Plenty has changed in my household while I was away from blogging. The kids are now young adults, and the focus of their development has shifted accordingly. One of the lenses that has been most helpful in viewing the kids’ development is that provided by the psychologist Erik Erikson. I was first exposed to his theories as an undergraduate Human …
What I’ll Miss As Life Returns To Normal
This morning I walked my son to his first day of junior high school. On our brief walk, he was the adult. Me: I’m going to miss hanging out and playing strategy games. Him: We’ll still spend plenty of time hanging out. Me: You’ll be busy with school work and friends, which is normal. Him: I’ll need your help with …
Should I Want My Kids To Suffer Financially?
I recently wrote about one child’s wolfing down buckets of blueberries, which I consider to be a luxury fruit, and how it triggered in me a desire to have my kids experience certain financial milestones on their own path to financial literacy. Here’s where it gets complicated. Although I used the term milestones it was a poorly disguised euphemism for …
The Trapdoor Roth
Almost a decade and a half ago, we had our first child. Around the same time my parents adopted a grandparenting style that echoed the ethos of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. [For the record, it was not Facebook’s popular guiding principle of Move fast and break things. Between arthritis, artificial joints and gait instability on downsloping surfaces, they only ever developed …
A Ritual Spanning Generations
It’s a relaxed summer evening. I’m enjoying a swim with my daughter during a visit to the grandparents. Tonight there is a creamsicle colored dusk that seems to stretch implausibly late in a manner analogous my my daughter’s implausibly long legs extending above the water’s surface as she performs underwater handstands. I remember when the whole of her body fit …
Pilfered Ideas From The Opposite Of Spoiled
This summer, we decided each kid is getting $20 a month to spend on whatever they choose. One kid went to a favorite chain restaurant and ordered a sandwich online in advance using an e-coupon. Another went to a meal with a friend, did not order online, was unable to use the coupon (it was only available for online orders) …
Financial Milestones I Want My Kids To Experience
This morning, I opened the refrigerator to find a paucity of blueberries. This is all the more surprising because we buy 2-3 enormous boxes of blueberries at Costco every 2-3 weeks. What used to be arrive in a single delicate box presented like a Rolex when I was a kid now comes in economy size buckets. I’ve developed certain morning …
Growing Older And Growing Up
A visit home for Father’s Day is the perfect opportunity to pay attention to details and tie up loose ends. We spent several hours completing the In Case Of Emergency binder, something dad had been working on in his spare time for the past year at my urging. Dad’s health is not what it once was. I gifted him this …
Letting Go Of Miami
Dad called a couple of weeks ago to let me know that the condo in Miami was sold. He sounded weary over the phone, as if resigned to the amputation of a dead limb whose weight he could no longer bear. Selling his stake in the Miami condo, that storied unicorn purchase made decades ago, was a profound symbolic shift. …
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Nerd
Some phone calls are long overdue by the time you make them. Distance learning has echoed evolution in our household by rewarding specialization. As a dual-nerd couple, my wife has adopted the more time-consuming math supplementation while I have offered to help teach science and social studies. Discussing the classification of species with my 13 year old recently, I caught …