Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks,... but what we do for them is never wasted.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don't put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should ...sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Adolescence hits boys harder than it does girls. Girls bleed a little and their breasts pop out, big deal, but adolescence lands o...n a guy with both feet. . . . Your body is engulfed by chemicals of rage and despair, you pound, you shriek, you batter your head against the trees. You come away wounded, feeling that life is unknowable, can never be understood, only endured and sometimes cheated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his an...tlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, "Daddy, I need to ask you something," he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A married guy is responsible for everything, no matter what. Women, thanks to their having been oppressed all these years, are bla...meless, free as birds, and all the dirt they do is the result of premenstrual syndrome or postmenstrual stress or menopause or emotional disempowerment by their fathers or low expectations by their teachers or latent unspoken sexual harassment in the workplace, or some other airy excuse. The guy alone is responsible for every day of marriage that is less than marvelous and meaningful.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We live a pleasant life shopping at the Food Shoppe . . . taking the kids to the Weinery-Beanery, . . . and eating bran flakes . .... . and then, with no warning, we wake up one morning stricken with middle age, full of loneliness, dumb, in pain. Our work is useless, our vocation is lost, and nobody cares about us at all. This is not bearable. In despair, we go do something spectacularly dumb, like run away with Amber the cocktail waitress, and suddenly all the women in our life look at us with unmitigated disgust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We carry adolescence around in our bodies all our lives. We get through the Car Crash Age alive and cruise through our early twent...ies as cool dudes, wily, dashing, winsome . . . shooting baskets, the breeze, the moon, and then we try to become caring men, good husbands, great fathers, good citizens.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Girls . . . were allowed to play in the house . . . and boys were sent outdoors. . . . Boys ran around in the yard with toy guns g...oing kksshh-kksshh, fighting wars for made-up reasons and arguing about who was dead, while girls stayed inside and played with dolls, creating complex family groups and learning how to solve problems through negotiation and roleplaying. Which gender is better equipped, on the whole, to live an adult life, would you guess?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »