There is a difference between your parents' not reporting to you everything they do and keeping secrets from you.

I realize that people fly with small children all the time, and that babies are easier in some ways because all they do is sit/lie around anyway, but damn it's hard to keep a baby comfortable on any flight, much less a long one, particularly amid the looks of horror they will get from fellow passengers as it dawns on them that their 10- to 13-hour flight might come with a soundtrack of screaming baby.

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

I'm not a big fan of the white lie.

You can't make someone agree with you, not even when you're 100 percent sure you're right.

Minimizing exposure to miserable people is nothing short of a life strategy.

I have no quarrel with people who lack the skill or temperament to care for small children.