If you take just a moment to look, you’ll find a hundred different ways your child is teaching you to be a better person.

Just a few days, Mikey came home asking for a menorah. The Catholic me was quite confused until I got to know that they’d just begun learning about Hannukkah at pre-school. Mikey said that his friend Maia had a menorah and that he wanted one too. His logic was inarguably simple. He liked something about the holiday that he’d just learned about and he wanted to bring it home. There was no religious dissonance or awkwardness. To him, it was plain and simple celebration.

So of course I drove to the store and got him his very first menorah. He was beyond himself with joy. Right then I knew that my kids were all growing up with the right values - happiness, love, and unity in diversity, among many others. It’s certainly something that we can all stand to be reminded of once in a while!