Keeping It Personal

My daughter, 16, broached a sensitive topic recently, asking me if I had any doubts about my writing about my children for public consumption in this column. She was gentle about it; she wasn’t making a demand. But maybe she wasn’t making a demand just yet. And maybe it’s time for me to reconsider my weekly public meditation on my family life.

I’m not making an announcement today. But I want to share what I shared with her. That the column, now about nine years and going, continues to be a great joy to me as it impels me to consider my life as a parent and a husband more intently than I might otherwise. And that I’ve always liked to think that it provides readers (parents all) with a personal point of connection to their own experiences. For an editor and writer, there’s nothing like getting a complimentary note from someone thanking me for sharing an experience of mine that they deeply related too.

But my daughter is now a teenager, and my son is 12, and what I told them is that I know I need to be even more vigilant with what I share about them as they get older—and that maybe it’s time for me to reconsider the whole adventure. My wife often tells people she learns more about our lives from my column than she does from me directly! So maybe that’s something to work on as well.

I’m not there yet, especially as the three of them continue to give me such great material.

If they only behaved, I’d have nothing to write about.

Eric Messinger is the editor of  New York Family. He can be reached at [email protected]