My son is 19. I'm still learning to be a dad

Also: The reasons for climate optimism [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  August 27, 2023 Dear Cog reader, There’s an unexpected interloper in [Bill Eville’s essay]( this week about the ache of parenting older children: Jimmy McNulty, a character from HBO’s series “The Wire.” If you’ve seen the show, you know McNulty (played by the dashing Dominic West): He’s the frustrating, self-sabotaging, occasionally brilliant detective whose life’s work is busting Baltimore’s drug dealers and kingpins. I agree with the critics: “The Wire” is among the [best series ever made](. I watched it in one gulp in early 2009, just after a move from Boston to Washington, D.C. I was desperately lonely, and “The Wire” helped me through it. (My husband and I got our first dog in D.C.; we named him Bodie, after a “Wire” character.) The show has also been an oft companion in Bill's life. Once upon a time, a stranger mistook him for West, a welcome mis-identification (for Bill). What I didn’t necessarily see coming was Bill using the trials and tribulations of McNulty, Omar, Avon Barksdale and the like to soothe his infant son in the middle of the night. Bill’s son, Hardy, is now 19 and a college sophomore. But for years, Bill was a stay-at-home dad. He managed registering his kids for activities and found friendship with other parents (mostly moms) at the local park. He dressed simply for the role: a uniform of black and gray T-shirts, which he imagined would stand up to the splatter and spit up of parenthood. He was wearing one of those utilitarian, black, 19-year-old T-shirts while drinking a beer with a fellow dad and friend a couple of weeks ago. His friend asked, “Do you think it’s more sad or weird when a kid leaves home?” Bill answered weird; he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his son in the past year. It was bizarre to think more about the dog than his own son. “I was prepared to feel sad saying goodbye at college drop-off, and to avoid Hardy’s empty room upon returning home,” he writes. “What I did not see coming, however, was a loss of feeling as the weeks turned to months.” Bill’s kids are older than mine, so I don’t know yet what it’s like to let go — or at least to let go as he describes. But I do understand the bigger idea he’s getting at: That parenting, in all its twists and turns, allows us to feel a “fuller spectrum of emotions, from love to rage, from grief to worry to ecstatic joy and back again." He's also inspired me to watch "The Wire" for the third time. P.S.— Cog is taking a publishing hiatus next week, to work on longer-term projects and prepare for a busy fall. We’ll be back in your inboxes after Labor Day. Enjoy these final sweet days of summer. Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [My son’s a college sophomore, and I’m still learning how to be a dad]( Parenting taught me how to feel a fuller spectrum of emotions, from love to rage, from grief to worry to ecstatic joy and back again, writes Bill Eville. [Read more.]( [My son’s a college sophomore, and I’m still learning how to be a dad]( Parenting taught me how to feel a fuller spectrum of emotions, from love to rage, from grief to worry to ecstatic joy and back again, writes Bill Eville. [Read more.]( [Summer camp is for everybody]( For kids who have special needs, including Molly Colvin's daughter, who has Type 1 diabetes, summer camp provides a few enchanted days when their differences are the key to acceptance in an exclusive club. 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[Read more.]( [The biggest threat to our students is gun violence]( The issue of gun violence is not theoretical for us, write educators Sydney Chaffee and TK Nagayoshi. It has become an unavoidable part of our work with children, diverting our time and attention from teaching. But preventing gun violence for kids is not just about what happens in schools. [Read more.]( [The biggest threat to our students is gun violence]( The issue of gun violence is not theoretical for us, write educators Sydney Chaffee and TK Nagayoshi. It has become an unavoidable part of our work with children, diverting our time and attention from teaching. But preventing gun violence for kids is not just about what happens in schools. [Read more.]( [Zen and the art of lawn maintenance]( A "reel mower" may conjure images from the 1950s, but the environmental imperatives of the 21st century have enhanced, not diminished, the virtues of this humble landscaping device, writes Rich Barlow. [Read more.]( [Zen and the art of lawn maintenance]( A "reel mower" may conjure images from the 1950s, but the environmental imperatives of the 21st century have enhanced, not diminished, the virtues of this humble landscaping device, writes Rich Barlow. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space." "[Elon Musk's Shadow Rule]( The New Yorker. "Former presidents do not go and get fingerprinted and mug-shotted and perp-walked every day, even the one former president who takes his arraignments in gift packs of four." "[Trump's Mugshot Gives His Haters Nothing]( The Atlantic. "I wanted to freeze the smell of campfire in dirty hair, of a soggy bathing suit hanging in the cabin rafters, of a kid who is too young to wear deodorant but needs it. Camp felt magical. And inherently fleeting." "[I Wanted to Capture the Fleeting Magic of a Summer at Camp in Photographs]( The New York Times. "Now that she is a teenager, I smile as I watch her run off to her cabin, but also feel the distance between us that her disease creates — I will never know what it is like to live with it. " — Dr. Molly Colvin, "[Summer camp is for everybody]( ICYMI [A cop, a slide and a fleeting moment of viral joy]( The Cop Slide might not have been what the city of Boston envisioned for its plaza, writes Miles Howard, but for a brief moment in time, it belonged to all of us. [Read more.]( [A cop, a slide and a fleeting moment of viral joy]( The Cop Slide might not have been what the city of Boston envisioned for its plaza, writes Miles Howard, but for a brief moment in time, it belonged to all of us. [Read more.]( If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. Unsubscribe from all WBUR editorial newsletters [here.](  Interested in learning more about corporate sponsorship? 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