Reading Time: 2 minutes Humans have been paired with chimps in movies, television, and books as far back as I can remember. I’d assume that’s mostly due to the similarities we share with these great apes—how we can see ourselves in them and undeniably realize our link to them, despite also being indoctrinated elsewhere into the idea that humans […]
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Posted inParenting & Family
After Uvalde, an open letter to US legislators with children
Reading Time: 4 minutes A father of 2 boys, still trying to process the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, TX, addresses legislators on assault rifles.
Posted inParenting & Family
How do we explain gun violence to our kids?
Reading Time: 3 minutes How do we strike a balance between honesty and shielding when we discuss Sunday’s mass shooting in Buffalo?
Posted inReproductive rights
How to discuss the overturning of Roe v. Wade with our kids
Reading Time: 4 minutes We’ve heard about the SCOTUS decision. Changes to abortion laws are coming. Now it’s time to discuss it with our kids. Here’s how.
Posted inParenting & Family
For which it stands
Reading Time: 8 minutes My son, now 5 years old, was chosen to lead his school in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. As an atheist and a parent, I have mixed feelings about this—especially when he asked me what “under God” means. Why I let him do it despite my misgivings, and how to use the Pledge as a teaching moment in secular parenting philosophy.
Posted inParenting & Family
Parenting a precocious child
Reading Time: 3 minutes She was savvy even as a toddler, with apt facial expressions to match—the knitted brow, narrowed eyes, faraway gaze, puckish grin, chin in hand. When she was three, I asked her to her face if she was the Buddha. She demurred. And so it went through years of parenting a socially astute, logically shrewd child. […]
Posted inParenting & Family
Finding Nemo, belly up
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’ve been three deaths in our immediate family in the past 48 hours. Wait, lemme go downstairs and check. Okay, four. Squishy, Squirmy, Stripey, and now—uh, another one—were found one at a time, white-eyed and motionless, in our new aquarium. They were tiger barb fish. Now they’re not. Yes, we took all appropriate steps in […]
Posted inMyth & Folklore
The death of a useful monster
Reading Time: 3 minutes High in the Pennines in the north of England, in the gold-brown water of the River Tees, lives a creature named Peg Powler. She’s a mermaid, kind of, but she’s no Ariel. Peg is a river hag, with green hair and skin and a row of jagged teeth. And unlike Ariel, she lives not to make children […]
Posted inMyth & Folklore
Sleep tight or die trying
Reading Time: 3 minutes Kids raised in traditional Guarani homes may forget many things about their upbringing, but they never forget Jasy Jateré.
Posted inParenting & Family
Racing against the speed of light
Reading Time: 4 minutes OnlySky · Racing against the speed of light | Dale McGowan Our family has a longstanding relationship with the speed of light. We take care never to exceed it, for one thing. But there’s more than that. As a kid, I had a lot of light-related fascinations—that light had a speed at all, for starters, […]