Your job is to be you, which includes being the chief beneficiary of all things you do right, the chief victim of all you do wrong, and the one person on Earth who has to live with every choice you make. As gatekeeper to your life, you’re it.

The only answer that has any chance against against the information saturation kids face these days is to talk openly with kids, early enough and often enough and unflinchingly enough that you set the precedent of being the safe place they can go to ask their difficult questions. It has to happen starting when they're 2 or 3, and they ask you where babies come from and instead of freaking out and deflecting, you give facts commensurate with their ability to understand.

All of us assign different values to things, and not all of those values are going to line up with others'.

You can't make people like you under the best of circumstances, and you certainly can't make them like you while you're actively badgering them on what you perceive to be their failures of conscience.

Apparently you have ample proof from experience that you're not going to stop world evil by debating your in-laws into submission, so it's okay to choose not to try.

If you take the time to listen to an upset child's story with empathy, and guide the child toward figuring out the root of the problem, then the result is often that the child not only calms down, but also in the future is less likely to get so upset.

Moving is hard. Staying is easy. Logistically speaking, at least. And this is true whether you're doing or undoing something.