Should you be concerned with overfishing throughout the world, I can safely assure you of this: It’s not my family’s fault.
I can prove this by the fact that, since my kids have gotten new fishing poles, we have caught exactly the same number of fish had we asked them nicely to join us on the dock.
During a recent visit to Atlanta, my father-in-law, son and I made one of our routine visits to The Varsity in downtown Atlanta.
I am a real Christmas tree person.
I have nothing against artificial trees or the people who employ their use during Christmas. In fact, some members of my very own family have switched to artificial trees, and I have yet to judge them for it publicly.
It’s not the kind of phone call you like to get. When I answered, I heard, “Is this Parker Gibbons’ dad?”
I had the typical parent reaction when I heard this, which was to assume that my son had either found a cure for cancer, saved a teacher from a bear attack or successfully created a perpetual motion machine.
My son stood at the window, staring out from the kitchen at the backyard of the only house he’d ever called home.
He’s 11, and will show you how tough of a kid he is at any turn. But even the toughest kid has his soft side. I approached him. “You OK?”
I read an article recently about a study in which researchers analyzed the brains of teenagers. In this experiment, they had the kids listen to a 30-second clip of their mother criticizing them. Here is a sample of one of the critiques: “One thing that bothers me about you is that you get upset over minor issues. I could tell you to take your shoes from downstairs. You’ll get mad that you have to pick them up and actually walk upstairs and put them in your room.”
As is required by federal columnist law, the following is my annual list of things I am thankful for. This year has been one of enormous change for my family, as I took a new job and moved to a new city. My family has had to adjust to the biggest change we have ever undertaken, with a new home and new schools and generally new everything in their lives. And we have done this was amazing support from friends and family who helped us take this leap of faith that has turned out pretty darn well for us.
If there is one things kids love, it’s canned speeches that they hear over and over and over again.
They particularly love these when they are in response to the laments of how woeful their lives are.
It was your typical father-son conversation.
MY SON: Dad, I’m stuck.
ME: Can you reach the armadillo?
MY SON: Not quite.
It all started the other night at my parents’ house as we were sitting on the back deck enjoying the evening. Behind my parents’ house are some woods that admittedly may not seem large now, but seemed huge when we moved there when I was four. They are at least big enough for me to have gotten lost in them as a child, a fact that my family still finds funny to this day.
Because it’s kinda how it’s drawn up in the manual, my kids are a pretty solid combination of my wife and me.
My daughter looks like my wife, which is fortunate, because no 14-year-old girl should have to go through life looking like me.