[This is an essay excerpt from an upcoming book of essays, Moxie Matters: Life’s Beginnings in a Small Maine Town, which is slated for release in late 2010.-jb]

I’ve been many things in my life—baseball prospect, writer, husband, father—this last one is the moniker, in hindsight that might be the most important for me, primarily because this is how I got connected with my son, Mark.

Parenting is the hardest activity many will ever do in life. The irony in this is that there are really no manuals to follow. Oh, there are a wealth of books, written by America’s expert class that tell you all the “right” things to do, or how to skirt the laws of man and incorporate corporal punishment into the mix, or utilize manipulation and subterfuge. I have little good to say about the likes of these.

For most, you figure it out as you go along, often, trying to run counter to the models inflicted upon us by our own parents. Later in life, you look back at our imperfect predecessors and realize that they didn’t do as bad as we had originally thought they had—subsequently, the damage wasn’t as permanent, or the scars as deep as we had originally feared.
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