Involved Dad Quotes

She’s not just any Moroi. She’s royal. A princess. And you’ve seen how she is! Smart and strong and beautiful. She’s destined for great things, and one of them isn’t being involved with a controversial guardian like me. Her bloodline’s regal.Hell, I don’t even know who my dad is. Dating her is not even possible. My job is to protect her. To keep her safe. That’s where all my attention needs to be.

Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you’re lonely and of course they’ll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly.

Oh God. valentine's Day tomorrow. Why? Why? Why is (the) entire world geared to make people not involved in romance feel stupid when everyone knows romance does not work anyway. Look at (the) royal family. Look at Mum and Dad.

My family never went skiing. My dad was afraid of heights and my mom felt that a vacation was only a vacation if it involved reading at least two books on the beach.

Helicopter parents. Before I started at Pirriwee Public, I thought it was an exaggeration, this thing about parents being overly involved with their kids. I mean, my mum and dad loved me, they were, like, interested in me when I was growing up in the nineties, but they weren't, like, obsessed with me.

Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can’t find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day?

Parental looks rely a lot on brow positioning. Whereas the Dad Look involves the lowering of the brow as a whole, the Mom Look takes advantage of the power of the single, raised brow. Of Doom.

Get involved in life, and you will find why.

There are two philosophies when it comes to getting young children to sleep. There is 'sleep training,' which basically involves putting your kids to bed and listening to them scream all night; or there is 'attachment parenting,' which essentially involves lying down with your kids, cuddling them, and then listening to them scream all night.

MY DAD WAS A DEACON, and my mom taught Sunday school. I remember a stretch when I was young when we would go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening. Still, we didn’t consider ourselves overly religious, just good people who believed in God and were involved in our church.

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in!

I feel completely embarrassed and remember the lock on the door and think: He knows, he knows, it shows, shows completely. “He’s out back,” Mr. Garret tells me mildly, “unpacking shipments.” Then he returns to the papers. I feel compelled to explain myself. “I just thought I’d come by. Before babysitting. You, know, at your house. Just to say hi. So . . . I’m going to do that now. Jase’s in back, then? I’ll just say hi.” I’m so suave. I can hear the ripping sound of the box cutter before I even open the rear door to find Jase with a huge stack of cardboard boxes. His back’s to me and suddenly I’m as shy with him as I was with his father. This is silly. Brushing through my embarrassment, I walk up, put my hand on his shoulder. He straightens up with a wide grin. “Am I glad to see you!” “Oh, really?” “Really. I thought you were Dad telling me I was messing up again. I’ve been a disaster all day. Kept knocking things over. Paint cans, our garden display. He finally sent me out here when I knocked over a ladder. I think I’m a little preoccupied.” “Maybe you should have gotten more sleep,” I offer. “No way,” he says. Then we just gaze at each other for a long moment. For some reason, I expect him to look different, the way I expected I would myself in the mirror this morning . . . I thought I would come across richer, fuller, as happy outside as I was inside, but the only thing that showed was my lips puffy from kisses. Jase is the same as ever also. “That was the best study session I ever had,” I tell him. “Locked in my memory too,” he says, then glances away as though embarrassed, bending to tear open another box. “Even though thinking about it made me hit my thumb with a hammer putting up a wall display.” “This thumb?” I reach for one of his callused hands, kiss the thumb. “It was the left one.” Jase’s face creases into a smile as I pick up his other hand. “I broke my collarbone once,” he tells me, indicating which side. I kiss that. “Also some ribs during a scrimmage freshman year.” I do not pull his shirt up to where his finger points now. I am not that bold. But I do lean in to kiss him through the soft material of his shirt. “Feeling better?” His eyes twinkle. “In eighth grade, I got into a fight with this kid who was picking on Duff and he gave me a black eye.” My mouth moves to his right eye, then the left. He cups the back of my neck in his warm hands, settling me into the V of his legs, whispering into my ear, “I think there was a split lip involved too.” Then we are just kissing and everything else drops away. Mr. Garret could come out at any moment, a truck full of supplies could drive right on up, a fleet of alien spaceships could darken the sky, I’m not sure I’d notice.

I didn’t want to be transported to another world. My favorite books all involved people dealing with hardships. I loved The Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, and especially A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I thought Francie Nolan and I were practically identical, except that she had lived fifty years earlier in Brooklyn and her mother always kept the house clean. Francie Nolan’s father sure reminded me of Dad. If Francie saw the good in her father, even though most people considered him a shiftless drunk, maybe I wasn’t a complete fool for believing in mine. Or trying to believe in him. It was getting harder. • • •

Much. so there is free dessert involved here." I put my hand to my forehead. "oh, that i had discovered the job first!" Ryan laughs. "tragic." want to hear something tragic? my dad is going to a Christian singles' retreat." Ryan nearly spits out his coffee. "your dad?" he is shacking. Brandon wallops him on the back a few times. Ryan holds his hands up at him, coughing. "Stop," he croaks, standing. he inhales a few times and gets his voice back. "You would have to tell me this when my mouth was full, wouldn't you?" he sits again. I smile broadly. a Christian singles' retreat?" he repeats Yep," Brandon says. "Get the name: Marley's Michigan Marriage Makers." I cover my face Ryan's expression twists. " thats.... interesting," he says slowly Hallie frowns. "If its a Christian retreat, why is it called Marley's?" Its a denomination in Michigan," Brandon says. "Marlotist. I just call them Marley for fun." I double over until my head hits the table. There is not a denomination called Marlotist," Hallie says. Is too. I visited one of their churches when I went to Michigan to ski one time," Brandon says. My eyes blur with tears from laughing so hard and holding it all in. My shoulders start shaking. Brandon levels a good kick to my shin. Ow!" I reach for my leg. What is the name of it, Laurie?" Ryan asks. Meet Your Match in Michigan" Brandon scowls at me. " Spoilsport.

I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce. Beth went a little nuts. I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year old dental hygienist, Beth got involved with the junk food aisle at the grocery store. She carried processed snack cakes the way toddlers carry teddy bears. She gained, like, twenty pounds, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I figured she'd get back to her usual weight once the shock wore off. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person who noticed. May 14 was 'Fun and Fit Day" at Surry Middle School, so the gym was full of booths set up by local health clubs and doctors and dentists and sports leagues, all trying to entice us to not end up as couch potatoes. That part was fine. What wasn't fine was when the whole school sat down to watch the eighth-grade cheerleaders' program on physical fitness.

They have statues," Jenna said. "In a hallway." Sure enough, two bronze statues of veiled women guarded the massive staircase, where even more people were now lining up. They were all wearing black uniforms, and had nearly identical smiles plastered on their faces. "What are those people doing?" Jenna whispered to me. "I don't know," I replied through a frozen grin, "but I'm afraid a musical number might be involved." "This is our household staff," Dad said, sweeping his arm toward the group. "Anything you need, they'll be happy to help you with." "Oh," I said weakly, feeling like my voice echoed in the cavernous room. "Great.

Sons need fathers who are involved in their lives—dads who will love them, teach them, and discipline them. But clearly, sons also need a masculine vision. They need a manhood language. They need a ceremony. And they need other men. Knighthood, as an outline, offers all this and more.

On Breaking the Neighbor's Window for the Third Time in a Year: 'What in the hell is the matter with you? This is the third time! You know, at this point I think it's the neighbor's fault....No, not really, it's your fucking fault, I'm just in denial right now that my DNA was somehow involved in something this stupid'.

All those adorable towheaded kids in the promotional film are going to turn thirteen. Once a family member hits puberty, odds are that everybody is not going to have the same ideals. Unless everybody gets together and agrees that the new ideals involve turning the front yard into a skate ramp and officially changing Dad's name to Fuckhead.

I shouldn’t have got involved in your interview, son,” Jim says in a low voice. “It’s okay, Dad,” Jack replies. Neither of them means it. We lie to those we love.

I've never had much luck with New Year's resolutions. Last year I only lasted three days before realizing I couldn't survive without junk food. And the year before that, when my sister and I promised not to argue anymore, we didn't even make it to the end of my dad's New Year's Eve party. I'll spare you the gory details, but fruit punch and guacamole were involved. So was dry cleaning.

The boy crisis' primary cause is dad-deprived boys. Dad deprivation stems primarily from a lack of father involvement, and secondarily from devaluing what a father contributes when he is involved.

Is that true?” I asked Dad. “Are they gone for good?” Dad shifted in his seat, uneasy. “Not necessarily. But Sophie, the risk involved in bringing them back…It’s almost too great to fathom.” “I can fathom all kinds of things,” I told him. “Try me.” I think I might have seen pride in Dad’s eyes. Or maybe it was just a gleam of Why is my offspring so insane? Still, he answered me. “If you destroy both the ritual and the witch or warlock who used it, the spell itself can be reversed.” I shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so hard.” “I wasn’t finished. They must be destroyed simultaneously.” Swallowing, I tried to sound cheerful. “Again, not so bad. Get Lara to hold the piece of paper, zap them both with, um, some fire or something, and bam! Instant demon reversal.” “And they must be destroyed in the pit where the demons were raised,” Dad continued, as if I hadn’t said anything. Seriously, he had to stop doing that. “Oh, and as the piece de resistance, you’ll need to do a spell to close the pit itself, with both the ritual and the witch inside it. And that’s such an intense ritual that it could actually pull whatever’s around the pit into it as well.” “Like, the person doing the spell?” “Like, the whole damn island the put is on.” “Oh. Okay. Well, that is definitely…challenging. But not impossible. And we have the grimoire, that’s one bonus, right? Even if the demon-raising ritual isn’t in it.” “Sophie Alice Mercer,” Mom said warningly, just as Dad said, “Atherton,” and Aislinn said, “Brannick.” I threw my hands up. “Look, it doesn’t matter what you call me. I’ll hyphenate, how about that?

Did my dad fool the medical professionals or were we involved with a system that avoided end-of-life discussions? Those conversations might have given my dad the opportunity to focus on last wishes, meaningful conversations, and clarify his needs.

A father is not to act harshly in word or deed toward his children, goad them to frustration and anger, discourage or demean them, neglect them, or harm them in any way. He is instead to be a blessing from the Lord to his children by taking responsibility to raise them rather than leaving it to the mother and various institutions, such as schools, churches, foster care systems, adoption agencies, and prisons. In short, fathers are supposed to be Pastor Dad, actively involved in the development of every aspect of their children’s growth with love, humility, and wisdom.

Your mother, my mother, and mother of pearl walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “Hello, dad, you look more like whiskey than I remember. Have you been tanning?” To which all three mothers respond, “The French Revolution was the best thing to ever happen inside a croissant the shape of the Fertile Crescent, with a flaky crust like a politician with dandruff.” Of course, when Orafoura told me this joke, I didn’t laugh, because I don’t like jokes involving politics, religion, or mother of pearl.

He was all smug about how he’d negotiated flexible hours so he could continue being a hands-on dad, the dad his own father never got to be, and didn’t he just lap up all the praise he got for being such an involved father, and laugh sympathetically, but enjoyably, over the fact that Clementine never got any praise for being an involved mother?

"It’s time for you to tell me the truth. All of it.” My stomach winds up like a fist. “That’s a lot of years to cover. Where should I start?” “Baby steps. Your mom’s history. How Jeb’s involved. Does he know what you are? And that winged creature who carried me out of Wonderland’s portal—what part does he play?” “Wow, Dad. Baby steps?” “Yep.” “Baby brontosaurus, maybe,” I tease.

Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. "I've been doing really good late and you don't even care." "Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said. "You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. "All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand." Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. "I'll tell you what I understand," he said. "I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up.

Since dad is most at risk of being both bad-mouthed and less involved, lets look at three reasons bad-mouthing sin is in conflict with your child's best interest: 1. Your children grow up feeling, "I hate who I am." 2. Your children fear that "loving dad is betraying mom." 3. Bad-mouthing undermines dad's motivation to invest money and time in the bank of love and to become responible in response to the hope for love.

Mr. McLean looked up at Piper. He seemed unconcerned by her knife and blowgun. “Going out?” “Just for a while.” Piper kissed her father on the cheek. “I’ll be back tonight. Don’t let them take the sleeping bags, okay? You and I can camp out on the terrace. It’ll be fun.” “All right.” He patted her arm absently. “Good luck…studying?” “Yep,” Piper said. “Studying.” You have to love the Mist. You can stroll out of your house heavily armed, in the company of a satyr, a demigod, and a flabby former Olympian, and thanks to the Mist’s perception-bending magic, your mortal father assumes you’re going to a study group. That’s right, Dad. We need to go over some math problems that involve the trajectory of blowgun darts against moving targets.

Ritual abuse is highly organised and, obviously, secretive. It is often linked with other major crimes such as child pornography, child prostitution, the drugs industry, trafficking, and many other illegal and heinous activities. Ritual abuse is organised sexual, physical and psychological abuse, which can be systematic and sustained over a long period of time. It involves the use of rituals - things which the abusers 'need' to do, or 'need' to have in place - but it doesn't have to have a belief system. There doesn't have to be God or the Devil, or any other deity for it to be considered 'ritual'. It involves using patterns of learning and development to keep the abuse going and to make sure the child stays quiet. There has been, and still is a great deal of debate about whether or not such abuse exists anywhere in the world. There are many people who constantly deny that there is even such a thing as ritual abuse. All I can say is that I know there is. Not only have I been a victim of it myself, but I have been dealing with survivors of this type of abuse for almost 30 years. If there are survivors, there must be something that they have survived. The things is, most sexual abuse of children is ritualised in some way. Abusers use repetition, routine and ritual to forced children into the patterns of behaviour they require. Some abusers want their victims to wear certain clothing, to say certain things. They might bathe them or cut them, they might burn them or abuse them only on certain days of the week. They might do a hundred other things which are ritualistic, but aren't always called that - partly, I think because we have a terror of the word and of accepting just how premeditated abuse actually is. Abusers instill fear in their victims and ensure silence; they do all they can to avoid being caught. Sexual abuse of a child is rarely a random act. It involves thorough planning and preparation beforehand. They threaten the children with death, with being taken into care, with no one believing them, which physical violence or their favourite teddy being taken away. They are told that their mum will die, or their dad will hate them, the abusers say everyone will think it's their fault, that everyone already knows they are bad. Nothing is too big or small for an abuser to use as leverage. There is unmistakable proof that abusers do get together in order to share children, abuse more children, and even learn from each other. As more cases have come into the public eye in recent years, this has become increasingly obvious. More and more of this type of abuse is coming to light. I definitely think it is the word ritual which causes people to question, to feel uncomfortable, or even just disbelieve. It seems almost incredible that such things would happen, but too many of us know exactly how bad the lives of many children are. A great deal of child pornography shows children being abused in a ritualised setting, and many have now come forward to share their experiences, but there is a still tendency to say it just couldn't happen. p204-205

THIS IS HOW AMERICA BECAME A HOTSPOT OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Because my generation was raised to believe not just that safety is for dweebs but that it’s EVIL! Maverick is a full psycho and would definitely be at the “reopen America” protests because he wants the RIGHT to get his b-hole waxed even if he isn’t actually GOING to go get his b-hole waxed and even though he knows that many thousands more marginalized and high-risk people will die and many b-hole waxing businesses will ultimately fail because you cannot sustain an economy on a handful of slobbering fascists who feel the need, the need for a Jamba Juice. Goose alludes to some dark past involving Maverick’s dad, who was also a fighter pilot: “Every time we go up there, it’s like you’re flyin’ against a ghost.” And I’m sorry, but that is not an excuse! Go to therapy! You can be in a men’s group with Snape!

When divorce or separation involves mutual children, it's often the father who suffers the most as a parent and the children who suffer in regards to their relationship with their dad. During my separation, my daughters mom used our daughter as a weapon in an effort to hurt me. She knew that I love my daughter immensely and so she would do all kinds of manipulative tricks to get in the way of our daddy daughter relationship in an effort to cause me emotional pain. She was willing to cause our daughter emotional pain in her effort to cause me emotional pain. Unfortunately, millions of fathers and children have experienced this pain. It has to end.

It’s not just the look, the cost, and the time involved in putting sunscreen on a child, it’s the battle. My kids have no idea why they would have to wait to have fun while they are smeared with chemicals all over their face and body. They scream. They cry. “It burns!” The process of applying sunscreen just highlights the preposterousness of raising pale kids on a planet that revolves around a hot burning star that emits poisonous UV rays. I can never tell if the concerned looks from strangers are because they think I am torturing my children or because I am dressed like an out-of-shape Superman at the beach. Does anyone know where I can get a red swim cape?

There are two philosophies when it comes to getting young children to sleep. There is “sleep training,” which basically involves putting your kids to bed and listening to them scream all night, or there is “attachment parenting,” which essentially involves lying down with your kids, cuddling them, and then listening to them scream all night.

My dad had been able to create a tiny practice goose, with a specially made bag, to use with the aforesaid child’s practice chanter. My method of playing this thing involved walking around the house and yard, honking horribly away without much in the way of stopping. There was a crew of workers doing waterline repairs in the road in front of the house. I considered it my chosen mission to play the goose for them for the best part of the day, until one of them led me by the hand into the house and pleaded with my mother, in heavily accented English, “Lady, please make him stop.” This was my first experience with what all pipers learn will be a lifelong pattern of insult and rejection.

I don’t think George Lucas would want you to do this,” her mom said. “I didn’t know you knew who George Lucas was.” “Please. I was watching Star Wars movies before you were born. Your dad and I saw Empire Strikes Back five times in the theater.” “Lucky,” Elena said. “George Lucas is a father of daughters,” her mother said. “He wouldn’t want young girls freezing to death to prove their loyalty.” “This isn’t about George Lucas,” Elena said. “He isn’t even that involved in the sequels.” “Come home,” her mom said. “We’ll watch Empire Strikes Back and I’ll make hot cocoa.” “I can’t,” Elena said. “I’ll lose my place in line.” “I think it will still be there for you in the morning.” “Goodnight, Mom.

A few months back, Meredith and I took our sons to an evening of modern dance. It was an outdoor performance, in a horse paddock on a ranch in central Texas, and the dance involved nine young women and a very large horse. There was a great deal of spinning in the dirt. There was swift running, much kicking, many horse-like movements of the head and shoulders. It was strange and very beautiful. At one point, midway through the performance, Meredith leaned over to Timmy and asked if he understood what the dancing was all about. Timmy said no. Meredith said, “Well, right now, for instance, that dancer over there, she’s like a baby horse—a foal—trying to stand up for the first time. Can you see that?” Timmy nodded. He looked puzzled. “Well, yes,” he said, “but what about all the other shenanigans?

In summer, most ramen restaurants in Tokyo serve hiyashi chūka, a cold ramen noodle salad topped with strips of ham, cucumber, and omelet; a tart sesame- or soy-based sauce; and sometimes other vegetables, like a tomato wedge or sheets of wakame seaweed. The vegetables are arranged in piles of parallel shreds radiating from the center to the edge of the plate like bicycle spokes, and you toss everything together before eating. It's bracing, ice-cold, addictive- summer food from the days before air conditioning. In Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyōza, a young lifestyle reporter wants to write an article about hiyashi chūka. "I'm not interested in something like hiyashi chūka," says my alter ego Yamaoka. It's a fake Chinese dish made with cheap industrial ingredients, he explains. Later, however, Yamaoka relents. "Cold noodles, cold soup, and cold toppings," he muses. "The idea of trying to make a good dish out of them is a valid one." Good point, jerk. He mills organic wheat into flour and hires a Chinese chef to make the noodles. He buys a farmyard chicken from an old woman to make the stock and seasons it with the finest Japanese vinegar, soy sauce, and sake. Yamaoka's mean old dad Kaibara Yūzan inevitably gets involved and makes an even better hiyashi chūka by substituting the finest Chinese vinegar, soy sauce, and rice wine. When I first read this, I enjoyed trying to follow the heated argument over this dish I'd never even heard of. Yamaoka and Kaibara are in total agreement that hiyashi chūka needs to be made with quality ingredients, but they disagree about what kind of dish it is: Chinese, Japanese, or somewhere in between? Unlike American food, Japanese cuisine has boundary issues.

Instead of simply teaching our sons that girls are meant to be protect, we need to get them excited about helping to to create a world where girls don't have to be afraid anymore. We need to make it very clear to our sons that they are not just doing women a favor by standing up against sexism. They are actually fighting for a stronger, smarter, kinder world, one that is possible only if women are treated equally. Let's raise incredible guys who will know their worth as decent, responsible men and capable, involved, loving dads.

13.   Baby’s waketimes are over-stimulating or too long. Explanation/Recommendation: When searching for the solution to naptime challenges, parents often overlook the quality of the waketime that preceded the nap. Remember, everything is connected. Waketimes affect naps just like naps affect waketimes. Over-tired and over-stimulated babies become hyper-alert, fighting off sleep through crying. If this is a regular problem, shortening your baby’s waketime by 15-minute increments might help. Also, be aware of the types of activities you and your baby are involved in. Are you having too many visitors drop by who have an irresistible urge to entertain your baby? Was your baby being exposed to Dad’s loud friends as they sat watching a sporting event? Might Mom be on the go too much? When Baby is along for the ride, the coming and going, the new sights and sounds, and the absence of predictability all work against good nap behavior. That is because catnaps in a car seat are no substitute for a full nap in the crib. An occasional nap in the car seat will not cause trouble, but it should not be the norm, especially during the first six months of your baby’s life.

When you’re the father of a little boy, which involves many joys, you do have one rationalization in your back pocket that is ready to be used roughly half of the time – that your little boy has the disadvantage of not being a girl. Girls just seem to be ahead of the game in so many ways when they are little; they are not as apt to tumble spontaneously off stools as boys are. We saw this clearly illustrated the first day we took Dean to nursery school: the little girls took off their coats and hung them up, neatly, and then went to help all the little boys, whose coats were half off, or still zippered and hopelessly tangled around their midsections, or attached to one hand and dragging along the floor.

I mean, if I was getting married the guests would include a celibate incubus, an undead drag queen, a living statue, my dad, who’s had his eyes stolen by faeries, the woman who stole him back from faeries, a teenage oracle who’d insist on bringing my arsehole ex, a pack of werewolves, assuming it wasn’t too working class for them, possibly the entire Witch Court of London—and that was way more people than I was comfortable caring about. If I’d made the same list eighteen months ago, it would’ve been dad, Jenny and a bottle of cheap Scotch. Mind you, in either case I’d have to be marrying somebody and that would involve some fairly radical changes to my lifestyle. Because, let’s face it, my longest adult relationship has been with my hat.

I have two settings as a dad: normal and special mode. Normal mode is used with my eldest son, aged eight. It involves all the regular dad stuff, such as knowing the answers to every possible question, teaching him to ride his bike and generally being hands-on and involved. Special mode is quite different. All of the skills of normal mode apply, and then some. Special mode involves enormous powers of endurance, negotiation, problem solving, vigilance, strength, forbearance, deciphering, arbitration and above all, patience. To be honest, I’m a bit rubbish at all of those things but I strive for them nonetheless, because special mode is required for my youngest son, aged five and diagnosed as high functioning autistic. The two styles of parenting could not be more different.

(b) Boundary Violation. This involves children witnessing parents in sexual behavior. They may walk in on it because parents don’t provide closed or locked doors. It also involves the children being allowed no privacy. They are walked in on in the bathroom. They are not taught to lock their doors or given permission to lock their doors. Parents need to model appropriate nudity, i.e., need to be clothed appropriately after a certain age. Children are sexually curious. Beginning at around age three or between ages three and six, children start noticing parents’ bodies. They are often obsessed with nudity. Mom and Dad need to be careful walking around nude with young children. If Mom is not being stimulated sexually, the nudity is not sexual misconduct. She simply is acting in a dysfunctional way. She is not setting sexual boundaries.

Okay, fine. You wanna know? You really think you wanna know? Well, here it is. First of all, I have an abandonment complex. Obviously. My mom left. My dad. Then everyone else.” “Yeah, I got some friends in similar situations. It’s really tough. I hope you understand that none of those losses were about you, though.” “Sure, whatever. And I need constant reassurance. I’m really insecure. And I have a really hard time trusting anyone. And I sometimes get really involved in work.” I went on for what seemed like forever, laying out all of my greatest shames, the things that I hoped I could hide for another few months, at least. He remained terrifyingly poker-faced the whole time, and I guessed he’d tricked me into digging my own grave. At the end, he absorbed my failings in silence for a minute and then nodded. “Okay. Is that it? Yeah, sure.” “What do you mean, ‘Yeah, sure’?” “I mean sure, that’s doable.” “How do you know? Maybe it’s not.” “I don’t know, there’s a lot of trauma and abandonment and anger around here. Your issues are solidly within my wheelhouse. Thanks for telling me. It’s good to know, and I think we can make it work.” “But maybe you’ll get tired of it. I mean, I’ll still work on my shit. I promise.” “Sure, and I’m glad for that, thank you,” he shrugged. “But, you know, it’s okay to have some things you never get over.” It’s okay to have some things you never get over. In the span of half an hour, this man whom I had known for less than a season did what nobody in my life ever had: He took all of my sins and simply forgave them. He didn’t demand relentless improvement. There were no ultimatums. He asserted that I was enough, as is. The gravity of it stunned me into silence. Joey was the opposite of the dread.

We've taken it away too much, the funeral people take over. No. Let people bury their own." "Do you think it helps people to go through the process and be intimately involved?" "Yes of course, of course!" It's the most emphatic Steve has been about anything. "Keep the body at home, put it on the dining table, let the kids sleep under the table, paint the coffin, decorate it, eat. When my brother died we had fights over the coffin drinking whiskey. I remember one brother pounding Bill's coffin 'Oh you bastard!' It was our lives. We carried the coffin, we filled in the hole. I used to work in the garden as a boy with my father. And I dug the hole to put his plants in and filled in the hole. In the end we put Dad into the ground and I helped my brothers fill in the hole. We need to do it ourselves." "Why do you think it helps to have that involvement?" "It's our responsibility, it's not to help, it's enabling us to grieve, it's enabling us to go through it together. Otherwise it's taken away and whoosh - it's gone. And you can't grieve. You've got to feel, you've got to touch, you've got to be there." Steve is passionate. He reaches into his bag to pull out something to show me. It's an old yellowing newspaper clipping. The caption reads 'Devastation: a woman in despair at the site of the blasts near the Turkey-Syrian border'. The photograph is a woman, she has her arms open to the sky and she is wailing, her head thrown back. "I pray in front of that" Steve tells me as I look at it. "That's a wonderful photo of the pain of our world. I don't know if she's lost relatives or what's blown up. You have a substance to your life if you've felt pain, you've got understanding, that's where compassion is, it makes you a deeper richer human being.

Evan was attracted to technology early on, building his first computer in sixth grade and experimenting with Photoshop in the Crossroads computer lab. He would later describe the computer teacher, Dan, as his best friend. Evan dove into journalism as well, writing for the school newspaper, Crossfire. One journalism class required students to sell a certain amount of advertising for Crossfire as part of their grade. Evan walked around the neighborhood asking local businesses to buy ads; once he had exceeded his sales goals, he helped coach his peers on how to pitch businesses and ask adults for money. By high school, the group of 20 students Evan had started with in kindergarten had grown to around 120. Charming, charismatic, and smart, Evan threw parties at his dad’s house that were “notorious” in his words. Evan’s outsized personality could rub people the wrong way at times, but his energy, organizing skills, and enthusiasm made him an exceptional party thrower. He possessed a bravado that could be frustrating and off-putting but was great for convincing everyone that the night’s party was going to be the greatest of all time. Obsessed with the energy drink Red Bull and the lifestyle the brand cultivated, Evan talked his way into an internship at the company as a senior in high school. The job involved throwing parties and other events sponsored by Red Bull. Clarence Carter, the head of the company’s security team, would give Evan advice that would stand him well in the years to come: pay attention to who helps you clean up after the party. Later recalling the story, Evan said, “When everyone is tired and the night is over, who stays and helps out? Because those are your true friends. Those are the hard workers, the people that believe that working hard is the right thing to do.

I’ll never forget the time I went duck-hunting with my buddy Mike Williams; you’ll read a lot about our adventures and shenanigans in this book. Mike and I were hunting blue-winged teal ducks, which tend to move en masse, so typically you’ll either shoot your limit or not see a duck. In other words, there is a lot of idle time involved with teal hunting, so we usually bring along our fishing poles. After a hunt with Mike one morning, in which we had not seen a single teal, I hooked a four-pound bass. Almost simultaneously, one lone blue-winged teal flew over our heads. As I was reeling in the bass, I reached for my shotgun, raised it with only my left hand, and shot the duck. Now, I’m right-handed but left-eye dominant. It was the first duck I ever shot left-handed, but it would be the first of many. I eventually made the switch to shooting left-handed permanently. It was the hardest obstacle I’ve ever had to overcome in hunting, but it made me a better shot because I’m left-eye dominant. When Mike and I went back to my dad’s house and told him what happened, Phil didn’t believe us, even though we had the teal and bass as evidence. He’d told us about a similar feat many times before, when his friend Hookin’ Bull Thompson pulled in a fish with one hand and shot a duck with the other. I had heard the story many time, but only then did I realize it had now been duplicated. No matter how many times we told Phil about what I did, he didn’t believe us. He thought we made the entire story up because of the countless times he’d bragged about witnessing his buddy’s epic feat. Now, Mike is one of the most honest people you’ll meet, so he couldn’t believe Phil thought we were lying to him. “I’m going to sign an affidavit about what you did,” Mike told me. “Maybe then he’ll believe us.” “Oh, drop it,” I said. “That’s just how my family rolls.

So what did you and Landon do this afternoon?” Minka asked, her soft voice dragging him back to the present. Angelo looked up to see that Minka had already polished off two fajitas. Damn, the girl could eat. “Landon gave me a tour of the DCO complex. I did some target shooting and blew up a few things. He even let me play with the expensive surveillance toys. I swear, it felt more like a recruiting pitch to get me to work there than anything.” Minka’s eyes flashed green, her full lips curving slightly. Damn, why the hell had he said it like that? Now she probably thought he was going to come work for the DCO. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t, not after just reenlisting for another five years. The army wasn’t the kind of job where you could walk into the boss’s office and say, “I quit.” Thinking it would be a good idea to steer the conversation back to safer ground, he reached for another fajita and asked Minka a question instead. “What do you think you’ll work on next with Ivy and Tanner? You going to practice with the claws for a while or move on to something else?” Angelo felt a little crappy about changing the subject, but if Minka noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. And it wasn’t like he had to fake interest in what she was saying. Anything that involved Minka was important to him. Besides, he didn’t know much about shifters or hybrids, so the whole thing was pretty damn fascinating. “What do you visualize when you see the beast in your mind?” he asked. “Before today, I thought of it as a giant, blurry monster. But after learning that the beast is a cat, that’s how I picture it now.” She smiled. “Not a little house cat, of course. They aren’t scary enough. More like a big cat that roams the mountains.” “Makes sense,” he said. Minka set the other half of her fourth fajita on her plate and gave him a curious look. “Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?” His mouth twitched as he prepared another fajita. He wasn’t used to Minka being so reserved. She usually said whatever was on her mind, regardless of whether it was personal or not. “Go ahead,” he said. “The first time we met, I had claws, fangs, glowing red eyes, and I tried to kill you. Since then, I’ve spent most of the time telling you about an imaginary creature that lives inside my head and makes me act like a monster. How are you so calm about that? Most people would have run away already.” Angelo chuckled. Not exactly the personal question he’d expected, but then again Minka rarely did the expected. “Well, my mom was full-blooded Cherokee, and I grew up around all kinds of Indian folktales and legends. My dad was in the army, and whenever he was deployed, Mom would take my sisters and me back to the reservation where she grew up in Oklahoma. I’d stay up half the night listening to the old men tell stories about shape-shifters, animal spirits, skin-walkers, and trickster spirits.” He grinned. “I’m not saying I necessarily believed in all that stuff back then, but after meeting Ivy, Tanner, and the other shifters at the DCO, it just didn’t faze me that much.” Minka looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re a real American Indian? Like in the movies? With horses and everything?” He laughed again. The expression of wonder on her face was adorable. “First, I’m only half-Indian. My dad is Mexican, so there’s that. And second, Native Americans are almost nothing like you see in the movies. We don’t all live in tepees and ride horses. In fact, I don’t even own a horse.” Minka was a little disappointed about the no-horse thing, but she was fascinated with what it was like growing up on an Indian reservation and being surrounded by all those legends. She immediately asked him to tell her some Indian stories. It had been a long time since he’d thought about them, but to make her happy, he dug through his head and tried to remember every tale he’d heard as a kid.

Dad denies ever physically abusing anyone, including Mom. I suspect that they were physically abusive to each other in the way that Mom and most of her men were: a bit of pushing, some plate throwing, but nothing more. What I do know is that between the end of his marriage with Mom and the beginning of his marriage with Cheryl--which occurred when I was four--Dad had changed for the better. He credits a more serious involvement with his faith. In this, Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don't attend church at all. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber even found that the relationship was causal: It's not just that people who happen to live successful lives also go to church, it's that church seems to promote good habits.

I now pronounce you husband and wife. I hadn’t considered the kiss. Not once. I suppose I’d assumed it would be the way a wedding kiss should be. Restrained. Appropriate. Mild. A nice peck. Save the real kisses for later, when you’re deliciously alone. Country club girls don’t make out in front of others. Like gum chewing, it should always be done in private, where no one else can see. But Marlboro Man wasn’t a country club boy. He’d missed the memo outlining the rules and regulations of proper ways to kiss in public. I found this out when the kiss began--when he wrapped his loving, protective arms around me and kissed me like he meant it right there in my Episcopal church. Right there in front of my family, and his, in front of Father Johnson and Ms. Altar Guild and our wedding party and the entire congregation, half of whom were meeting me for the first time that night. But Marlboro Man didn’t seem to care. He kissed me exactly the way he’d kissed me the night of our first date--the night my high-heeled boot had gotten wedged in a crack in my parents’ sidewalk and had caused me to stumble. The night he’d caught me with his lips. We were making out in church--there was no way around it. And I felt every bit as swept away as I had that first night. The kiss lasted hours, days, weeks…probably ten to twelve seconds in real time, which, in a wedding ceremony setting, is a pretty long kiss. And it might have been longer had the passionate moment not been interrupted by the sudden sound of a person clapping his hands. “Woohoo! All right!” the person shouted. “Yes!” It was Mike. The congregation broke out in laughter as Marlboro Man and I touched our foreheads together, cementing the moment forever in our memory. We were one; this was tangible to me now. It wasn’t just an empty word, a theological concept, wishful thinking. It was an official, you-and-me-against-the-world designation. We’d both left our separateness behind. From that moment forward, nothing either of us did or said or planned would be in a vacuum apart from the other. No holiday would involve our celebrating separately at our respective family homes. No last-minute trips to Mexico with friends, not that either of us was prone to last-minute trips to Mexico with friends. But still. The kiss had sealed the deal in so many ways. I walked proudly out of the church, the new wife of Marlboro Man. When we exited the same doors through which my dad and I had walked thirty minutes earlier, Marlboro Man’s arm wriggled loose from my grasp and instinctively wrapped around my waist, where it belonged. The other arm followed, and before I knew it we were locked in a sweet, solidifying embrace, relishing the instant of solitude before our wedding party--sisters, cousins, brothers, friends--followed closely behind. We were married. I drew a deep, life-giving breath and exhaled. The sweating had finally stopped. And the robust air-conditioning of the church had almost completely dried my lily-white Vera.

I don't think anyone outside my family knows that." "Not even Amanda?" It came out before I could stop it. "Not even Amanda." He reached for the soda. "Two," he muttered as he poured, "I wish more people knew that Amanda and I are not a single unit and fewer people knew that she dumped me temporarily over the summer for a lifegaurd in Loveladies named Biff." While I processed that,he finished. "Three. I bombed the PSATs." "Oh.Well,isn't the point of preliminary tests to help you learn how to do well on the later ones?" "Tell that to my dad. He was decided that I am now on the fast track toward a future of digging ditches." "Come on.I'm sure he sees that it's just a prep test." "What he sees," Alex corrected me, "is that the path of Yale, followed by Powel Law an the family firm, has gotten a little slippery." I had no idea what to say.In my family, whatever we want to do, as long as it involves getting out of bed every morning and satisfying our souls, is considered just splendid.And that coming from multiple generations who've struggled to pay the mortgage.

There are people in this country who will argue that because of the demise of morals in general, and Sunday school in particular, kids today are losing their innocence before they should, that because of cartoons and Ken Starr and curricula about their classmates who have two mommies, youth learn too soon about sex and death. Well, like practically everyone else in the Western world who came of age since Gutenberg, I lost my innocence the old-time-religion way, by reading the nursery rhyme of fornication that is the Old Testament and the fairy tale bloodbath that is the New. Job taught me Hey! Life's not fair! Lot's wife taught me that I'm probably going to come across a few weird sleazy things I won't be able to resist looking into. And the book of Revelation taught me to live in the moment, if only because the future's so grim. Being a fundamentalist means going straight to the source. I was asked to not only read the Bible, but to memorize Bible verses. If it wasn't for the easy access to the sordid Word of God I might have had an innocent childhood. Instead, I was a worrywart before my time, shivering in constant fear of a god who, from what I could tell, huffed and puffed around the cosmos looking like my dad did when my sister refused to take her vitamins that one time. God wasn't exactly a children's rights advocate. The first thing a child reading the Bible notices is that you're supposed to honor your mother and father but they're not necessarily required to reciprocate. This was a god who told Abraham to knife his boy Isaac and then at the last minute, when the dagger's poised above Isaac's heart, God tells Abraham that He's just kidding. This was a god who let a child lose his birthright because of some screwball mix-up involving fake fur hands and a bowl of soup. This was a god who saw to it that his own son had his hands and feet nailed onto pieces of wood. God, for me, was not in the details. I still set store by the big Judeo-Christian messages. Who can argue with the Ten Commandments? Don't kill anybody: don't mess around with other people's spouses: be nice to your mom and dad. Fine advice. It was the minutiae that nagged me.

My father strode up and cleared his throat. “Oh, hello, Mr. Martin,” Seth said. “Hello,” my father said. They shook hands. “Charlotte, your mom and I want to discuss something with you, but I don’t think it’s a good time now. I think you need some rest.” “Oh Jesus, what now?” I said. “Charlotte!” my mother scolded. “I’m drunk, you guys. It’s not a big deal.” Seth anchored me to his side by wrapping an arm around my waist. My mother stuck her hand out to Seth. “Hello, Seth, I’m Charlotte’s mom, Laura.” She blushed. “Oh, Motherrr, are you blushing? He’s just a professional baseball plaaayer with twelve-pack abs and perfect hair, get over it!” “Let’s go, drunky.” Seth pulled me along. “Hey, Taylor,” my father said, calling Seth by his last name. We turned back to see my dad point to his own eyes and then to Seth’s. I’m watching you, he mouthed, and then he buckled over and started laughing. “Your family is totally weird,” Seth said into my ear. “I see where you get your sense of humor.” “Yep, they’re all right. By the way, it’s your fault I’m drunk.” I caught Helen’s eye as we left the bar. Seth waved, she smiled, and Roddy laughed. “I think you had a little too much before I got involved.” “I told you that. Hey, wanna go skinny-dipping?” “I’m getting you a sandwich and then I’m putting you to bed,” he said. “Killjoy.

I look back now and can see how much my father also found his own freedom in the adventures we did together, whether it was galloping along a beach in the Isle of Wight with me behind him, or climbing on the steep hills and cliffs around the island’s coast. It was at times like these that I found a real intimacy with him. It was also where I learned to recognize that tightening sensation, deep in the pit of my stomach, as being a great thing to follow in life. Some call it fear. I remember the joy of climbing with him in the wintertime. It was always an adventure and often turned into much more than just a climb. Dad would determine that not only did we have to climb a sheer hundred-and-fifty-foot chalk cliff, but also that German paratroopers held the high ground. We therefore had to climb the cliff silently and unseen, and then grenade the German fire position once at the summit. In reality this meant lobbing clumps of manure toward a deserted bench on the cliff tops. Brilliant. What a great way to spend a wet and windy winter’s day when you are age eight (or twenty-eight, for that matter). I loved returning from the cliff climbs totally caked in mud, out of breath, having scared ourselves a little. I learned to love that feeling of the wind and rain blowing hard on my face. It made me feel like a man, when in reality I was a little boy. We also used to talk about Mount Everest, as we walked across the fields toward the cliffs. I loved to pretend that some of our climbs were on the summit face of Everest itself. We would move together cautiously across the white chalk faces, imagining they were really ice. I had this utter confidence that I could climb Everest if he were beside me. I had no idea what Everest would really involve but I loved the dream together. These were powerful, magical times. Bonding. Intimate. Fun. And I miss them a lot even today. How good it would feel to get the chance to do that with him just once more. I think that is why I find it often so emotional taking my own boys hiking or climbing nowadays. Mountains create powerful bonds between people. It is their great appeal to me. But it wasn’t just climbing. Dad and I would often go to the local stables and hire a couple of horses for a tenner and go jumping the breakwaters along the beach. Every time I fell off in the wet sand and was on the verge of bursting into tears, Dad would applaud me and say that I was slowly becoming a horseman. In other words, you can’t become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again a good number of times. There’s life in a nutshell.

A meta-analysis of sixty-six studies completed in 1992 found that mothers who have more support from grandmothers have less stress and more well-adjusted children. The more involved the grandmothers are, the more involved dads are, too.

Children Are a Gift Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. —PSALM 127:3 NASB     In a recent women’s Bible study, the teacher asked the group, “Did you feel loved by your parents when you were a child?” Here are some of the responses. • “A lot of pizza came to the house on Friday nights when my parents went out for the evening.” • “I got in their way. I wasn’t important to them.” • “They were too busy for me.” • “Mom didn’t have to work, but she did just so she wouldn’t have to be home with us kids.” • “I spent too much time with a babysitter.” • “Mom was too involved at the country club to spend time with me.” • “Dad took us on trips, but he played golf all the time we were away.” So many of the ladies felt they were rejected by their parents in their childhoods. There was very little love in their homes. What would your children say in response to the same question? I’m sure we all would gain insight from our children’s answers. In today’s verse we see that children are a reward (gift) from the Lord. In Hebrew, “gift” means “property—a possession.” Truly, God has loaned us His property or possessions to care for and to enjoy for a certain period of time. My Bob loves to grow vegetables in his raised-bed garden each summer. I am amazed at what it takes to get a good crop. He cultivates the soil, sows seeds, waters, fertilizes, weeds, and prunes. Raising children takes a lot of time, care, nurturing, and cultivating as well. We can’t neglect these responsibilities if we are going to produce good fruit. Left to itself, the garden—and our children—will end up weeds. Bob always has a smile on his face when he brings a big basket full of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans into the kitchen. As the harvest is Bob’s reward, so children are parents’ rewards. Let your home be a place where its members come to be rejuvenated after a very busy time away from it. We liked to call our home the “trauma center”—a place where we could make mistakes, but also where there was healing. Perfect people didn’t reside at our address. We tried to teach that we all make mistakes and certainly aren’t always right. Quite often in our home we could hear the two

more involved dads,

get him killed by … someone. Someone scary enough that the huntress doesn’t want to get involved. She whacks like seven-eight of their guys, but she doesn’t want to get into this. Stupidly, Alpha Male charges ahead where the Goddess of the Hunt fears to tread. Because my rallying cry is “MORONS FORWARD!” or something of that sort. Mercy. I say none of this to Dr. Perugini, because a) she’s not going to believe me, and b) none of this makes me look cool, especially the part where I’m not the Big Damn Hero doing the saving. Also, there are a lot of tourists around us and most of them speak English. Call me self-conscious, but I don’t want anyone thinking I’m crazy. There is still a widely accepted cult of skepticism about the existence of metahumans, even after the Minneapolis incident. We go through a corridor of tapestries, and one of them has a Jesus that the tour guide swears is watching. I picture someone behind the wall like in the old movies, eyeballs staring out, then dismiss that thought as utter nonsense. Then I move, and I swear the tapestry’s eyes move with me. No, I am not a fan of the “Jesus is watching” tapestry. It’s like he can sense my impure thoughts about Dr. Perugini and he is not pleased. Come on, man, your dad supposedly intelligently designed her. Like this wasn’t predictable.

The next day we sat in Geir’s bedroom and wrote a love letter to Anne Lisbet. His parents’ house was identical to ours, it had exactly the same rooms, facing in exactly the same directions, but it was still unendingly different, because for them functionality reigned supreme, chairs were above all else comfortable to sit in, not attractive to look at, and the vacuumed, almost mathematically scrupulous, cleanliness that characterized our rooms was utterly absent in their house, with tables and the floor strewn with whatever they happened to be using at that moment. In a way, their lifestyle was integrated into the house. I suppose ours was, too, it was just that ours was different. For Geir’s father, sole control of his tools was unthinkable, quite the contrary, part of the point of how he brought up Geir and Gro was to involve them as much as possible in whatever he was doing. They had a workbench downstairs, where they hammered and planed, glued and sanded, and if we felt like making a soap-box cart, for example, or a go-kart, as we called it, he was our first port of call. Their garden wasn’t beautiful or symmetrical as ours had become after all the hours Dad had spent in it, but more haphazard, created on the functionality principle whereby the compost heap occupied a large space, despite its unappealing exterior, and likewise the stark, rather weed-like potato plants growing in a big patch behind the house where we had a ruler-straight lawn and curved beds of rhododendrons.

Alternatives to time-out Isolating children for a period of time has become a popular discipline strategy advocated by many child psychologists and pediatricians. However, newly adopted toddlers seem to be more upset than helped by time-outs. Time-outs are intended to provide an opportunity for both parents and children to calm down and change their behaviors, but it isn’t effective for children who do not have self-calming strategies. Isolation can be traumatic for a toddler who is struggling with grief and/or attachment, and so perceives time-out as further rejection. If the child becomes angrier or more withdrawn as a result of being timed-out, try another strategy. One alternative is for parents to impose a brief time-out on themselves by temporarily withdrawing their attention from their child. For example, the parent whose child is throwing toys stops playing, looks away, and firmly tells the child, “I can’t continue playing until you stop throwing your toys.” Sitting passively next to the child may be effective, especially if the child previously was engaged in an enjoyable activity with the parent. Another alternative to parent enforced time-outs is self-determined time-outs, where the child is provided the opportunity to withdraw from a conflict voluntarily or at least have some input into the time-out arrangement. The parent could say, “I understand that you got very upset when you had to go to your room yesterday after you hit Sara. Can you think of a different place you would like to go to calm down if you feel like getting in a fight?” If the child suggests going out on the porch, the next time a battle seems to be brewing, Mom or Dad can say, “Do you need to go outside to the porch and calm down before we talk more?” Some children eventually reach the level of self-control where they remove themselves from a volatile situation without encouragement from Mom or Dad. These types of negotiations usually work better with older preschoolers or school-age children than they do with toddlers because of the reasoning skills involved. As an alternative to being timed-out, toddlers also can be timed-in while in the safety of a parent’s lap. Holding allows parents to talk to their child about why she’s being removed from an activity. For example, the toddler who has thrown her truck at the cat could be picked up and held for a few minutes while being told, “I can’t let you throw your toys at Misty. That hurts her, and in our family we don’t hurt animals. We’ll sit here together until you’re able to calm down.” Calming strategies could incorporate music, back rubs, or encouraging the child to breathe slowly. Objects that children are misusing should also be removed. For example, in the situation just discussed, the truck could be timed-out to a high shelf. If parents still decide to physically remove their child for a time-out, it should never be done in a way or place that frightens a toddler. Toddlers who have been frightened in the past by closed doors, dark rooms, or a particular room such as a bathroom should never be subjected to those settings. I know toddlers who, in their terror, have literally trashed the furniture and broken windows when they were locked in their rooms for a time-out. If parents feel a time-out is essential, it should be very brief, and in a location where the child can be supervised.

Principal Hansberry came to each of our classrooms that afternoon to talk to us about discipline and wasting food and respecting the cafeteria workers. I was really worried that Danny would be suspended for starting the food fight. He’d only been helping me. If he got in trouble, I’d have to come clean and take his punishment instead. But the principal had decided that this was “first-week high spirits.” Instead of singling out anyone for punishment, she made the whole school use the last hour of the day to help clean up the cafeteria. That was the first time we’d been punished like that for a food fight. We all got to see what a huge gross mess we had left behind. Lots of kids complained that they hadn’t thrown any food, but Principal Hansberry said that since making the mess was a “group effort,” cleaning it up should be, too. Plus we all had to write a note to take home that said, “Dear Mom and Dad, I am sorry if I have ketchup or anything on my clothes today. We were involved in a food fight at lunch, and we feel very bad for causing so much trouble. Please accept my apology for the extra laundry.” Personally, I thought this was kind of a funny note. But we had to bring it back signed by our parents, so a lot of people didn’t think it was so funny. Luckily they weren’t mad at me or Danny, though. Except for Avery. He tried to get Danny in trouble by telling Principal Hansberry who’d started the fight. But she told him that wasn’t necessary. She said everyone was “responsible for the mob mentality we saw here today,” whatever that means. The most amazing part was that nobody said anything about Merlin. I guess a lot of people didn’t see him. But even the ones who did didn’t admit it. Vice Principal Taney came into our class and asked: “Did anyone here see a dog in the cafeteria before or during the food fight?” No one raised their hands. After a minute, Heidi said: “Maybe you imagined it, Mr. Taney,” in this really innocent voice. I was worried that Avery would tell, but later Hugo told me that nobody in Mr. Guare’s class answered Mr. Taney’s question either. I don’t know why Avery didn’t say anything. Maybe he already knew everyone was mad at him for snitching on Danny.

Having an involved father is a strong predictor of a child’s eventual level of empathy. Optimally this involvement should begin when children are starting elementary school. Moving from preschool to elementary school is a big transition for kids. Dads, who often take the lead on making the outside world enticing, appear to grease the wheels and make this transition easier. This effect is equally marked for young girls and boys alike.

Last summer, Dad and I went on an adventure involving a nefarious organization called the Agents of DUCK. Where DUCK is just an acronym for Dudes Undercover Chasing Kevin. You ask, who is Kevin, well let’s just say someone really wanted it to spell DUCK and leave it at that.

At a very basic level, anti-rape activism is about survival. Many of us are survivors trying to survive, and spectacles of mass wounding such as #MeToo evoke a gendered state of siege. Being raped often involves a visceral fear of death, whether the rape is physically violent or not – it is what makes us freeze, instead of fighting back. And if we freeze, perhaps we need our ‘kill’ after the experience is over. Unlike Arya Stark, we do not do our own killing. Instead, we ask the ‘Angry Dad’ or ‘White Knight’ of the state or institution to do it for us. And the destruction of bodily boundaries involved in criminal punishment mirrors the experience of rape.

Yup. I’m a ninja. But back then I didn’t give a damn about ninja. The hokage is the top ninja of the village. But this isn’t a tale about a boy who aims to become hokage. That was my dad’s story. This is none other than my story. However, since I’m the hokage’s son, I can’t help that my dad ends up being involved in my story. The shinobi whose dream came true, the hokage and my story begins when I was a brat who sulked about his dad not paying enough attention to him. I’ll say this one more time, this is my story. Except, for just a little bit at the start, it’s the story of me and my dad.

ahead. He urged the horse a little faster and when he was within her hearing, he whistled. The piercing sound cut through the air and Vanni turned her mount toward him. She took one look at him, turned and kicked Chico’s flank, taking off. “Goddammit!” he swore. So, this was how it would be—not easy. He was going to have to take off the gloves. He risked being thrown by giving Liberty a snap with the end of his rein. The stallion reared. Paul hung on, then leaned low in the saddle while Liberty closed the space between them. By God, he was going to catch her, make her listen, get through to her. There was no one within shouting distance to distract them. For once in his life, he was going to finish! Even if he had to cover Vanessa’s mouth with his hand! It only took him a few minutes to catch up to her, thanks to Liberty, the champion of the stable. Pulling alongside Vanni he reached out over her hands and grabbed her reins, pulling Chico to a stop. The expression she turned on him was fierce. “What?” she demanded. “Listen to me!” he retorted. “Make it quick!” “Fine. Here’s quick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.I loved you before Matt saw you, but I didn’t have hisguts and I hung back. I’ve regretted that forever. Now I have—” “A baby coming,” she interrupted, lifting her chin. “Listen! I don’t know much about being a father! Just what I watched when I was growing up! And you know what I saw? I saw my parents with their arms around each other all the time! I saw them look at each other with all kinds of emotions—love and trust and commitment and—Vanni, here’s the ugly truth—if I made a baby, I’m not angry about that. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m not angry. I’ll do my damn best, and I’m real sorry that I’m not in love with the baby’s mother. I’ll still take care of them—and not just by writing a check. I’ll be involved—take care of the child like a real father, support the mother the best I can. What that child is not going to see is his parents looking at each other like they’ve made a terrible mistake. I want him to see his dad with his arms around his wife and—” “Did you try?” she asked. “Did you give the woman who’s got your baby in her a chance?” “Is that what you want for her? She’s a decent person, Vanessa—she didn’t get pregnant on purpose. You want her stuck with a man who’s got another woman on his mind? I didn’t want this to happen to her—I’m not sticking her with half a husband! She deserves a chance to find someone who can give her the real thing.” “But she loves you. She does, doesn’t she? She wanted to get married.” “Vanessa, she’s scared and alone. It’s what comes to mind. She’ll be all right when she realizes I’m not going to let her down. And I’m not going to—” “All this because you couldn’t open your mouth and say how you felt, what you wanted,” she said hotly. “I wanted so little from you—just a word or gesture—some hint that you had feelings for me. Instead, you took your wounded little heart to another woman and—” She stopped her tirade as she saw his eyes narrow and his frown deepen. He glared at her for a long moment, then he jumped off the stallion, her mount’s reins still in his hands. He led the horses the short distance to the river’s edge, to a bank of trees. “What are you doing?” she asked, hanging on to the pommel. He secured the horses at a fallen tree, then reached up to her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her none too gently out of the saddle. He whirled her around and pressed her up against a tree, holding her wrists over her head and pinioning her there with the whole length of his body. His face was close to hers. “You never opened your mouth, either,” he said. She was stunned speechless. She couldn’t remember a time Paul had ever behaved like this—aggressive, commanding. He leaned closer. “Open it now,” he demanded of her just before he covered her mouth with his.

He urged the horse a little faster and when he was within her hearing, he whistled. The piercing sound cut through the air and Vanni turned her mount toward him. She took one look at him, turned and kicked Chico’s flank, taking off. “Goddammit!” he swore. So, this was how it would be—not easy. He was going to have to take off the gloves. He risked being thrown by giving Liberty a snap with the end of his rein. The stallion reared. Paul hung on, then leaned low in the saddle while Liberty closed the space between them. By God, he was going to catch her, make her listen, get through to her. There was no one within shouting distance to distract them. For once in his life, he was going to finish! Even if he had to cover Vanessa’s mouth with his hand! It only took him a few minutes to catch up to her, thanks to Liberty, the champion of the stable. Pulling alongside Vanni he reached out over her hands and grabbed her reins, pulling Chico to a stop. The expression she turned on him was fierce. “What?” she demanded. “Listen to me!” he retorted. “Make it quick!” “Fine. Here’s quick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.I loved you before Matt saw you, but I didn’t have hisguts and I hung back. I’ve regretted that forever. Now I have—” “A baby coming,” she interrupted, lifting her chin. “Listen! I don’t know much about being a father! Just what I watched when I was growing up! And you know what I saw? I saw my parents with their arms around each other all the time! I saw them look at each other with all kinds of emotions—love and trust and commitment and—Vanni, here’s the ugly truth—if I made a baby, I’m not angry about that. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m not angry. I’ll do my damn best, and I’m real sorry that I’m not in love with the baby’s mother. I’ll still take care of them—and not just by writing a check. I’ll be involved—take care of the child like a real father, support the mother the best I can. What that child is not going to see is his parents looking at each other like they’ve made a terrible mistake. I want him to see his dad with his arms around his wife and—” “Did you try?” she asked. “Did you give the woman who’s got your baby in her a chance?” “Is that what you want for her? She’s a decent person, Vanessa—she didn’t get pregnant on purpose. You want her stuck with a man who’s got another woman on his mind? I didn’t want this to happen to her—I’m not sticking her with half a husband! She deserves a chance to find someone who can give her the real thing.” “But she loves you. She does, doesn’t she? She wanted to get married.” “Vanessa, she’s scared and alone. It’s what comes to mind. She’ll be all right when she realizes I’m not going to let her down. And I’m not going to—” “All this because you couldn’t open your mouth and say how you felt, what you wanted,” she said hotly. “I wanted so little from you—just a word or gesture—some hint that you had feelings for me. Instead, you took your wounded little heart to another woman and—” She stopped her tirade as she saw his eyes narrow and his frown deepen. He glared at her for a long moment, then he jumped off the stallion, her mount’s reins still in his hands. He led the horses the short distance to the river’s edge, to a bank of trees. “What are you doing?” she asked, hanging on to the pommel. He secured the horses at a fallen tree, then reached up to her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her none too gently out of the saddle. He whirled her around and pressed her up against a tree, holding her wrists over her head and pinioning her there with the whole length of his body. His face was close to hers. “You never opened your mouth, either,” he said. She was stunned speechless. She couldn’t remember a time Paul had ever behaved like this—aggressive, commanding. He leaned closer. “Open it now,” he demanded of her just before he covered her mouth with his.

One of the optional subjects that we could study at Eton was motor mechanics, roughly translated as “find an old banger, pimp it up, remove the exhaust, and rag it around the fields until it dies.” Perfect. I found an exhausted-looking, old brown Ford Cortina station wagon that I bought for thirty pounds, and, with some friends, we geared it up big-time. As we were only sixteen we weren’t allowed to take it on the road, but I reckoned with my seventeenth birthday looming that it would be perfect as my first, road-legal car. The only problem was that I needed to have it pass inspection, and to do that I had to get it to a garage. This involved having an adult drive with me. I persuaded Mr. Quibell that there was no better way that he could possibly spend a Saturday afternoon than drive me to a repair garage (in his beloved Slough). I had managed to take a lucky diving catch for the house cricket team the day before, so was in Mr. Quibell’s good books--and he relented. As soon as we got to the outskirts of Slough, though, the engine started to smoke--big-time. Soon, Mr. Quibell had to have the windshield wipers on full power, acting as a fan just to clear the smoke that was pouring out of the hood. By the time we made it to the garage the engine was red-hot and it came as no surprise that my car failed its inspection--on more counts than any car the garage had seen for a long time, they told me. It was back to the drawing board, but it was a great example of what a good father figure Mr. Quibell was to all those in his charge--especially to those boys who really tried, in whatever field it was. And I have always been, above all, a trier. I haven’t always succeeded, and I haven’t always had the most talent, but I have always given of myself with great enthusiasm--and that counts for a lot. In fact my dad had always told me that if I could be the most enthusiastic person I knew then I would do well. I never forgot that. And he was right. I mean, who doesn’t like to work with enthusiastic folk?

About 41 percent of mothers are primary breadwinners and earn the majority of their family’s income. Another 23 percent of mothers are co-breadwinners, contributing at least a quarter of the family’s earnings.30 The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly; between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from one in ten to one in five.31 These numbers are dramatically higher in Hispanic and African-American families. Twenty-seven percent of Latino children and 51 percent of African-American children are being raised by a single mother.32 Our country lags considerably behind others in efforts to help parents take care of their children and stay in the workforce. Of all the industrialized nations in the world, the United States is the only one without a paid maternity leave policy.33 As Ellen Bravo, director of the Family Values @ Work consortium, observed, most “women are not thinking about ‘having it all,’ they’re worried about losing it all—their jobs, their children’s health, their families’ financial stability—because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent.”34 For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst. Women are surrounded by headlines and stories warning them that they cannot be committed to both their families and careers. They are told over and over again that they have to choose, because if they try to do too much, they’ll be harried and unhappy. Framing the issue as “work-life balance”—as if the two were diametrically opposed—practically ensures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life? The good news is that not only can women have both families and careers, they can thrive while doing so. In 2009, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober published Getting to 50/50, a comprehensive review of governmental, social science, and original research that led them to conclude that children, parents, and marriages can all flourish when both parents have full careers. The data plainly reveal that sharing financial and child-care responsibilities leads to less guilty moms, more involved dads, and thriving children.35 Professor Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University did a comprehensive review of studies on work-life balance and found that women who participate in multiple roles actually have lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of mental well-being.36 Employed women reap rewards including greater financial security, more stable marriages, better health, and, in general, increased life satisfaction.37 It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality. We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers—or even happy professionals and competent mothers. The current negative images may make us laugh, but they also make women unnecessarily fearful by presenting life’s challenges as insurmountable. Our culture remains baffled: I don’t know how she does it. Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

She laughs. “You’re so much like your father. Sometimes I wonder if you got any of my DNA at all.” I’ve never really seen any similarities between my dad and me. Except our love of business—our drive to succeed. We’ve always been evenly matched in that respect. Otherwise, my father’s as straight-laced as they come. A dedicated, loyal family man through and through. Pretty much the opposite of me in every way. “I am?” She’s still chuckling. “One day I’ll tell you how your dad and I really ended up together at Columbia. And I’ll include all the dirty little details he never wanted you to know.” If that story involves sex in any way, I don’t want to hear it. Ever. As far as I’m concerned, my parents have had sex two times in their entire lives. Once for Alexandra and once for me. That’s it. On some level I realize I’m deluding myself, but this is one topic where I prefer to live in denial.

She shifted the light to the next section. “Huh. He was brought to Lyle House by a children’s services agency. No mention of that father they’re always talking about. If child services is involved, then you can bet he’s no dad of the year. Oh, here it is. Diagnosis … antisocial personality disorder.” She snorted a laugh. “Yeah? Tell me something I didn’t know. Is that really an illness? Being rude? What kind of meds do they give you for that?” “Whatever it is, they aren’t working.

girls with more involved dads develop greater self-esteem.

Problem with you Sangsters is you expect perfect. I never did. It just wasn't an option. You start liking boys in third grade? You know you're no Cossack's idea of the perfect son. Eighty percent of everything Dad's ever said to me involves either thermal units or ratchets, so he's not winning Father of the Year, either...But weirdly we're kind of happier than you guys. We're comfortable with the idea that we're screw-ups. Must be awful just figuring that out now.

In my fantasy, I always strangled them as they slept. I don’t know why, but it seemed the most humane way. I knew from my earliest sexual awakenings that I was gay. I was always attracted to men and never really questioned why. I just accepted the fact that I liked men and not women. I was raised Lutheran, and I knew the faith frowned on gays. I saw that openly gay people could have a tough time of it, so I decided to keep this my little secret. This wasn’t hard, since I kept most thoughts to myself. “I don’t know why, but my fantasies always included cutting into the dead bodies of my lovers. I sliced their torso from chin to crotch and pulled out their inner viscera, laying it on their chest. The thought of the warm inner cavity excited me tremendously, and I masturbated thinking about it. The orgasm was always pleasurable and intense. I’m not sure, but I think this was an extension of something I got involved in as a kid. When I was lonely or when my mom and dad fought, I walked the country roads by my house in Bath. I noticed that occasionally there were dead animals along the roadside, hit by cars. I was interested in what they looked like on the inside. At first, I brought them home and cut them up, examining their insides, not telling anyone. But the more interested I became, the less pleasure I got from just cutting into them. “The inner workings of these creatures fascinated me and I wanted to preserve their bones. I remember that I talked to Dad about my interest. I told him that I would like to preserve the bones in some way for future study. Dad was a chemist and knew all about chemicals that could clean off the dead skin. I wanted to sterilize the bones so they could be handled safely. I actually think he was proud of my interest. He helped me by providing various solutions, and even helped me build a little cemetery along the side of our garage to bury my experiments after I was finished studying them. This phase of finding dead animals along the road lasted until I was about fourteen. I actually had the complete set of bones from a large dog I found dead along the side of the road. It was a beagle, and I severed all the flesh from its body, cleaned and polished the bones with various solutions, and reassembled the animal on a large piece of wood. It was just like something in a museum.

preregister, which involves obtaining, reading, and signing pre-admission forms and a medical consent form. By registering in advance, you save time and avoid confusion when you arrive with the pregnant person in labor.

Often people get stuck in the S quadrant on their journey to the B quadrant. This happens primarily because they don’t develop a strong-enough system and end up becoming an integral part of the system. Successful B’s develop a system that will run without their involvement.

I remind people that financial IQ is made up of knowledge from four broad areas of expertise: 1.​Accounting Accounting is financial literacy or the ability to read numbers. This is a vital skill if you want to build an empire. The more money you are responsible for, the more accuracy is required, or the house comes tumbling down. This is the left-brain side, or the details. Financial literacy is the ability to read and understand financial statements which allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of any business. 2.​Investing Investing is the science of “money making money.” This involves strategies and formulas that use the creative right-brain side. 3.​Understanding markets Understanding markets is the science of supply and demand. You need to know the technical aspects of the market, which are emotion-driven, in addition to the fundamental or economic aspects of an investment. Does an investment make sense or does it not make sense based on current market conditions? 4.​The law A corporation wrapped around the technical skills of accounting, investing, and markets can contribute to explosive growth. A person who understands the tax advantages and protections provided by a corporation can get rich so much faster than someone who is an employee or a small-business sole proprietor. It’s like the difference between someone walking and someone flying. The difference is profound when it comes to long-term wealth.

There are two very different ways to view time with your family. One way is to see it as a compartment of your life to which you allocate time. If you spend time with your family in this way, you will never avoid the constant frustration that your family time is taking away from other important activities or that other important activities are taking away from family time. For working moms and dads, this involves long seasons where the family loses their best time and attention and those times can never be recaptured. We need to seriously consider another way. What if you decide to live in, with and through your family? What if you reject family as one of the compartments of your life and see family instead as the environment in which you experience as much of your life as possible? The more I began to identify myself with my family, the more this felt like the natural way to live. But be aware, virtually all elements of western culture are set up to separate individuals from their families. Rejecting this requires building a very different kind of culture. However, when I consider God’s design for the family and who he has called me to be as a father, I no longer believe treating family like a compartment is an option. Family is not a part of my life. My family is in me and I am in them and so we need to be deeply interconnected. To live like separate individuals is to deny this reality. How is this possible in today’s society? What does this look like? It begins by taking the elements of life that are compartments—work, worship, friendships, hobbies, learning etc.—and doing as many as possible with, in, through and as a family. Perhaps every day should be “take your child to work day.” Maybe it means you don’t separate and go into different groups to worship. You worship together, and even more importantly, you worship as a family in your home. Maybe it means your friends are friends of your family and that when you give your love and loyalty to a friend, you are giving that love and loyalty to their family. Maybe it means you either find ways to enjoy your hobbies with your family or you find new hobbies that your family can enjoy with you. Maybe it means that whenever someone in your family acquires a new skill, you complete the learning experience by sharing it with your family. But whenever possible you learn together.

Your dad is dead because he was involved in trafficking little kids to sick perverts, and when he got caught, he took the easy way out rather than face the truth at his trial.

Frank says of his dad, “He will brag about his involvement with the POWs and the VFW and the flag thing. But what I really appreciate about him is how he took care of my mother for ten years when she was really ill.

the rich will get richer because they will be involved in pre-IPO offerings.

I breathe in the fresh summer air as I pass a table covered with all sorts of cakes---Victorian sponge, Madeira, Battenberg, lemon drizzle. Again my mind drifts to my childhood, this time to the Michigan State Fair, which my family would visit at the end of every summer. It had all sorts of contests---pie eating, hog calling, watermelon seed spitting (Stevie's favorite)---but the cake competition was my favorite challenge of all. Every year I'd eye the confections longingly: the fluffy coconut cakes, the fudge chocolate towers filled with gooey caramel or silky buttercream, the cinnamon-laced Bundts topped with buttery streusel. The competition was divided into adult and youth categories, and when I turned twelve, I decided to enter a recipe for chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream and peanut brittle. My mom was a little befuddled by my participation (her idea of baking involved Duncan Hines and canned, shelf-stable frosting, preferably in a blinding shade of neon), but she rode along with my dad, Stevie, and me as we carted two-dozen cupcakes to the fairgrounds in Novi. The competition was steep---pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, German chocolate cupcakes, zucchini cupcakes with lemon buttercream---but my entry outshone them all, and I ended up taking home the blue ribbon, along with a gift certificate to King Arthur Flour.

Walkers I had a walker when I was a baby, and my two older kids did too. One might think that something called a walker would help with walking. As it turns out, there’s research showing that babies who use walkers actually start walking as much as a month later than kids who don’t use walkers. Other studies have shown that walker use may delay mental and physical development. And then there’s the actual danger. Eighty percent of walker-involved accidents are falls down stairs, and most end in a head injury—often the result of the baby pulling something down on top of himself or using the walker as a launching pad so he can lunge after even more dangerous things on higher surfaces. Another common complaint about walkers is that babies can build up some real speed and fly around the house smacking into everything in sight—fun for them (until they get hurt), not so fun for you. My suggestion? Stay away from walkers (amazingly, they’re still being sold) and most of the “safe” alternatives that are out there, unless your pediatrician specifically tells you to get one. Your baby will learn to walk when he’s darn good and ready.

The data plainly reveal that sharing financial and child-care responsibilities leads to less guilty moms, more involved dads, and thriving children.35 Professor Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University did a comprehensive review of studies on work-life balance and found that women who participate in multiple roles actually have lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of mental well-being.36 Employed women reap rewards including greater financial security, more stable marriages, better health, and, in general, increased life satisfaction.37

the phone rang just before 8 P.M., like the night second oboist Jerry Roth, dad of CNN’s Richard Roth, suffered an accident involving a roller-skating waiter, scalding hot soup, and his lap. I sight-read the concert; he recovered.

Ray Scott was a federal postal inspector—the dude carried a gun and cuffs; I’d grow muscles when the neighborhood kids would see him. He promised his four kids that he’d pay our college tuition if we maintained a 2.0 grade point average. After my sophomore year, I was skating along with a 2.7. Dad said he was restructuring our deal—he’d only pay if I kept a 3.0 or better. “That’s crap,” I said. That wasn’t the deal. It wasn’t fair—a common refrain from my teenagers today. But then something happened: In the fall of my junior year, I was heavily involved with my fraternity, I played club football, and I posted a 3.2 GPA. The next semester, I upped that to 3.6. The following one, 3.4. I remained pissed until years later, when it dawned on me: Dad knew I was better than a 2.7 student. And he knew I needed to be pushed. Funny, isn’t it, how much smarter our dads are when we get older?

What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child, but the courage to raise one. As fathers, we need to be involved in our children’s lives not just when it’s convenient or easy, and not just when they’re doing well—but when it’s difficult and thankless, and they’re struggling. That is when they need us most.

How can she look so sweet and innocent when her dad is most likely involved in one of the biggest sex trafficking rings in the country?

I’ve never seen Roman in love before, but from the first night he met Emily, that was it. It didn’t matter that he met her because we were investigating her dad’s involvement in sex trafficking, and it didn’t matter when he turned out to be guilty as fuck. She’s not responsible for her dad’s decisions. She wants to take them all down just as much as we do.

The community joined forces and made an investment in a shared goal, acknowledging their strong connection with the recipient of the resources, rather than simply offering charity. The community's composition remained relatively stable over an extended period, with few outsiders joining. This provided the "investors" with confidence that, even if not themselves, their future generations would reap the benefits. The first schools I attended, until standard 7, were constructed mostly through the efforts of the community the school serviced. After the Bantu Education Act was implemented in 1953, education for people in the homelands was financed through direct taxes paid by residents of the homelands, instead of general state spending. When there was a class short, the parents would pool their resources and build it

Despite having limited financial resources, the community took pride in working together and accomplishing what they could. Consequently, I don't remember people from the community intentionally damaging school property. This is because they would also be harming something that they helped build, and would have to fix it again. Additionally, they were related to someone who would be affected by the damage. The community strongly disapproved of acts of vandalism or any other inappropriate behaviour within the school premises, and they consistently enforced strict consequences once the offender was recognized.

Sazi is fortunate to be born of parents that are comparable enough to be able to see the impact of both nature and nurture. Even better is that no longer can allegations about women’s progress in life be attributed to society and ‘the patriarchy’ holding them back. Since 1994 there has been a concerted focus on directing taxpayer-funded programs to the upliftment of women; from educational programs at school, admission and funding of tertiary programs for women to employment and business funding that explicitly exclude boys and men. This ought to mean comparable men and women ought to achieve the same outcomes since there are essentially no differences between men and women. Lawmakers have implemented programs aimed at empowering and uplifting girls and women. These initiatives have actively sought to address the claimed long-standing societal and patriarchal barriers that have hindered their progress. So based on this, the difference in the sex of parents no longer favours men thus making comparing outcomes possible.

In today’s culture, ignoring others’ pain, looking the other way, working to not get involved, hoping someone else will help, or worse, criticizing the situation, is an epidemic at an all-time high. Compassion has become a dying art. God needs those who will be brave enough to offer their presence to be a vessel of His presence.

squatted at the corner of the hutch one more time. They’d been trying for an hour to get it loaded, but no matter how many different angles they attempted, it was too heavy for him and Violet to move on their own, especially with Violet’s arm still in a cast. “Let me give it a try.” Barney stepped forward, and Nate scrutinized him. He didn’t appear frail by any stretch, but the man was nearly ninety years old. Nate didn’t want to be responsible for breaking him. “Barnabas Riley, step away from that hutch right this minute.” Gladys bustled into the room, pointing a spatula at her husband. Barney stepped back. “Busted.” But he nudged Nate and whispered, “I wasn’t really going to do it. Just had to show her I’m still willing.” Nate laughed with him, but Violet gave the hutch a regretful pat. “Looks like it wasn’t meant to be.” “Hold on a minute, dear. You’re the one we want to have this.” Gladys disappeared again. Nate and Violet both looked at Barney, but he threw his hands into the air. “Even after sixty-five years of marriage, I don’t understand everything about that woman.” He winked at them again. “Keeps me on my toes.” Three minutes later, Gladys reappeared. “I called Sylvia, and she said her grandson can come over to help us.” “That’s great.” Violet pulled out a chair to sit down and stifled a yawn. She looked exhausted. “In the morning,” Gladys finished. Violet dropped the hand that had been covering her yawn. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we can come back tomorrow.” “Of course not.” Gladys waved her objection away. “You can stay with us. It’s getting late anyway. You don’t want to drive back yet tonight.” Nate stole a subtle peek at the time. It was already eight o’clock. And Violet looked ready to drop. She gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged, hoping she would understand that meant it was up to her. “I guess that would work. The store is always closed on Mondays anyway.” Her eyes traveled to Nate. “Unless you need to be in the office.” He should be. He really should be. If Dad called and he didn’t answer, he would never hear the end of it. But right now, he cared more about what Violet needed. And she needed this hutch to save her store. “I don’t need to be in the office.” “Oh, but Tony―” Violet clasped his arm. She had a point there. He couldn’t leave his dog uncared for. “Unless.” Violet pulled out her phone. “Just a second.” She wandered toward the kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear. “Looks like I’m not the only one with a mysterious woman.” Barney chuckled so hard he broke into a coughing fit. “Oh, we’re―” “Neighbors.” Gladys rested a hand on her husband’s back. “We know.” Barney stopped coughing and straightened, shooting Nate a wink. Nate was about to argue more, but Violet stepped back into the room. Her smile was enough to steal his protest. “Sophie’s going to stop by to take care of Tony tonight and tomorrow morning. I hope you don’t mind, but I told her about your super-secret hiding spot for the spare key.” Nate pretended to be shocked. “How do you know about that?” “I saw you putting it under the mat the other day when you forgot your keys, remember?” He did remember. He had been especially enchanted by her laugh that day. It was amazing how many of his recent memories involved her. Including

my glass as I spoke. “I can’t go into details, but Francis Allard is dead.” Monica Toups gasped out loud and almost dropped her glass. “He’s dead? But I just spoke with him last week. It…but what happened?” “Like I said, I can’t get into it, but I do need to ask you about a girl’s graduation ring he might’ve had in his possession.” “Oh, yeah, that was Sarah’s ring. He wouldn’t tell me how he came to have it, but he said it was in Derrick Landry’s possession.” “Did you find that suspicious?” “No, I knew about it.” She excused herself and went inside the house. When she returned, she was holding a boy’s graduation ring. She handed it to me. “This was Derrick’s graduation ring. He had Sarah’s ring and she had his. I didn’t find out about it until after we lost her. I’ve been tempted to approach him and get the ring back, but I don’t trust myself around him. If I wouldn’t hit him, I’d definitely spit in his face, because deep down in my heart, I know he’s responsible for what happened to Sarah.” I mulled over what I had learned. A possibility was starting to emerge. “Do you think she went out on the lake with Derrick?” “That’s what Phil thinks.” She frowned. “I’m just not sure how Derrick’s involved, but I know he is.” “What does Phil think?” “He thinks Derrick picked Sarah up at the front of the street and they went to the lake. He thinks they were in a boating accident and Derrick left Sarah to drown. He believes Derrick’s dad was called and they cleaned up the debris before the police could get to the lake and investigate.” “Why would he make such an effort to cover up an accident?” “Because he would go to jail for statutory rape, that’s why, and it would ruin any chances of him getting a football scholarship.” She grunted. “He used to walk around bragging that he would be the next Cajun Cannon and that he would play for the Saints someday.” “I’m guessing that didn’t happen.” “No, he ended up running his dad’s store. He never did go to college, and I’ve often wondered if the guilt was too much for him to bear.” I still didn’t have any evidence on Derrick Landry, and I knew Monica Toups didn’t have any answers, so I wrapped up my visit with her. “Will you please find out what happened to my daughter?” “I’ll do my best, ma’am,” I said, wondering if I should be making such a promise. After all, Francis Allard made a similar promise, and look what happened to him. CHAPTER 26 While it had started out nice and cool, the day had quickly turned hot. Despite the canopy over the boat, Susan was dripping sweat. She glanced over at Melvin. He was also swimming in his clothes. “I’m seeing shell casings behind every clump of mud,” Melvin mumbled as he turned away from the monitor on the endoscope and rubbed his tired eyes. “I think we’ve found all there is to find.” Susan was thoughtful. They had located a total of twenty-four casings and Clint and Amy had located one, so there were still

All those old-timers were taught all kinds of rules to handle all kinds of situations. But no situation in the real world is ever going to match what the rules were made up to handle. He gets to adapt, without a bunch of rules in the way, that wouldn’t solve the problem anyway.” I looked at her. “You’re trying to say that walking around lost and confused is an unfair advantage?” “Gee, Dad, I thought I got it done. No trying involved.

Since your partner is carrying the child, it’s possible that dads will feel a kind of emotional detachment from the process. That’s normal. This is why you should seek to involve yourself in whatever capacity you can. Accompany your partner to doctor’s appointments, go shopping for baby items, paint the baby’s room, and do everything in your power to make your partner feel like you’re just as invested in this as she is.