains. I forswore TV for decades, not wanting it in my house. But by the time my kids came of age TV was well nigh obsolete, and now social media was the currency of the … Read more
I am the proud owner of a cat. Our family cat, Dixie, came into our lives some five years ago. It took us some time to find the right family pet, with several misfires before we found Dixie. My wife and I tried to adopt a cat back in 2004, but it peed all over … Read more
My father ages, slowly but surely. Next week he turns 84-years old. The changes in his physical health, and the decline in his critical faculties, are glacial. But they are also cumulative. Like a glacier wearing down a rock formation over millions of years, one does not notice much in the short-term. But zoom back … Read more
My daughter surprised me today on the way to school with this fun fact: our family account with Audible, a company selling audiobooks, has accumulated 19 months 9 days 13 hours and 27 minutes of listening time over the past 13 years. Here is what my iPhone shows: That equals approximately 50,791,153 seconds, or some … Read more
I spend a lot of time looking at young people and sizing them up. My children and their friends, my students former and current – I get a good look at so many. And some of them struggle. Well, many of them struggle. Hell, all of them – all of us, young or not – … Read more
One reads many accounts nowadays of parents, especially mothers, who seem to be overwhelmed. They seem to regret the choice to become a parent – “All Joy and No Fun.” Recent generations are hardly alone, as the amount of childless-by-choice adults in America has been increasing. The birth rate in the United States has plunged … Read more
The Indian Wells Tennis tournament, sometimes called the “Fifth Slam,” sees the very highest professional tennis played anywhere, similar to Wimbledon or the US Open. But the “BNP Paribas Open,” as Indian Wells is formally called, is also a zoo: some 440,000 people attended this year, and the parking and crowds are off-putting. Indian Wells … Read more
Some ten years ago my father told me that his first wife – my mother – had confided in him that she very much regretted losing her temper and yelling at her young kids. My mom felt as if she had done damage to us by screaming. My father never repeated the story, but I … Read more
A few days ago I wrote an essay reflecting back on my older daughter’s 16th birthday. Then I read and reflected about an essay I wrote a few days after this daughter’s birth 16 years ago. Wow. How the time has passed. I won’t say the time passed quickly. There were hard years of childrearing, … Read more
So it happened. My oldest daughter just turned 16-years of age. In about three months she will get her driver’s license. With the ability to drive (ie. freedom) I suspect she will be gone from the house with friends a good chunk of the time until she leaves for college. So it has been with … Read more
Sometimes I think back to when my oldest daughter was in fifth-grade and I would pick her up from the bus stop at 3:10 pm. She would exit the school bus and walk over to me exhausted and in tears. She arrived to me in quite a state. I realized her friendships took a lot … Read more
Why? I have no problem with the holidays themselves – Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Eve – especially Thanksgiving – I am a fan of that holiday dedicated to appreciating what you have, which everyone can and should celebrate. But Christmas has become so hyped and commercialized that I endure rather than celebrate it. And … Read more