Outdoor family fun has Jon Willing rethinking his cold-weather wardrobe I might get a second pair of snow pants this winter. Oh, I’m sorry. Are snow pants uncool? Somewhere around middle school, snow pants became a fashion faux […]
Miles willing
The kindergarten field journal
If someone in your home is starting school this fall, worry not My gosh, the sand. It will be everywhere. And just when you think every clump has been shaken out of your kid’s sneakers, an avalanche of tiny grains […]
Summer squeeze
Getting every last drop out of a fleeting season requires a complex formula There are few reasons why our son’s bedtime would be extended, even in the stretched sunny days of summer. Once the elusive bedtime routine is finally nailed […]
Dad bod
Fatherhood has both inspired and encouraged this dad’s very practical, very strategic fitness routine It was around Elgin Street when I gleefully realized my knees weren’t going to buckle after all. I had trudged three long downtown blocks on the […]
Calendar guy
Hello, junior kindergarten: As his son Miles begins school, Jon Willing enters a new scheduling nightmare The first year of school — and possibly the ensuing 13 — requires a proper hardcopy calendar. That was the first […]
Sharing is caring
The last page of a Sesame Street book shows Cookie Monster and Elmo splitting a snack and telling us, “Sharing is caring.” It has become a line often repeated in our home as we teach our three-year-old son, […]
Unsung heroes
Some of the city’s most valuable resources during the pandemic? The trusted professionals who care for our children, Jon Willing writes It was an easy decision for my wife and I when child-care providers were allowed to reopen after the […]
A woman of influence
The lessons Jon Willing’s mother taught him as a child carry on decades later in his young son, Miles Sometimes the most subtle, practical lessons from your childhood best inform your success in parenthood. I’m talking about the kind of […]
A strange turn of events
In his debut column, new dad Jon Willing sings the praises of daycare and its value to his young son Like jailbirds scrawling the days on the prison wall, our small family was tracking our time spent semi-confined under the […]