Top Highlights

• Such moments, when they are not subverted by us, as I could easily have done in my initial annoyance, and when they are not passed over entirely unnoticed, as we do with so many of our moments, are part of the blessing and the bliss of parenting. Are they special? Is it just at the moment of arrival, the first time home from college, or at the birt...
• What is important is that we be authentic, and that we honor our children and ourselves as best we can, and that our intention be to, at the very least, do no harm.
• it is as if up to now I needed another kind of son to love, and now I don’t anymore.
• When I can choose to be kind instead of cruel, to understand rather than judge, to accept rather than reject, my children, no matter what their ages, are nourished and strengthened.
• To the extent that we are chronically preoccupied and invariably pressed for time, we may be significantly out of touch with the richness of what Thoreau called the “bloom” of the present moment. This moment—any moment, actually—may seem far too ordinary, routine, and fleeting to single out for attention. If we are in fact caught up in such habits ...