Stories By

Rajat Soni

What Made You Laugh?

As my older daughter makes her way toward the 10 and 12 years, I think more about parenting a tween. I can sense the inevitable drift happening. She loves to borrow her mom’s phone to text her friends. She has

By Rajat Soni

Is It Possible to Have a Feminist Father Daughter Relationship?

I’ve recently been giving more thought to the father daughter relationship, specifically to what role fathers play as supporters of feminist ideals. Having two daughters, I want them to be confident, secure and willing to try anything at all (except

By Rajat Soni

Motivation Has Two Faces: My Daughters’

With the heat descending upon us in July and August, we headed to the hills with family. We would be able to relax and get out of the usual routine. Good goals at the end of a summer, before school

By Rajat Soni

Summer Activities As The Credits Roll

It’s been a strange couple of weeks. For some reason, July has been a very hot month. These lazy days of summer are always just a bit long, and the girls and I spend a lot of time looking at

By Rajat Soni

Why I Returned My Father’s Day Fitness Tracker

So, a couple of weeks ago we celebrated Father’s Day. Rather than write a reflect immediately, I decided I would let time pass to see if we could maintain the vibe for more than 24 hours. Father’s Day is already

By Rajat Soni

In Praise of Not Praising A Child

Is there such a thing as too much validation? Too much praising a child? I am starting to think this is the case, as my daughters often seem to crave acknowledge that they’ve done “a good job.” Whether it’s a scooter ride,

By Rajat Soni

A Note‑By‑Note Exercise in Parenting

Something utterly miraculous happened the other day. My daughter played a short, one-minute version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy on her guitar before a crowd. I call it a miracle because two months ago, the guitar was wallowing in complete

By Rajat Soni

Why Dadvertising Doesn’t Quite Work On Me

More than ever, we are seeing domestic responsibilities like raising children, performing housework, attending school activities as belonging to both parents. But for all these ideas of egalitarianism in parenting, it is rare that we see them reflected back at

By Rajat Soni

When My Daughter Quit Kids’ Sports

I was in my daughter’s room the other day and came upon her football jerseys lying in the back of the closet. I took them out and looked at them closely. Kids’ sports jerseys are amazing. The designs look like

By Rajat Soni

A Stay‑at‑Home Dad Questions His Relevance

One of the great challenges to being a stay-at-home dad is emerging as the girls grow up: Relevance. So far, as a stay-at-home dad, I am the sort of home-front do-everything person, and the girls have enough things that require my presence. Apart

By Rajat Soni

Where Did the Neighbourhood’s Childhood Friends Go?

I was typing the other day, intently lost in thought, when I looked across to the large window of our front porch and saw a 3-foot-tall person wearing a burglar’s mask and a princess dress peering in, face pressed firmly

By Rajat Soni

Generation Selfie

Generation Me strikes again! My parents bought our older daughter the dreaded selfie stick – the plastic arm that holds your phone 3 feet or even more away so you can take awful pictures of yourself from ridiculous angles. Sigh.

By Rajat Soni

Homework Is Bad For Families. Here’s Proof.

Here we were, voices raised in the house yet again. The Kurukshetra War was about to commence — just as soon as my daughter opened her homework folder. My wife and I would struggle to get her to finish her umpteenth

By Rajat Soni

Kids Can See Through A Bully, Even When He’s A Candidate

Normally an American presidential election would be far afield for a discussion of parenting — except that these days, I usually have something related to the US presidential election on the TV when the kids are home. So, while I was

By Rajat Soni

Tiny, Tiny Mean Girls

As children reach their transition years, the issues that we’ve been able to keep in the back of our minds move closer to our daily lives. With two daughters, it’s the concept of “mean girls.” The 2004 comedy starring Lindsey Lohan

By Rajat Soni

A Child’s Interest in Religion; A Father’s Agnosticism

My 4-year-old daughter goes to a Catholic pre-kindergarten program. Recently, she attended her first Mass. For me, this was an odd experience — I was raised as an agnostic. My parents, both non-practicing Hindus, enjoyed the cultural traditions of Hinduism,

By Rajat Soni

Finding Focus at 30 Feet Up

The struggle to get our children to focus in a noisy, technology-soaked world bedevils every parent. We all know that we are commanded to help them focus on homework, a game, a book, or even on what we are saying

By Rajat Soni

A Diwali Christmas

The holiday season is winding down, and things are finally returning to normal. The neighborhood is strewn with deflated Santa Clauses and half-strung Christmas lights. Right around this time, rather than feeling sad, I am happy to see things calm

By Rajat Soni

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