In praise of hobbies

The overscheduled child has been a cliche for some years, even decades now, the primped and pampered product of parents with two incomes but little time

Standing in a patch of soggy dirt, mosquitoes nipping at my ankles, watching my daughter, still some way short of her sixth birthday, strive ineptly to stay atop a horse with a murderous (or is it suicidal?) glint in its eye, I wonder what I’m doing to myself. What am I doing to her? It started with that familiar summer complaint: no school and the stir-crazy kids were driving us nuts. Both my wife and I work largely from home and while it is a blessing, the boundaries between domestic and professional duties are porous, easily breached by a baby’s