ArcaMax

Do you need a little Christmas right this very minute? Here you go!

'The Drone Song' (To 'There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays')

Oh, there's no lack of drones in the Jersey skies

Big as Chevys, they're everywhere you roam

In the night, there's a turnpike shining in your eyes

For those Jersey guys (and spies), it's home sweet drone

'...Read more

Can we please stop pimping the carols?

Carols are just fine the way they were written -- and particularly fine the way Nat King Cole sang them.

They have, often enough, words that fall on the notes. They have a recognizable tune, usually beautiful. They do not need to swing, sway or swagger any more than they have done these past few decades ...Read more

What a celebrity! Bestselling author. Pal of politicians and princes. Big on laughs, lovers, diets and health kicks, some involving nudity. Fantastic swimmer. Fantastic thinker. In France, they put his picture on bracelets.

Are we talking about Lance Armstrong (pre-scandal)? P. Diddy (pre-scandal)? Kanye (pre-series of scandals)? Try Ben ...Read more

Things to be thankful for AFTER Thanksgiving? There are a heap! Be glad that:

1. You were not crushed while attempting to buy a 98-inch smart TV. (If you WERE crushed, please skip to item 15.) (And ... sorry.)

2. You presumably understand how to USE your smart TV (even though it is smarter than you by several magnitudes). Knowing how to get ...Read more

Ever wonder what they're saying in a box of animal crackers? Probably not. But I happened to listen in:

"We'd never be packed this way if we were Oreos."

"Your hoof is on my head."

"To you, it's a crumb -- to me, it's my snout!"

"You try thinking out of the box."

"Ever done it with a three-legged giraffe?"

"It's like I'm dissolving...Read more

"We lost our son today for 15 mins. 1st time, and it was terrifying."

So begins a post on the Raising Independent Kids Facebook group I run. Any parent can relate. In fact, a viral story in the news right now is one I was the first to report: A Georgia mom was arrested because she left her son, 10, home while she ran an errand, and instead of ...Read more

You can't find a better explanation of the rise of helicopter parenting and how, when and why that morphed into "intensive parenting" than this New York Times podcast from a few weeks ago, inspired by the surgeon general's report on parental burnout.

Michael Barbaro, host of "The Daily," interviews Claire Cain Miller, a Times reporter (and the ...Read more

They say the road to success is made by walking. For kids, that is literally true.

Turns out that the more kids walk around, the more upward mobility they enjoy as adults, concluded a study in American Psychologist.

The researchers, led by Shigehiro Oishi, wondered why there are such "large regional differences in upward social mobility." They...Read more

We no longer live in an era of foot binding, writes my Let Grow cofounder Peter Gray, a psychologist who studies the importance of mixed-age, unsupervised play. But for about a thousand years, as he notes in a recent Substack post, girls in China would have their feet broken and bound to stop them from growing. This was considered not only ...Read more

A recent front-page article in The Wall Street Journal - "Surveillance Parents Face the Ultimate Firewall: Freshman Year" -- described the difficulty -- even agony -- some parents are feeling when their kids go off to college and are harder to monitor and help from afar.

I don't blame parents for the fear and loss they feel at any stage of the ...Read more

The shower is where America does it -- in private, with no one judging, just because it feels good.

I'm talking about singing, of course, that once-universal pastime that uplifts the soul, reboots the body and doesn't demand a monthly fee. So why aren't we singing all the time?

I just spent a chunk of the day in synagogue -- it is the Jewish...Read more

Once again, readers, I. MUST. RANT. Why? I ... just heard from a mom trying to get two other families to let their kids play with her kids in her yard for an hour a week. Unsupervised.

AN HOUR A WEEK. She lives on a quiet street in quiet suburb in a quiet state. Classic single-family homes. Zero traffic. Other parent (who has stood and ...Read more