Our family of five has lived in three homes in three different states in the 19 years since the twins were born. This has meant being either far away or very far away from extended family at different points in time. In order to see them, travel was a necessity. Travel by airplane is an expensive proposition, and when you take the cost of a flight times five, it’s highly impractical, so the travel method of choice for our family was road tripping.

Seemingly endless road trips are not the joy of most small children, so to make the trips more bearable, we often listened to books on tape while we traveled. What a difference that made! An all-time favorite is a book from 2002 by Sara Pennypacker called Stuart’s Cape. Goodreads summarizes it like this: A quirky, inventive chapter book featuring an unusual hero – an 8-year-old worrier.

At the start of the story, we find that Stuart wants to have an adventure. Because his family just moved to a new town, his packed-up box of toys mistakenly got picked up with the garbage, and he doesn’t have any friends yet, Stuart has to get creative. While conceiving adventure by imagining becoming a superhero, Stuart determines that adventures only happen to people in capes. He creates his own cape out of items all found in a box in the hallway labeled Stuff from Great Uncle Nester’s Magic Act. With the rusty stapler he discovered, Stuart fastened together all one-hundred ties he found along with a lone purple sock stapled inside to create a secret pocket. Best cape ever. Continue reading →

When I was eight, a man who had undergone a sex change was making news by suing the United States Tennis Association to gain the right to compete in the 1976 US Open as a woman. I’m not sure where I heard of the story, but I do remember being aware of it and wondering about the concept of a sex change. Continue reading →

Most of us have heard that a child’s formative years play a key role in their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical growth and their ability to achieve their full developmental potential. The World Health Organization (WHO) affirms that nurturing care is at the heart of children’s potential to develop, while the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) states that during the years of early childhood (0-8 years old) “a child’s newly developing brain is highly plastic and responsive to change as billions of integrated neural circuits are established through the interaction of genetics, environment, and experience. Optimal brain development requires a stimulating environment, adequate nutrients, and social interaction with attentive caregivers.” Continue reading →

At the age of 13, our younger twin wrote us a letter expressing their convictions about being transgender. This twin struggled to express themself verbally, but always had a knack for writing. So a letter was their chosen method of communicating the big news.

At that time, I was still very certain of my conservative faith and view of the world, and I believed that a faithful reading of the Bible and commitment to things of faith would solve any problem that presented itself. I just needed to be strong and faithful, and persuade others to do the same.

Were I to do that time of life over again, I think and hope I would do it much differently. A retrospective look provides some clues of things not to do:

• Don’t speak your opinion so readily. Rather, ask questions, ask questions, ask questions.
• Don’t attempt to handle all the moments at once. Only deal with the one in which you currently find yourself. Don’t play out all the possible scenarios.
• Don’t belittle the opinions and feelings of a child, even in your own mind. Don’t assume they have no idea what they’re talking about.
• Don’t think that your way of viewing the world, life, faith….is the only valid one.
• Don’t assume you know the results of learning before you do the learning.
• Don’t allow your emotions to control you, but also don’t invalidate any of your emotions because they all provide perspective and are valuable and real.
• Don’t keep everything to yourself because you’re afraid of how people will respond.

Continue reading →