Here is one of my favorite stories about one of my nieces. It’s ridiculously cute. When she was little, her nursery school teacher had a lesson on fire safety. She asked the kids, “If your clothes were on fire, what would you do?” My niece said, “Well, I wouldn’t put them on.” It’s great because it’s so sensible. But when

As a non-parent, I’ve always been struck by how often parents believe that their small child’s tendencies or slight delays indicate what kind of adult they will be. I’ve seen enough difficult two-year-olds to grow into easygoing nine-year-olds, for instance, to ascribe temper tantrums to a child’s age rather than her personality. It’s clear to me that a child who

Yesterday, Mr. Donovan and I celebrated an anniversary. Like any couple who’s been together for a very long time, we’ve been through some challenges. We are happier together than ever, and I thought I’d write about why, the way some other bloggers have done. I do know that in a lot of ways, I’m just plain lucky to have married the right person.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how age is only about half biological reality, and half a social construct. It’s something that we perform. Satchel Paige famously said, How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? Paige did not perform his chronological age. He began his very long baseball career in the Negro Leagues. In 1948, at the