Rand Richards Cooper's Blog - Dad on a Lark | Wondertime: Understanding Kids, Inspiring Parents

Dad on a Lark

Lark (lärk): noun. 1. a carefree or spirited adventure. 2. a harmless prank

Rand Richards Cooper, father of one-year-old Larkin, isn't convinced that parenting is a carefree adventure (maybe more of a prank?). Check in with him as he navigates the journey as a writer, husband, and stay-at-home dad.

November 26, 2008

Überparenting

The hovering, overinvolved parent is the stuff of contemporary urban legend. My sister tells about an acquaintance who limited her job search to only those jobs within five minutes of her six-year-old's school — just in case. A corporate friend mentions college grads who show up for job interviews... bringing their parents. As outlined in the magazine article, overparenting begins with boasting about your eight-year-old's proficiency in Mandarin, and ends ten years later with high school graduation and the gift of a cell phone equipped with GPS monitor. Tracking your college student's every physical move from dawn to dusk? Priceless!

November 12, 2008

Conversational Dada

Sometimes a hilarious line comes from nowhere. "I smell skunk!" she will say, wrinkling her nose furiously. Or she'll prance into the living room, where Molly and I sit reading, and announce, in a suspicious sing-song, "There's something fishy going on around here…" Sometimes her observations are sadly true. In the park one day we sat on a bench and I played an idle game with a stick, tossing it and letting Larkin run after it. "This is like fetch!" she said, and indeed it was. When had I begun treating my daughter like a puppy?

October 29, 2008

To Work, or Not to Work

Should I take the job? Molly and I conferred endlessly. There were numbers to consider, impressive numbers. Health-care benefits, bonus options, 401Ks, childcare subsidies. On the other hand, what about my commitment to writing stories and novels and essays? What, specifically, about the book I'd just begun writing — a book, in fact, about midlife fatherhood? Should I just give that up? I agonized. It's hard these days to know how to balance money, time and family. Throw art into the mix and you really have a mess. These weren't just apples and oranges, but kiwis, basketballs, and goldfish.

Dad on a Lark

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