Why this Blog?

(OR: What I learned from Tod)

In the 1989 movie “Parenthood”, Tod (a young Keanu Reeves) chats with Helen (played by Dianne Wiest), the divorced mother of his girlfriend Julie. In a monologue that has stuck with me in the thirty years since, he tells her that it’s not enough to have a man, a father figure in her sons life – it “depends on the man”. “You need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car – you need a license to catch a fish! But they’ll let any a-hole be a father”.

Now, I consider the idea of requiring a “license to parent” to be ludicrous and, if someone were to take it seriously, dangerous. However, the point that Tod makes is still valid: being a parent is not something to be trifled with. And just as we need to practice and learn how to do other things in our lives which have consequences, so do we need to grow in our parenting skills if we want to do our children right.

This blog, this community, is designed to help parents learn how to be better at their job. This is a challenging job, to be sure, so perhaps I should say a few words about myself, presenting my credentials, to explain why I think I might be able to help you on this most exciting and challenging journey.

I am in my 40s, married for 17 years, and have four kids: Ray, Kacey, Abby and Max. You can read more about us here. I was born and raised in Israel, where I live today. My parents moved here from the-US-of-A in the 70s, so culturally I’m sort of a mixture of Israeli and American culture.

Career-wise, I got my PhD in Computer Science in a prestigious US university (we relocated to the States for four years), and since my return to Israel I’ve been working in Hi-Tech till this day, when I manage a team of software engineers.

By now I assume you’ve noticed that I don’t sport any official credentials to support that. That’s true! Then again, most parents, through most of history, did not have any such credentials. They learned from their parents and friends and neighbors how to do their job. As for me, I can tell you that I have spent many hours thinking about how to educate my kids, formulating tools for me and my wife (who is a wonderful sounding board for my ideas, and contributes lots of the principles we uphold in our house) to use and implement in raising our kids. When we implement something that does not work, we revise what we do and try a new way, until something clicks. What has come out of these 15+ years of attentive parenting is a set of tools and principles that we use on a regular basis, and find them very helpful.

I guess my lack of formal training is part of the first point I want to make: you don’t need formal training to be a good parent. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the famous Philosopher of Education in the 18th century, abandoned his own children. What you do need is a healthy dose of empathy, a willingness to think deeply and honestly about your parenting style, and guiding principles that can help you navigate your day-to-day with your kids without too much stress and overhead. I cannot provide the first two, but I think I can perhaps share the third, from my experience. Hopefully, you will come with your own insights to the table as well, and I’ll be all the wiser for it.

Perhaps together, we can all grow into better parents.