To leave your starting point with only your feet (and possibly good walking shoes) below you and arrive at your destination the same way is a profound political commitment to sustained human evolution and balanced life on earth. (Of course there is also that marvelous feat of technology, that human-powered vehicle the bicycle, but that’s a subject for another post!)

The various public conveyances that you may or may not employ along the way are also part of that sustainable paradigm; they represent some of the best trappings of civilization to expand the range of our walking ability. (more…)

My partner Sally’s uncle Joe died this past Monday from complications of pancreatic cancer and other ailments at the age of 83. Along with Sally’s dad Reuben and their older brother Aaron, “Yoseph”, as his siblings and other close family affectionately called him, was one of those larger-than-life characters that are a feature I think of many big vibrant family clans.

I never myself called him that, with my shyer demeanor and being of a younger generation more likely to address him with the honorific “Uncle”. But with his family in town this weekend for his burial service last Friday in Culver City, “Yoseph”, aka “Uncle Joe”, got what seemed to me like a pretty good sendoff… full of remembrance, songs, tears and a fair amount of smiles and laughter too. (more…)

On the occasion of his 23rd birthday earlier this year, our son had yet another coming of age ritual in our culture, losing his family health care insurance. Our daughter will make that transition as well in three more years. As their parent, I can’t acknowledge those milestones without reflecting on our health care system and all the issues that swirl around it in terms of liberty and our social covenant.

First I think it is appropriate that I confess (or at least share) my own context, my own journey to where I am now in my thinking generally. I grew up pretty much inheriting the liberal values of my parents and the university town milieu I was raised in. Those values involve a strong commitment to liberty and freedom, but balanced with an equally strong stance that in the name of equality of opportunity for all, certain liberties and freedoms need to be restricted. The larger community (represented by our elected government) has the right to set and enforce certain policies to promote if not ensure equal access to health, education and welfare (interestingly enough, the old name of the federal agency that morphed into three current ones), even at times at the expense of personal liberty, in the name of a larger good. (more…)

So much of our society’s concern and discussion about “reforming” or “transforming” our education system is focused on giving our youth the skills to participate successfully in the 21st Century workforce so our country can successfully compete in the world economy. A lot of alternative educators might make a good argument against this kind of grand social engineering, and say that an education system in a democracy like ours should instead be focused on creating an enriched environment for learning. We should then rely on the innate learning drive in our youth and the internal compasses of them and their families, to chart a course to best realize their unique skills. (more…)

There has recently been a movement among national and state-level public education leaders towards creating and adopting national standards for English language arts and mathematics. Concern comes from the fact that American school youth don’t test as well on standardized language (English in our case) and math tests as their European and Asian peers. Even President Obama has jumped on that bandwagon. (more…)

One of the fun and very developmentally significant things that youths do is try on various personas towards developing an adult one (or several) they can call their own. Some of this is not pretty, and becomes one of those things that drive a lot of adults to distraction in dealing particularly with teenagers. But this sort of “scientific method” of theorem (persona), experiment (attempting to be or play that persona), and observation of results (seeing how others react to you), is such a critical developmental tool. Most kids (with notable exceptions of course) feel that they don’t have the gravitas and chutzpah to even consider being fully and comfortably themselves, if they even really know yet who that is. And in our patriarchal society, where kids are securely ranked at the bottom of the pecking order, most adults are comfortable with that fact. (more…)

My partner Sally had an insightful and charismatic teacher in her graduate school marriage and family therapy program who defined two types of families, “suckee” and “blowee”, the former always recruiting new “members” and the later always letting them go. No value judgment intended here, both can be loving and supportive in their way.

Sally has a “suckee” family, her parents and two sisters tend to live in the same locale, stay in close contact, have big family gatherings (including events that bring the larger family from all over the country), and are always welcoming of in-laws and friends and finding ways to weave that larger circle into their family events and life as honorary “cousins” of a sort. There is a strong sense among all family members of the high importance of family relationships and being close. I certainly have felt completely welcome by her parents and siblings and woven into their family circle. But if I suggested that Sally and I move out of the Los Angeles area, that would probably be some sort of cataclysm, especially for her mom and dad. (more…)

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. After 23 years of being a parent, including changing thousands of diapers when my kids were little, I have found no biological or psychological reason that men cannot be just as good parents and homemakers as women. Actually, there is one thing… men can’t breastfeed. Other than that, as far as I’m concerned, moms and dads are (to paraphrase the “Cone Heads” of Saturday Night Live) “interchangeable parental units”. (more…)

I don’t know if it was true for previous generations, but I got so much of my “ethical instruction” from songs that I would here over and over on the radio. Whether it was the Beatles telling me that, “All you need is love”, or The Supremes invoking the Golden Rule in, “Let me get over you the way you’ve gotten over me”, or a hundred different songs from a raft of insightful lyricists.

But of all the lyrics all those songs, I sometimes wonder how much the sad and ironic lyrics of Harry Chapin’s song has saved my generation of male-type parents from making the mistake that many of our dads made not playing a larger role in parenting and thus contributed to my own kids’ generation.

Chapin sings… (more…)