After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: Develop a strong family narrative.
Superman’s original name was Kal-El, or Swift God. His father’s name was Jor-El. Superman was clearly drawn as a modern-day god.
The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.
There is profundity to explore, but also laundry to do.
The higher the joy is not the light, it’s the reflection. The greater pleasure is not climbing up; it’s handing down.
May your first word be adventure and last word love.
But humans disappoint. Adam, in tasting the fruit, indicates that he prefers Eve to God, so God banishes them.
One day, my daughter Tybee came to me, and she said, ‘I have so much love for you in my body, Daddy, I can’t stop giving you hugs and kisses. And when I have no more love left, I just drink milk, because that’s where love comes from.’
Children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules, evaluate their own work build up their frontal cortex and take more control over their lives.
It’s like they say in the Internet world – if you’re doing the same thing today you were doing six months ago, you’re doing the wrong thing. Parents can learn a lot from that.
Tired of nagging your kids to hurry up, get dressed, drink their milk and brush their teeth? Here’s a radical idea: Don’t.
I had always believed that I left a bit of me wherever I went. I also believed that I took a bit of every place with me.
I was so naive about writing, I went to the public library and checked out the only volume they had on the topic – an academic treatise about publishing from the WWII era.
The most successful families embrace and elevate their family history, particularly their failures, setbacks and other missteps.
One question hovers over all of us who choose to spend our lives writing: why keep doing this in a world where so many forces are aligned against us?
I’m a fifth generation Jew from the South, and I would say that I felt this connection to my religion, but it wasn’t a spiritual connection.
Here’s a confession: I hate parenting books. I hate the ones that are earnest and repetitive.
Everybody has heard that family dinner is great for kids. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work in many of our lives.
There’s a reason the Exodus story has inspired so many Americans. It’s a narrative of hope.
The way to tell a really big story, I think, is to tell a really small story.
The bottom line: If you want a happier family, bring those skeletons out of the closet.