Triple The Dad

My daughter came up to me on one recent Saturday and said "Daddy, I'm not pretty." I'm not going to lie: A little portion of my soul died right then. And it wasn't just the words, it was the sad way she said them. I was cut a thousand different ways. One of my focuses in parenting is trying not to just tell my kids something is "good" but explain why. Maybe its their use of several colors, or how they linked the colors, or how they stayed within the lines. I try to have a "why" for when something is "good." This is doubly true for my daughter. I try not to emphasize the fact that she is truly beautiful too much and instead emphasize her other  qualities. I figure society and even her educators will spend enough time convincing her that looks are important and that she can't do math and science .  I can spend my time convincing her that other aspects of her are important. "Daddy, I'm not pretty." It isn'...

While the weather here in the Northeast might not be tipping you off, radio music and decorations and such might have given you the hint that we are fully engulfed in another Christmas season. As part of that, my wife and I are having our kids purchase gifts for other members of the family. So on a recent Christmas shopping trip my wife attempted to suss out what the kids might want to buy Daddy by asking them what Daddy likes. They responded with "tea and football." Why? Why do my kids think this about me? Which is fair enough. I do  drink tea pretty much every day and it is football season. But my interests are broad and varied. Broader and more varied than most, in my experience. At first I laughed it off. Kids, amirite? You can go crazy reading the tea leaves behind a four-year old's thinking and logic. But its been a week now and there the comment sits, crouched at the edge of my subconsciousness like some sort of demented Nightmare-Before-Christmas versi...