If only Craig Wilson had kids, he wouldn't brag and wouldn't hover.


Tomorrow is Take Your Child to Work Day. I don't have a child. I could borrow one, I suppose, but it's not the same as having your own. I feel like single people must feel on Valentine's Day. Out of the loop. Not a player.

They didn't have Take Your Child to Work Day when I was young. Just as well. I wouldn't have had anywhere to go. My father was a farmer. I saw him at work every day. No going into the office to see what he did. He worked in the orchards. It all seemed pretty straightforward to me.

But back to childless me. It's not that I haven't wanted one. I have. I'm good with kids. I can always make them laugh. Maybe because I'm not their father. That helps.

My niece and nephews, now their 30s, still remember Christmases at their grandparents', when we'd run the old Lionel train over "Farmer Jones" and his wife, little plastic figures who just happened to end up on the tracks. They thought it the funniest thing ever. So did I. That's why we did it for hours.

And I'm still good at the cheap laugh. Neighborhood kids have figured out I'm not an actual grown-up. If there's a hose, for instance, I will spray first, ask questions later. (I always say I could mess up a kid just as well as all my friends have theirs. I just haven't had the opportunity.)

If I had kids, I'd be proud of them, encourage them, then leave them alone to make their own mistakes. Something, of course, that is rarely allowed these days. Yes, I hear the helicopters, too.

I'd also try not to brag. Hard, I know, but still. I was at a wedding the other day when a woman pulled a phone out of her bag, pushed some buttons, then shoved it in my face. It was a photo of her granddaughter, lying in a bassinet.

I didn't know what to say, so I fear I said the obvious. "A baby!" She nodded proudly, stared at the screen for a while, then showed me again. "Still a baby!" I said.

Maybe she'd like to come to work with me tomorrow. "Lean in" a little? Never too early.

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