Tagged: children
The Hardwired Bonds of Nurturing
I have a theory about pets and people without children. This theory is born out of mere anecdotal observation of friends and family, and as such it’s not very scientific. But I believe it...
To Fail as a Son
The last time I saw my father I was twelve years old. Before boarding the airplane that would return me to the home of my mother and step-father, I had sat on the edge...
Playing music with children
This pretty much sums up every time I try to play guitar while my children are around. My daughter is almost five and my son almost two, and their musical tastes tend to be...
Marginal cases and virtue
Children are marginal cases. Talking about ethics in terms of autonomy, or rights — Kantian ethics — famously leaves children, especially very young children, in an odd place. I have addressed this elsewhere in...
It’s not a war, and I am not a warrior.
Andrew Sullivan, in 2006, failing to give credit where credit is due: First, they came for the homos, then the near-dead, then the pregnant women. But you know who their ultimate target will...
The Roots of Scandal
The clergy-abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic church throughout the last decade has probably gained the most attention regarding the criminal way that problem priests were moved around and never turned in to authorities....
Looking for Small Comforts in the Suburbs
The older I get the more I love the suburbs, or in our case the exurbs. I like the immediacy of all the amenities we need in one direction and the closeness of our...
Spamments
We seem to be getting a bunch of spammy comments lately. This reminds me that some day, I am going to write a novel in which all of the characters are named after spam...
Skimming for the Dirty Parts – Book Censorship In Public Schools, The Enders Game Controversy, and The False Allure of Public Decency
While it is true that I stole both Brave New World and Flowers for Algernon from the public library, it should be noted for the record that I did eventually return them. Plus, it...
Religious Rights, Natural Law, and the Imperfect Pragmatic
The religious freedom issue created (highlighted?) by the Obama administration’s newest healthcare mandates is a hard one for me to grapple with. Part of the reason for this is my aforementioned agnosticism. As I...
A Hippie Commune with a Sun-Down Clause
[Image: The Pahi 63 “Gaia”, Flagship of the James Wharram Design fleet] We bought INTEMPERANCE in late 2007 and cruised Florida and the Bahamas in early 2008. Then my wife and daughters, and dog got...
On Child Abuse
by Sam Wilkinson “Did you hear?” asked a coworker, in my office to take a break. “They found a 70-pound girl on the side of the road.” They in this case was a passerby...
What sort of country do you want to live in?
Perhaps a country where airport security can inflict this upon your children: The reporter, also the father, has a pretty level-headed approach to this whole thing. I imagine I would have been arrested for...
Folk wisdom and the tyranny of the experts
[updated below] I’ve been thinking about birth a great deal lately. This is likely because birth in my family is just around the corner. Our second is due in July. In any case, all...
Children…
Nattavudh Powdthavee is completely off the mark. Having children is not like winning the lottery. The happiness we experience from our children is lasting, constant, omnipresent, and far deeper than any material gain. It...
