So you want to leave New Jersey…
This opinion piece I wrote appeared today in The Burlington County Times: “Guest Opinion: If you leave New Jersey, it’s your loss.”
Entries Tagged as 'family & parenting'
Mental health and athletes, young and old
Conversations about the mind and sports that I have participated in over the years have tended to consist of topics like mind over body, “training” the mind, etc. Now there’s a different, and growing, dialogue: Mental health and sports. [Read more →]
An old wrestling head (not me!) laments the problems of youth sports
Sometimes in an unexpected, tucked-away place I’ll come across a piece of writing that hits home. Brandon Day, a veteran youth wrestling coach, wrote a piece for the Times Herald in Port Huron, Michigan, and he opens bluntly: “After 17 years coaching at the high school level, I am not a big fan of the youth sports culture in America today”. [Read more →]
Casino Night raises $18,000 for Palmyra High School arts programs
PALMYRA, NJ – Arts programming at Palmyra High School (PHS) will receive a boost of $18,000 following a Casino Night community fundraiser organized by the school’s education foundation. [Read more →]
Bless you, fantasy football
My boys have never watched football, and I have counted this as a parental failing. [Read more →]
We were all ready for the next step: College. Yet…
This past weekend, we moved child #2, our son Nate, into college. The next stop on his life and educational path: Drexel University. [Read more →]
Zero your inbox–it can be done!
We just took the boys, teenagers both, to the pediatrician. Now that they’re 15 and 18, that paper we get listing healthy behaviors is more complicated and involved than when they were five and eight. Eat fresh fruit, don’t do drugs, look both ways before crossing the street–but you really wanna help your kids have healthy, happy lives?: Teach them how to zero out their email inboxes. [Read more →]
English majors get good jobs
I am an English Professor, so I am invested in demonstrating that students who major in English are successful, as measured in various ways. Keep in mind, thought, that I would consider it unethical to persuade a student to major in English simply because it’s my field: Instead, it’s my field because I believe in its value. [Read more →]
Whupping the teenage boy literacy crisis with the vacation journal
If you’re lucky, your boys are eager readers. If you’re really lucky, your boys are eager writers. But in many households, of course, neither is the case, and folks are in the midst of summer book battles. [Read more →]
Detaching
I have this image in my mind, a little movie, although I can’t remember where I saw it (perhaps it was one of my vivid dreams): A dad pulls into the driveway after a day of work. His tiny son is playing with a truck in the yard. When the boy sees dad the truck drops from his hand, as if it didn’t exist, and the boy scampers over. The dad sweeps him up.
I love that image. [Read more →]
Baby teeth
At one point, my wife and I were young guns, a couple with small kids. We moved into our neighborhood 18 years ago, and it was full of children. Ours were among the youngest. When our “Lane gang” went to school those first few years, the group pic had 20+ kids. But each year, the number dwindled, until there were only three or four kids. The lane, for a few years, was quiet. [Read more →]
Punishment and… crime?
We are not strict parents. My boys are the only ones home now, and while I don’t think I should be their best bud, we have an easy, pleasant rapport. However, I sometimes think my reluctance to disrupt that rapport has prevented me from laying down the hammer.
The arc of life lessons
As a parent, you are lead to believe that part of your job is to impart wisdom. You quickly realize that curve of wisdom climbs upward snugly alongside the curve of your progeny’s ages. [Read more →]
A good story about a local football player’s path to the NFL draft
I had a specific reason for watching the NFL draft last weekend: I was waiting to see when Kelvin Harmon, a wide receiver from North Carolina State who played his high school football at my local high school, Palmyra, was going to be drafted. [Read more →]
A short “play” in honor of the great Eli Goldblatt
My dissertation advisor, Dr. Eli Goldblatt, is retiring after many years at Temple University. I wrote the following as part of a tribute to the great man that took place at Temple on April 1.
“A Real Advisor (We’ll Call Him ‘Eli’) and a Gloomy, Lethargic, Uncertain Grad Student (GLUGS)”
A short play. [Read more →]
Oh, Mrs. (and you too, Mr.) Maisel, do you know where your children are?
We blew through The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It was a good spousal bonding experience, if for no other reasons than that she liked it enough to a) watch it all and b) stay awake through (most) of it. I thought the first two seasons were great, big-theater-on-TV that it is. Mrs. Maisel herself is, well, talented and marvelous, and I loved the anatomy of stand-up comedy. [Read more →]
Shiny objects and loud noises and Super Bowls
Sorry, haters, but I enjoyed Super Bowl 53. To me, it was anything but a snooze-fest, and I’d say I was surprised that so many people saw it that way except I kept getting jolted with a reminder by almost every Super Bowl ad about what people want: Explosions and crashes and cliched one-liners. Shiny objects and loud noises. [Read more →]
Girls wrestling–and it’s about time
There was a big moment in South Jersey wrestling last week: Kingsway High School and Rancocas Valley High School squared off in a match. Both teams were comprised of girls.
It’s about time. [Read more →]
No PARCC, no problem–if we get creative
At the very end of 2018, a New Jersey appeals court struck down the use of the PARCC test (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) as a graduation requirement for public high school students. That’s great news for the many people, including me, frustrated by the excesses of standardized testing. [Read more →]
Stupid for holiday music
I stumbled across something last year and tucked it away: Studies show Christmas songs can be bad for your stress and mental state. [Read more →]
