Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Yesterday I got a comment on another post from a parent who ended up on my blog. The short version is that at a public play-place her son was hurt by a child with DS and she didn’t know what to do about it, because how can you blame a child with DS for anything? …
In my Chronicle piece on being a father, I wrote: No one has ever questioned my work ethic to my face because I’m a father. In fact, one day I was so tired from caring for my two children—at the time a 2-year-old boy and a 3-month-old baby girl with colic—that I simply lost my ability …
I have a new piece in the Chronicle today on being a “working dad,” a phrase I intend to own and explicate a lot over the next year. It ends: Academic dads operate with the privilege of separating their home life from their work life in ways unavailable to women. We get to be silent …
Anne and Bobby, used by permission Anne Grunsted, who I know, has written a wonderful essay in Chicago Parent about about the “Selfless Mother Club.” As in – “Don’t look at my son with Down syndrome and put me in the selfless mother club, it demeans both him and me.” (paraphrasing). I love this phrase. I …
McDonald’s toys are in the zeitgeist. More specifically, the gender-normative ways in which McDonald’s describes their toys are in the zeitgest, and perhaps some progress has been made. Last year I wrote a “straight married white male feminist manifesto.” I wrote it for the Good Men Project which means I deliberately waved a red flag …
How is a daddy supposed to deal with Disney? My daughter, who is not quite 5, sings “Let it Go” at me approximately eight thousand times a day. What she lacks in intonation she more than makes up with the verve and gusto with which she goes after the song, not to mention the slamming …
Last May, I began an essay on gender norms and my daughter this way: When the rocket scientist Yvonne Brill died in March, The New York Times celebrated her as the maker of a “mean beef stroganoff” and “the world’s best mother.” When my 4-year-old daughter, Ellie, a wildly creative and interesting girl, finished a …
My son rides the regular school bus, a step that we decided on this year. The system has been supportive. Nico’s aide meets us at the bus stop and facilitates the ride. On the rare days when he takes the bus home, she’s there (she has to take the bus anyway to get back to …
Did you read it? Did you laugh? This meme is all over my Facebook feed again this week, though it’s 2 years old. Over half a million people have liked the version on Takei’s page, tens of thousands sharing, and there are over 10,000 comments. The ones I saw were all positive, though I read …
For the 100th day of school at my daughter’s pre-school, students were supposed to come as their favorite superhero or princess. My daughter is the batgirl on the left. My daughter’s teacher is the superwoman on the right. My whole theory on parenting against the grain is to try and create space for my children, …