Behavior
Raising Men
One of the earliest and most important things we figured out was that in parenting, as in life, you generally hit what you’re aiming for. This bit of wisdom must be tempered of course by the inconvenient fact that children sometimes have the tendency to develop trajectories of their own. While this can be most … Continue reading
Fame
Reputation is a fickle thing. A young man of good character can successfully navigate the uncertain waters of life for years, only to have a single moment of bad judgment erase all the progress he has made. The speed of the descent from “fine young man” and pats on the back, to sidelong glances and … Continue reading
Plausible Deniability
Like most folks, we were pretty excited about Tucker’s first experience with “real food” and we wanted to capture the moment for posterity. So, I set up the video camera as Karen began the process and big brother Gerrit chatted and looked on. It was a lovely family moment…until something got a hold of Gerrit … Continue reading
Someone’s always watching
Both Karen and I spent our childhoods moving frequently. It’s just part of life when you belong to families involved with missions and the military. The migrations continued when we got married and we spent our first seven years moving around Germany. Finally, just as the boys were first entering school, we settled in one … Continue reading
Manners
When I was in the army I sometimes drew miniature depictions of the battlefield in the sand to help explain the plan to my soldiers. These were called “sand tables.” If I knew the General was coming by we sometimes made really fancy sand tables with models and colorful materials, but most of the time … Continue reading
