I Thought I’d Found a Cheat Code for Parenting
This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.
On a summer Nantucket afternoon, the 8-year-old mermaid queen organized the kitchen pantry. The wizard drew crayon portraits in the Den of Tranquility. The boy with super-speed concocted fresh Spemonades—that’s one part Sprite, one part lemonade—for myself and a few lucky houseguests. I took a sip and announced, reflexively, “Delicious! One point for you!” He darted inside from the back porch, shouting to the other adventurers, “Two more points, and I’m at Level 9!”
What was this world I’d made?
It started three months earlier, when I dove headfirst into parenthood for the first time. In April I became a stepdad to three amazing kids: two boys and a girl, ages 5, 6, and 8, respectively. For the most part I parented by intuition. I dealt with the usual conflicts—the s, thes, the s—as I suspect most parents do: inconsistently, haphazardly, making it up, all the time. Yet by late June on vacation in New England, our rented house was overflowing with extended family, Lego pieces, and restless energy. Messes—both emotional and spaghetti-based—abounded. “What would encourage to clean up and play nice?” I wondered, trying to put myself in the shoes of a 6-year-old, not exactly a quantum leap for a man who loves jelly beans and plays Minecraft.
