Todd Lyden

While back, I wrote a post on Father's day about being a father and how being a parent is a job. I wistfully look back as I look forward to another school year quickly approaching and the evidence of my "work" is becoming less and less my handiwork. Our youngest has just moved on to middle school. Josh has moved into high school and the oldest has graduated from high school and about "start" her life. We've had a tacit arrangement with the kids. We do NOT want boomerang kids coming back to haunt us. So they have always been told, they are staying with us until they are REALLY ready to go out and that includes the joke that college has become. Sadly, despite the fact that I have spent a good chunk of my career working in higher education, I know that it is a folly to think that sending a child off to college is preparing them for much other than to have a lifetime of loans. Thankfully, Amanda has gotten the message. She has a plan to go to local c...

I had never heard of John Hively before. But I was looking for a quote about aging and found this: “It's easy to grow old if you haven't grown up” Wow... I'd not heard this one bit of my psyche put so succinctly before- but thank you Mr. Hively. I turned 40 last year. That sentence does not cause me any great emotions except to wonder the same thing I have told folks for pretty much the last twenty years. "I can't believe that the world has allowed me to enter the adult workspace..." From the moment I felt the freedom of not living under parental control and being loose in the world, I have hardly felt a day like I belonged in it. This isn't to say I have not learned your rules and adapted to how to "be an adult." I never felt like Peter Pan and wanted to stay young, but I always felt like I had pulled something over on the rest of the world. Like a kid who stayed up too late for the first time. That realization that I could...

‎1st. You're a baby. 2nd. You're a kid. 3rd. You're a teenager. 4th. You are a young adult. 5th. You are in college. 6th. You get married. 7th. You have kids. 8th. You are old grandma or grandpa. 9th. You DIE. 10th. Your life is over. I have two points today. 1. I tend to talk about my youngest a lot on here. Is that ok? Is it bragging? Partially. I am so impressed with what she does and says sometimes, I just want it slightly validated that what I thought was cool is cool. Sure, I'm biased, but some of what she does and says is just nuts. Look up there: she wrote that. Six years old and she has it all figured out. Step six in life? "You get meredid." Mark Schaefer was talking today  about how bloggers needed to express more pride. For him, it was finally getting quoted in the NY Times. He describes this "bragging" as a taboo, but I don't see it. I suppose it is semantics, but whether you wrap it up in a "let me share an experience s...