Steven, the father of a 2-year-old boy, wrote me to ask: “What do I need to know to be a great parent?” What a great question; and one I hope all men and women who are expecting a child ask. First, let me say, it isn’t possible to learn much about being a parent without having kids. That’s why you so often hear “great lessons” in parenting from childless people. You know the “If that were my kid, I would do—” kind of advice. They are the ones with red faces when they do have children. I can’t tell you how many times I heard parents say: “I was an excellent parent until we had kids.”
I’m reminded of what William Osler (1849–1919), the father of modern medicine, and the first chair of medicine at Johns Hopkins, said about studying to be a doctor: “He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.”
