One of the things that scares me most as a parent is that my children will grow up believing that theyre entitled to whatever they want in life. You see it everywhere: college graduates who expect turn their noses up at entry level jobs, expecting to land high-paying, satisfying work without first paying their dues. People who command thousands of dollars to appear at a club just for being tan and obnoxious. Little leagues in which every team gets a trophy, even if they came in last. In this kind of a world, how do you raise kids not to feel entitled?

We all know about the male, mid-life clichs. A guy hits forty, or fifty, and suddenly, he needs to prove to the world that hes still young. So he runs out and buys a sports car, or a motorcycle; he grows a ponytail; he finds himself a hot, young wife. But interestingly, women dont seem to have their own mid-life clich counterparts.

A few years ago, when my daughter was five, she asked me how babies get made. It was not the first time she asked, and my old “an egg and a sperm meet in the mommys tummy” trick wasnt working anymore.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I do not have a soft, sweet tone to my voice. I know people with voices like this – people who still sound chipper and happy even when theyre seething mad – and I used to make fun of them, or goad them into saying curse words, because it always sounds funny to hear a high-pitched, upbeat voice let loose with a string of expletives.

Ive been cleaning out our playroom for the last four years. Every six months or so, I get sick of the mess, I grab a fistful of trash bags, and I start tossing stuff. Games with missing pieces, half-finished art projects, Bionicles with severed limbs… it all gets sent to the big playroom in the sky.