Since sleep doesn’t come easy every time, when I tuck the boys into bed, I tell them they can throw me all their worries, the way kids throw kisses in clenched fists. I catch them, one by one, and tuck each one of them into the pockets of my bathrobe. They don’t tell me what the worries are; they just throw them over to me. And then, of course, the obvious corollary: when I lie down after tucking them in, I empty my pockets of their worries and mine—dear God, dear God, dear God. One of the central jobs of a parent is to hold anything too heavy or hard for their child, and also, that’s just
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