Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

Independent Children Are Made Like This

Independent Children Are Made Like This

Capable and independent children are not born, if you ask me.

They are made.

It’s about their environment, of course, but specifically, it’s mostly about supportive, and loving, parents.

The impact, both negative and positive, that a parent can have in the life of their child is so enormous I have trouble wrapping my head around it all.

Parents are capable of giving their child an environment to flourish and grow – or they can literally destroy their lives.

I try to give freedom to fail and learn with the inconsequential.

So that later, they are equipped to face more serious consequences as adults.

And yes, feed their curiosities and aptitudes too.

You’ve got to fail, or risk failure, to learn, to succeed. You’ve got to be hungry. It seems to me the job for parents is to console the failure but nurture the hunger. That’s how you create independence in children, give them the tools they need to be functioning adults.

-Bryan Cranston, A Life In Parts

Why I Didn’t Answer Your Email

Why I Didn’t Answer Your Email

I stumbled across this New York Times post Why I Didn’t Answer Your Email, By: KJ Dell’Antonia.

The crux of it is in this passage below.

Plain and simple, you didn’t get a response because, on some level, I made a judgment call.

I get that we all have different priorities and are in different phases of life and all, but can we cut each other a little slack?

I snuggled my youngest son at bedtime that night, because he asked. I snuggled him even though your email was calling, and some part of me wanted to pull away from the tedium of bedtime and reply. Replying would have felt fresh and new, while bedtime felt old and stale, although it has grown far less demanding of late, with no more reading out loud and no more splashing baths, many of which I spent answering emails, which was fine, because there were so many bedtimes and so many baths, so very, very many of them, until suddenly there weren’t, although there were still a lot of emails.

So, so true.

Sterling Terrell