Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Money, Kids & Family”
Distance learning during COVID has meant coming to terms with the disappointment of public schooling that fell short. It was a perfect storm. Some teachers adapted skillfully, while others were quick to use the pandemic as a reason to pursue a watch-the-video-do-the-worksheet abdication of direct teaching responsibilities. Sitting in front of a screen all day is not rewarding (perhaps my …
One of the awkward parts of being a kid is navigating what type of humor is or is not appropriate when you incompletely grasp the context. One second your adult audience is rolling in the aisles and you are killing like a comic on the Sunset Strip; the next moment, the muscles in your parents’ necks are pulled into taut …
I came home from an early morning shift to find my daughter feeling down. It seemed she was in a COVID funk. This would be the first year of Halloween where she could not go trick or treating in our Norman Rockwell community, where we would routinely meet up with a couple of families we love and run into another …
Three and a half years ago, we decided to incentivize aggressive saving and demonstrate the power of compound interest to our kids by offering them exclusive access to the Bank of Mom and Dad. That experiment, we are pleased to say, has thus far been a success. We gave them a sweetheart deal for maximal impact: 5% interest compounded monthly. …
Last night my son and I took turns reading short stories before bedtime, as is our longstanding ritual. We’d finished The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy last year, and needed some lighter fare. We’re currently halfway through a book of folk tales from around the world. I received it as a gift from a third grade student’s …
It was the day after Father’s Day, and we’d chosen a park for an outdoor, bring your own lunch picnic. It was 80 degrees and piercing California light, but we scouted some secluded bleachers beneath an awning that promised reprieve from the sun and sufficient space to maintain social distancing. There was a 100 yard walk along a 30 degree …
School ended last week, and our family of four felt a sense of foreboding. We mourned the loss of the travel we’d planned and looked forward to for the past year. We slowly accepted the reality that we will now be sheltering in place with no playdates with friends in the immediate future. We are likely to be one another’s …
Maybe it’s an immigrant thing, viewing life through a lens of scarcity. There’s certainly a cultural dimension, an inheritance from serial generations bent on fostering a sense of inadequacy. They try so hard to resist, I know they do. Yet sometimes, without realizing it, they revert to the mother tongue, which is guilt. It plays out like this: Us (via …
For those in need of a family diversion, may I suggest the following: Take a blank sheet of paper and scribble about a dozen simple forms on it. Make a copy (by hand or with a printer) for each member of the household. This activity requires each person to have access to a digital device that can take photos. Assign …
Raising a preadolescent is a novel experience for me. Lots of labile feelings that must-be-released-right-NOW! Heretofore unseen levels of resistance over what were previously accepted responsibilities and conventions: Doing dishes. Maintaining hygiene. Not leaving wet towels on the floor of one’s room. My wife likes to joke that her departed grandmother always had a knack for asking the most sensitive …