It's been an interesting first summer with a baby in constant development. Our son is fairly tall for his age and is almost walking now.

To be sure, stressful times abound when trying to balance a house, necessary work in the first year, and a baby who is always priority number one at this age. But to unwind, we've found time to do the little things this summer with our young child, such as:

• Heading to the beach a few times
• Taking at least a few weekly walks together, and making sure at least one of us walks with the baby outside each day
• Going to town events - our town has a rich history and has summer concerts and a town pride day during the summer

It might sound boring, particularly to the single crowd, but when you get to a point of wanting children and wanting a family, you also have to think of what that means for your lives as individuals. Family, singular, becomes more than just a word as it represents a living organism - all of you, together - and parents need to be willing to give all of their time to ensure the organism stays healthy.

That said, it's stressful, and as adults we all need to unwind a bit. We've found it convenient to take off and have someone babysit after the baby is already asleep - so really more "sitting" than anything else is involved - and get a drink or unwind somewhere outside the house for a while. That, or one of us has a night out with the friends.

The summer tends to cleanse the mind and spirit, and as such, it's nice to be outside in the summer heat and let the mind wander. It's easy to do that in our neighborhood as it's fairly peaceful and we see a lot of the same cars driving by; we already have good relations with a few of our neighbors. One of the nicer things about the house, of which there are constant reminders all over, is the fact that it was built in the 1950s yet only ever had one owner before us. Sometimes I'll be in the driveway or outside doing yard work and look around the neighborhood thinking to myself, "I wonder what this looked like to the original owner in...say, 1955? What's changed, what looks the same?"

In New England, you can usually tell the decade a house was built by style of home. Capes were common post-war, ranches around the same time or earlier, old-style Colonials well before either World War in some cases, and then split-levels came along in the 1970s and into the 1980s before everyone wanted a Colonial again. So it's easy to look out at the neighboring streets and imagine where newer houses stand, how there were just empty lots of land, 1950s cars, and roads probably made more of dirt than pavement.

Our hope for the future is that we are well into mid-century by the time the house is sold to its third owner. Some people would call what we have a 'starter home', but I like to think of it as a keeper. Pride of ownership in a home, regardless of size of lot or prestige of location, is important for any homeowner - otherwise, the trips to Home Depot and the weekends weeding and planting are hardly worth it.

It's been a long spring and it has already segued into summer. Keeping up with a house during any spring seems like a challenge, but during the first spring of living in a new house, it can be exhausting learning all the new tricks in the yard, fixing neglected problems, and adding one's own touch to the outside.

One task that required attention this spring was cutting down some old pine trees that had too many dead branches. They were only about 25 feet tall and
were mostly dead, and it appeared the original owner planted them back in the 1950s. In any case, they never got enough sun, particularly on the lower branches, and it wasn't a big deal to fell and buck them, then toss the logs into the woods. The new view outside our rear windows is now of smaller but thriving pine trees.

More recently, indoors, we had a company that specializes in "green" home improvement come and do an audit of our house via a new Massachusetts energy-efficiency booster program called Mass Save. Really, all I was looking for was the gubmint rebate money that I feel, as a lifelong taxpayer and first-time moocher, I deserve. And to their credit, the gentlemen the company sent were not HGTV greenist types, looking to get a foot in the door under the guise of insulation work so they could upsell me on solar panels for my roof. They were honest that our house was fairly leaky but came up with some good, common sense solutions such as insulating the attic/roof rafters, air sealing the house, replacing two of the windows that haven't already been replaced, and at the expense of the Commonwealth they replaced our light bulbs and shower head for free. Well, someone paid for it - probably me on my last tax return.

People from New England will understand when I say that these programs do add some value in areas where many old homes are sold and not everyone has the money to start gutting and modernizing. For people like us who don't get sucked into the new craze of making sure every little detail of the home is just-so, a couple grand in rebate money can go a long way toward energy savings that pays for itself over time.

Another recent development is on the family end: our son can pull himself up to a standing position, he crawls now, and more teeth are coming in - seemingly by the day. More and more we're seeing a big toddler when we look at him rather than a baby, which is rewarding. It can also be a bit emotional for some, but if too emotional to watch your children growing and developing well before you, you're not keeping your eye on the big picture. It's an ego boost to have a being that you love and cherish - and shares your DNA - need you for everything, and that ego boost deflates a bit when your baby is suddenly trying to break free from your embrace so s/he can explore the huge world that is the living room.

First summer in a new house and first summer with a baby means that we expected this season to be busy and hectic. It's been a rewarding journey thus far.

We recently had our first true holiday weekend with the new house, welcoming late spring/summer with open arms during Memorial Day weekend.

Looking back at the past five months of home ownership, we were happy to buy in winter as we were able to tackle small projects inside for a few months before moving outdoors. During our first holiday weekend I noticed many neighbors were taking the opportunity to have barbeques on either Saturday or Sunday, then using Monday as a day to tie up loose ends around the house. So I followed suit: we attended a barbeque at my sister's house Sunday, and Monday I was up early and working outside.

While it didn't take long, I learned a lot about my first project outdoors that didn't involve yardwork. I dug a hole, picked up my father, went to a hardware store to buy a mailbox post, mailbox, and cement mix, and planted it in the ground. Simple enough, but the feeling of accomplishment having finished by 11 A.M. was nice. It left enough time for some smaller projects like replacing light fixtures and enough time still to take my son for a pretty long walk before ending the day tired and sore, but in the best way.

This is part of the reason I enjoy the four seasons offered by New England: the wait through a rainy and sometimes cool spring is well worth it for days like that, and in looking forward to the days ahead of late June and all of July, where it seems people feel younger and are breathing much fresher air. Even heading into the winter, at least for me, the fall can be a time of rejuvenation as people go back to their busy schedules, but there's still time for that one last cookout and maybe a day or two to wear shorts until Columbus Day weekend hits and you notice the school buses in the morning more and more.

Beyond the enjoyment of our first holiday, it also reminded me that buying a home involves a lot more responsibility than just paying the mortgage, and you can always tell the folks who forget just by driving past houses. Maintaining a yard, making the house look like a true home inside and out, getting settled, and becoming more organized are all traits that are fairly easy to spot at first glance. I used to think people who spent a ton of time on their yard and flower gardens should just mulch their entire lawn or keep things as streamlined and simple as possible, but now I understand why people are careful about the way their home looks on the outside just as much as the inside, and feel fortunate to live among neighbors who care about appearance.

From the "are we really that messed up?" department:

...it’s fun to re-experience teen love when you’re nearing middle age, said Lori Hosea, 36, a hairdresser from South Boston who considers Edward from “Twilight" perfect. “The books bring up all those feelings of new love, and how you get obsessed...That’s totally faded when you get to 40 and you’re married," Hosea said. “You’re barely shaving your legs."

While the “Twilight" book and movie series have made her feel younger and more romantic toward her husband, there’s a downside, she admits. “When you’re reading the books you feel 18, and then you look in the mirror and you no longer look it.

A variety of cultural forces are turning women with crow’s feet into lovesick post-post-adolescents...If 40 is the new 20, what’s so wrong about lusting after “High School Musical" star Efron, even if Rolling Stone did call him a “poster boy for tweenyboppers"?

With so many women at work these days, there's an increasing need for them to look and feel younger than they are, as they're not just moms anymore. They're consumers, they're a huge target market, and it's obvious any time you turn on the TV. We're seeing the lowest of the low here. These are women who either regret marrying because our culture has changed, causing one to question if they ever had any real values in the first place, or women who were never all that into the idea of motherhood and family life anyway, but did it out of fear of being alone. Any way you slice it, it's pretty sad.

Obviously these moms are not talking about Twilight at work with other 40-somethings; they grab onto anything resembling "youth" with both hands and hold on tight. TV shows and movies like Sex & The City don't help, selling the idea of how wonderful it is to be single and having to dress up as often as possible to pick up men.

This behavior allows an egotistical person - woman or man - to retreat into herself rather than living for something greater. Behavior like this is indicative of a lack of understanding basic parenting responsibility. You're no longer the young consumer / college student that had bright opportunties ahead. The fact you made so little of them you'd rather read vampire romance novels than lead a family indicates exactly why you'd be happy to stay stuck in that time period of your life forever.

These moms should either get divorced and go try and live their dream, or get back to parenting.

Growing up, my mother worked and also did a great job parenting three children who, I have to face reality, weren't always angels. She happened to work at the school we attended as soon as her last one was in Kindergarten. Pretty convenient, and it kept her from Marge Simpson syndrome; cleaning for no reason and being cooped up in a house all day.

My mother is a bright woman who grew up in the 1960s and married in the 1970s - not in the counterculture, but rather in a traditional Italian household surrounded by friends and relatives in the same situation. She had her share of rebellion and has enjoyed plenty of nights out with the girls, but to this day, I can see that the values she took from her parents, even if they were a bit strict at times, were gladly passed down to her children. The fact that she's considered "a classic" by my wife and friends is no surprise: she's a great hostess who welcomes people into her home and takes great pride in keeping a clean home; she works hard and still has time to prepare dinner most nights for those remaining in her house; she always wants family around no matter how busy it makes her or no matter how tired she gets.

My wife's mother is much the same way; she did all of the work in raising her children herself and from what I understand was also strict at times. She has run a day care out of her house for decades after working in television and traveling during the 1970s. She's had a full life of hard work and parenting, she just chose not to pursue a career she knew was at odds with parenting once she had children.

To me, this is the working mom. Working moms put family first and worry about career later. Both examples noted above would be considered sacrelig by the modern mentality of "career first, materialism next, kids third."

So it confuses me that much more when I hear complaints about work-life balance from people who choose to delve into careers they know full well will take up most of their waking hours:

Listen to Nicole Russo, the mother of two young girls, and a partner at O’Neill Hospitality and Entertainment, speaking on a recent morning at a volunteer event before starting her day at work, then going home to West Roxbury to do the bath and bedtime routine. “People say, ‘you should do yoga, you should do Pilates, something for yourself for an hour.’ But who has an hour? Who has time for inner peace?"

If there’s one thing that’s harder to take than your own lack of equilibrium, it’s someone else’s success in that realm. To say “I spend time with my kids, and I volunteer, and I’m blessed with a wonderfully flexible job, and my husband and I have date night every Saturday,’’ is akin to boasting “I’ve got firm thighs."

But perhaps the best advice comes from the unbalanced moms themselves. Asked if they had work-life balance, many let out a long “ha ha ha ha.’’ In other words, when all else fails, laugh.

I'm not sure many working mothers can relate to someone who's a partner at an entertainment company. Someone in that position probably has a client-facing job and has to put a smile on for strangers all day, then come home tired to her family. The only difference is, people in roles like that often have the Blackberry buzzing all through dinner, and usually are left wondering what their kids are doing when their kids realize Mom is too busy with her other life to discipline them or keep a watch on them.

Parents end up doing the worst job they possibly can by thinking of themselves first and their kids second. Anyone who has a career or kids can appreciate that sometimes there aren't enough hours in the day. But to stay in a career that gobbles up all your free time, then complaining there isn't enough time afterward, is lost on someone like me. Plenty of mothers choose careers that allow flexible hours, and many of them are just as tired at the end of the day. Trading the fancy title and corner office for, say, a human services job that doesn't pay as well but offers night time hours offers the reward of leaving the job at work and making family first priority when home.

And just so there's no mistaking the motive: the same goes for men. If you find you don't even know your kids as they're in their formative years of school and choosing sports they will play through high school, it might be time to ease back a bit on the business travel or late meetings and make it a point to stay home more. Plenty of men who have jobs that require travel just don't make time for weekend hobbies like golfing which are mutually exclusive with being a Dad on the weekends.

As for me, though the income potential may be higher elsewhere, my current employer offers the type of flexibility that is worth more than a few dollars more in my paycheck every two weeks.

Yesterday I stayed home to work remotely and found myself doing grout & caulking work in the bathroom on a lunch break. I realized I haven't made time for some of the things I'd like to get done this spring, and felt I was dragging just to do some important work to seal our tub and improve the look of it. Why is this happening?

We're finding after the emotional high from childbirth and then settling into a good sleeping routine, other routines - some healthy, some not - take a bit more easily. Sometimes, especially lately, I find myself wondering why I didn't get up earlier to head to the gym, or maybe why the to-do list seems longer and I don't have time to attack it.

During the week we're happy to lounge after the little one is in bed. But we're now recognizing these are dangerous patterns as we don't want to fall into laziness.

Since I have a gym membership already that can be canceled anytime, and we just signed our son up for swim lessons at another family gym closer to our house, I figured, "why not have all three of us go to the same gym on certain days?"

My sister utilized the day care at her local gym and her and her husband were never in better shape after a while. You can swing by the small corner of the gym where kids can hang out for an hour while their parents work out, so they're never far away if you want to check on them between sets.

Options are limited with a child who can't talk, can't walk, and needs naps at certain times. My wife can go during the day with him if I'm not home, and I can go after work hours when we don't all go together. This will help keep our minds and our bodies active since it'll give us more to do outside the home.

As for the honey-do list, I've always found that when in a good workout routine, I tend to be more efficient in other areas of life anyway.

For starters, I've been there.

Seeing one post over at In Mala Fide recently recalled memories of being single...and no, this never happened to me.

Lynch: *grunt*

Mandy: Oh, oh yes, oh! Oh! Oh Daddy!

Lynch: *insta cock shrink*

Mandy: Oh, Daddy, yes!

Lynch: What the fuck!?

...

Lynch: Mandy, did you just call me Daddy?

Mandy: Yes. It turns me on.

Lynch: What turns you on, exactly? Your Dad?

Mandy: Or my uncle.

I understand that the story is about a single man in college who was only interested in dating, and that the story is out of the ordinary to say the least - or one would hope.

I saw the story linked on Facebook and couldn't resist: I commented how I don't envy single men. One commenter wrote back: "The feeling is mutual, chief." I've heard other, similar sentiments, especially from men I know in their mid or late 20s; things like, "I'm so glad I don't have your life."

At first I laughed, since my friends had last used the "chief" nickname sometime before high school. Then I thought about it more: was the feeling mutual? Assuming the commenter was young and single, he wouldn't really know, would he? So it got me thinking about whether or not I really had a soft spot for single guys, and whether they should for me.

Marriage has received a bad name in recent years, despite the fact that people are still getting married at a high rate. Our media culture focuses on divorcees, and melodramatizes marriage problems, especially cheating. This leads to a conclusion for many that marriage is something people do, maybe a few times, so they can settle on someone before they become too old to be successful in the singles market. Television shows like Cougar Town seem to further glorify the idea of being someone's ex but now available and back on the singles scene - making marriage more of a footnote than a way of life. So people start to think that if you're married and reasonably young, there's something wrong with you - you could be enjoying the singles life, dude!

Seeing the stories at both In Mala Fide, and to a lesser extent blogs like Dad's House, a few things jump out at me:

• Being single appears to be a badge of honor for some of the commenters. Rather than bask in the glory of single years so one can exit that phase for the better, some would rather be single into perpetuity and then brag about it. There may be something else behind this; baggage from one's own personal family experiences, etc.
• There's nothing wrong with being single, as some of the readers know they simply must partake in the singles game at bars and clubs, not to be deterred no matter how many whackos (see above) one runs into. But to say you don't envy someone who is married because they found the endgame in all that searching makes no sense.
• For those that float through their twenties and thirties with no goal of family in mind, the reason I don't envy this type of single person is because they are missing out on something beautiful. Then again, if one simply has no desire to marry or reproduce, my thoughts are: Please, don't!
• Among single men, there appears to be a bit of a backlash against the hipster and metro sexual single crowd, where being manly got a bad name in recent years. The idea of men being men without having to apologize for it is gaining support, even if this includes fooling around with a few whackos - this is understandable.

So while it's true I don't envy single men, I don't mean to single them out as bad or broken or somehow wrong. I simply don't envy the situations they have to endure to find the right person for a long term relationship and then marriage. I've been there - it gets tough & lonely at times, even for active daters, and very few single men actually have real conquests on, say, a weekly basis (unless their standards are just terrible and they manage to avoid a reputation for being the worst kind of player).

I'm sure one can get lost in that lifestyle, then begins defending it. Us chumps who find someone to love and exit the singles phase gracefully...gee, who'd want to be them?

Being a relatively new parent, I'm amazed at all the literature out there. I'm also amazed at how difficult it is to filter all the noise from media sources regarding what constitutes a "good parent" or a "not so good" parent.

Last month the 17-year-old and three teammates won the Gears of War 2 national championship. His mother and father now wax rhapsodic about Noah’s collaborative and stategic skills and his ability to focus.

“These are skills he’s going to need when he gets to be an adult,’’ says the elder Burkholz, who is technology director at Lawrence Academy.

It's very likely young Noah's skill set was there all along, and it just happened to manifest itself in an activity he loves: playing video games.

Vilifying video games, computer screens, or television isn't productive, much as some parents may hate hearing stories like this. Instead, we can focus on the fact that Noah's newfound skills may only allow him to excel in the context of gaming. What about applying for colleges, his education? Better yet, real-world interactions with people he doesn't like but may be forced to respect in, say, a job, or dealing with customers of his own business?

Artificial past times like playing video games can easily be pointed to for faults, but going a step further toward a solution is more productive for a parent.

From the same article:

While some specialists are quick to catalog the negatives associated with heavy media use - lower grades, behavior problems, and childhood obesity, among them - there is an upside, as well. Numerous studies have shown that video gaming can improve cognitive and perceptual skills and that spending time online gives young people opportunities to develop the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age. The trick for parents - and it’s no small one - is to help children navigate wisely.

Parenting is a process - it's not a set of rules such that we rely on doctors and researchers to tell us that "X" is the magic number of maximum minutes to spend in front of a screen each day. Parents need to set an example for children, not tell them which rules to follow and which ones are okay to bend or break so Mom and Dad can play the cool/good parents for a night.

Leaving your kids alone for hours on end so they prefer shutting themselves into a bedroom and playing games - this is a broken process that can be rectified. For a father, maybe take your kid outside and show him how to do an oil change ahead of driving tests, so he respects the idea of vehicle ownership and the privelege of driving. Even better, set the tone while young that the family spends as much time in common areas in the house together, and maybe on nature hikes outside the house as often as possible, mixing up different activities to keep things interesting.

Parents are the center of any family, and when they do not show they're working together for everyone's benefit, it's no wonder there are millions of kids looking for things to do outside of that context. Everyone chipping in to keep a household strong, starting from early childhood years, is a good process to show and nurture within your children. You can still buy your kids the XBox, but if the family is strong, chances are it won't become the center of their lives.

Here are some general updates in bullet form.

• Our son is about seven months old now. People have told us we've had it far too easy because he sleeps a lot, eats a lot, and is healthy. We realize we're fortunate, but we're not so sure we couldn't handle colic. Long term thinking got us to the point of having children, so one would think the love for a child should always trump even the anger and frustration caused by constant crying.



• At this point, most children are laughing socially, can start pinching things with all fingers plus thumb, and begin inspecting items they can finally grab and bring closer to their face. Our son will try to grab his pacifier, and put it to his face, but the coordination isn't good enough yet to get it into his mouth on the first try.
• Some in our family have given us guff about how he always prefers his parents. In fact, we're seeing some great signs of development when he realizes we're gone from the room but not out of his mind, and therefore has begun missing us. On my side of the family, there are already two other grandchildren and lots of activity whenever everyone gets together. Our house is always more subdued. So he sometimes gets upset when we walk in the door and five or more people run up to his face and begin cooing and cawing over him. This is entirely understandable from a simple common sense perspective.
• My wife plans to sign up for a mother's group and also sign up our son for swimming classes. It goes without saying that swimming is one of the best things for the development of the body. I witnessed my nephew on a few occasions: you meet interesting people (other parents) and you never know when just a small bit of social activity can lead to lifelong friendships. In an age where the neighborhood of young children playing kickball until dusk is long forgotten, the parents need to be careful not to oversocialize their children with too busy a schedule, but also must accept the responsibility of helping ingrain their children into their community even before Kindergarten.

Alex mentioned to me in an email a while back that chores around the house are nearly as good as a gym membership. My father echoed those sentiments when he told me what I was in for this spring. Our house was owned by a couple for over 50 years, so when the remaining member (the husband) moved out at 92 years old, the lawn hadn't been maintained as it had through the 1990s.

The front of the lawn looks great, but the back has moss and areas of spotty growth. Per my father's advice on lawn care, I bought some seed as well as some starter fertilizer and lime to start things off next month.

But before I got ahead of myself, I used a recent flood followed by a sunny, 60 degree day to stay home and poke around the yard. There were lots of random bricks and pieces of wood near the founation, as well as pipes and random gardening equipment for plants that clearly hadn't grown for years. It felt good to finally get a nice, warm day to roam my property, evaluating what work was in store to get it looking the way I wanted, and prepping it for the jobs to come.

I sifted through a lot of junk outside that had been buried by snow, and dumped anything natural like soil out by the treeline. I grouped together all the junk and put it in the trash, and took down the outdoor clothesline. The area underneath will make for another nice piece of flat lawn once I get it cleaned up and put down more seed.

With the house being painted this spring, I also had to get other junk out from around the house. The old gentleman did leave behind some things that will be useful, such as some lengths of hose. But when I saw an old rusted out fertilizer/spreader that must have come from the 1950s, I had to call bulk trash pickup and start cutting my losses with some of the crap he left behind.

Other chores this spring will include killing moss on the brick surrounding the house, and figuring out a good spot for the grill. It might be hard work overall, but taken one task at a time it'll be fun to sweat outside and learn things about my particular property. Once we can use our outdoor space to have company and enjoy fresh air, we'll finally experience the primary reason we moved out of our apartment.

Recently, in the context of a tragedy in my extended family, I was called out by my own family members for not baptizing my son "yet". He's just about seven months old and we have no intention of having him baptized. He can do it if he wants to, John The Baptist style, at a time of his choosing. I have written about this topic before here.

The conversation went something like this, and I apologize for the use of internet abbreviations (DS = Dear Sister; DM = Dear Mother):

DS: So when you were in church [for the funeral], didn't it make you feel anything?

Me: Regarding religion or...?

DS: Regarding baptizing your son?

Me: Ah! Um...well, you know we didn't marry in a Catholic Church, so wouldn't it be disingenuous of me to baptize my son? No priest would recognize our marriage so how could they recognize a product of it?

DS & DM simultaneously: You don't have to be married [to get your son baptized]!

Me: Well, I wouldn't feel right about it.

DM: I don't know what they teach you kids when you go off to college.

Baptism as a symbolic gesture can be wonderful. But as an insurance policy because your Catholic guilt won't go away, it's a pretty bad idea. Keeping one foot in the proverbial holy water as a "just in case!" makes no sense, though it appears some would rather I purchase the additional homeowner's insurance even if I don't live in a flood zone, so to speak.

Regardless of merit, religion is a touchy subject with family members. It should be: as members of a family, one would expect that everyone has the same religious beliefs, because you share DNA. When people branch off and begin believing different things, it can drive a wedge between family members. Or it could be a symptom of dysfunction, depending on the family. Some will feel alienated by this person they've known all their lives, suddenly switching gears (even if it wasn't such a sudden change). Some will disown the person who changes beliefs; luckily, no one has taken it that far on our end.

It will be a challenge continuing to justify our beliefs while also remaining a part of the family, but we're up to the challenge. We simply keep the focus on our family, and running it in the way that makes the most sense to us.

Regarding Alex's recent post about Ron Paul, I think Paul's recent actions are more about legacy than about Paul's current political aspirations.

The man will be 76 when the next election comes around and he hasn't come out and said he'll run for president for 2012. Who would elect a 76 year old man when they wouldn't elect the better, 72 year old version in 2008?

And so, instead of continuing to talk about how right he was regarding the economy, he's let others do that and is setting up a legacy of his career in the event he gets elected out of office, or gets too old/weak to run. This involves some tough choices and some odd partnerships; hence, Chuck Baldwin and changing churches. There really aren't many with the common sense of Ron Paul out there in politics, who for years unapologetically shouted at whoever would listen about the virtues of a lean banking system and protecting constitutional freedoms (read: American culture) instead of entitlements. Interestingly, he's done this despite unsubstantiated cries of "racism" from the crowd, who would rather see entitlements protected than basic rights for all - but guarantees for none.

Ron Paul's blog at house.gov/paul is still valuable reading for any American citizen who cares to stay involved in the political process. You get weekly updates from the Congressman himself on relevant issues making their way through Congress.

Who Paul buddies up to today is one thing, but some basic facts about his policies remain:

• He wants an audit of the fed and an overhaul of our banking system with more transparency - not so the average joe gets transparency to our banking system but so that our own leaders can speak intelligently about the state of that banking system.
• He wants to pull back our unnecessary military operations and revamp where we spend our resources abroad.
• He's a medical doctor who knows that gov't intervention in health care would be an absolute disaster.
• He wants the federal government to limit its involvement in our daily lives, and let states run most functions by themselves. He says this not to get people riled up about control conspiracies, but rather because that's what the leaders who built our country envisioned.

It shouldn't matter to most what religion Paul is; in fact, the irrelevance of his religion is part of his political philosophy. I could ask similarly irrelevant questions, such as, do we even know Obama was born in this country, or which God he bows to? Does anyone care? Not really, they just care about the (empty) promises. At least Paul would follow through on his.

I saw Alex's recent column touching on feminism and was reminded of some of my recent interactions with mothers. I know these women through work and have to talk to them for work-related material, but being a new father the subject of children always comes up.

I'm aware of social boundaries, particularly in the work place, so when I get started on a topic I feel passionately about I'm always very careful what I say at work. A couple of women talked about how they hate the idea of day care but really need their job. One told me "feminism sucks" when I finally eased the conversation toward the idea that we're stuck in a conundrum of two incomes being necessary to maintain our modern standard of living. Our entire economy is built on the idea now that both parents will work full time and contribute to the economic pie, even if part of that contribution is day care for children who would otherwise be at home. Who wouldn't see this as completely backwards?

I used the example of student loans. Way back when, before student loans, colleges were selective but even private universities weren't insanely expensive. Since everyone paid their own way or borrowed money from the school at very low interest rates, say 1%, if they needed to, colleges & universities focused on learning instead of money. Once you involve student loans to give people the "opportunity to learn", even though that opportunity always existed, it artificially inflates the cost of education. Down the road, you have insanely high tuition rates and people end up having to borrow money to pay it off with future income, another symptom of our debt culture. Never mind the fact that now everyone goes to school for a bachelor's, watering down the meaning for those who truly belonged in an advanced academic environment after grade school.

The same is true for the women's movement. If you inject a ton of new people into the work force, a few years later you'll have a spike in economic growth because family incomes on average have increased but prices haven't caught up yet. When companies finally realized they could charge more for services like day care and school, and credit card companies realized they could get more people to borrow more money, prices climbed. Now day care is barely worth the tradeoff to go to work for many women. Who would want to pay a good salary for someone making $10/hour to raise their child for 8 hours/day?

No wonder even women tell me that feminism sucks.

Whether you get along with your family or not, knowing where you come from is a crucial part of raising them. The side I know more about is my father's. Like many Italians post-WWII, my grandfather tried to find opportunity elsewhere. The country was in turmoil, and many were leaving. So my grandfather had a son, then left to go to Australia to find work and try to get established. Then he came back to Italy after a year or two, had another kid, and tried again in America. He ended up having four children and was able to finally bring them over after leaving his whole family to get established.

My grandfather was fairly innovative in that he was able to get his hands on an automobile and use it for commercial purposes - hauling people and goods - to and from other areas of the country before he left Italy, when no one else in his town had a car. He had amassed some money, not easy in those days, so my question to my father was always: Why did he want to leave if he was succeeding and building wealth?

There were a few reasons. One was the mafiosi in the region. They knew of the people who had means, and they would find ways to get money out of them. If they couldn't find an easy way, they would simply kidnap children and bring them into the hills to send random notes. My father told me his mother would always make sure he was close by her for this reason while he was growing up there. Anyone with a skill set they knew they could put to good use elsewhere and be paid well for it with little fear of this kind of passive-aggressive retaliation would be foolish to not leave - the opportunities were too good to pass up, and outweighed the culture & roots about which many had become disenchanted anyway.

The other reason was that, regardless of mafiosi, if you were successful in a small village of people who knew you and your family, these people would find ways to hate you. This goes to my point above in eliminating traits best left behind. While proud of my heritage, I know many Italians - just like in any other culture - are lazy, jealous people who would rather see people kept closer to their level than succeed. This is crowdism at its finest. If my grandfather had stayed behind and managed to not get mixed up in any of the mafiosi business, his fellow villagers wouldn't look too kindly on him if he stayed. They would have seen him building a better life while they were content to go with the flow of whatever government was popular that week - something for which Italians are notorious.

Stretching back further, something I didn't know until recently is that my great grandfather was one of the immigrants who helped build the interstate system (up through Vermont). Growing up outside of the place most of my ancestors did, then having to ask about my family's background from another country has been interesting. As I noted in the interview I did for Alex, part of my identity comes from a place I've only been able to visit three times in my life, and most of it comes from the area I was born in and have stayed in. Asking questions about my background has taught me a few things: that some of my traits are obviously carried over from my father and grandfather, and there were some I never realized that were carried over from past generations. Visiting the place my father's side of the family came from also motivated me to ask more about my family's past, something I recommend for parents to do with their children when they can afford it.