My little boy is awesome. Logan is three, and taller than a lot of four-year olds. He loves to roughhouse, to be outside, and to ride roller-coasters. He’s also afraid of the dark, the vacuum cleaner, and bugs small enough to be bullied by bacteria. Knowing myself as I do, I shouldn’t be surprised by […]

“There’s a positive correlation between a student’s vocabulary size in grade 12, the likelihood that she will graduate from college, and her future level of income. The reason is clear: vocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range of educational attainments and abilities—not just skill in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but also […]

“I don’t think I can keep going,” I told my daughter. We were mid-chapter, and the story had taken an abrupt turn. The bright little girl, so full of hope and life and love, was minutes from receiving devastating news. She would have to trade in her pink satin birthday frock for a black dress […]

Boys. Wow. They’re different. Having grown up in an estrogen-rich home with only one sister, I had a limited understanding of just how diverse the differences between boys and girls were. As a college student, I was stunned to see one of our male neighbors (we’ll call him “Hamilton”) drink directly from a carton of […]