“Because I said so,” has long been repudiated as a parenting technique. Do mothers and fathers sometimes need to use it? Yes. But as the basis for a parent-child relationship, it is lacking. It provides no guidance to the child that will help him make better decisions in the future and it depends upon a...
Many of my Musings come from articles I read or podcasts I hear. This one stems from a more personal place. In the past few weeks, a number of women I love as well as some close friends have given birth. In contrast to my own pregnancy experiences, these perfectly healthy women were subjected to...
I am a pediatrician in Seattle. I started listening to your podcast today on the rules of dating. You made mention that male and female are immutable. I wondered if you had ever met someone who is transgender. I wondered what you thought of people who are attracted to other people of the same sex....
Science doesn’t lie—some scientists do. Up till the 1970s, California was building, cleaning, and maintaining fire breaks around residential communities in forested areas. Fire roads were bulldozed and kept usable for large firefighting equipment. This provided rapid access allowing fires to be fought while they were still small. Going back to Spanish times, controlled burning,...
My husband and I were discussing whether the production of pharmaceuticals and other vital commodities would move back to the United States from China. He brought up an angle that had eluded me. “We aren’t raising enough people with the education and ability to produce many of these things,” he said. “To make matters worse,...
A few weeks ago, sitting in the waiting room while a relative had shoulder surgery, I read a Wall Street Journal piece about unnecessary infection rates after surgical procedures. It seems that lack of hygiene relating to surgical scrubs is relatively common. My stomach was already in knots anticipating the coming surgery, and reading the...
