How to keep your young son from becoming an old man

Boys. We should raise them like eagles but keep a net handy for when they fall from the sky while trying to reach the moon.

Lord, the young can be lousy with impulse, anger, arrogance and a budding lust. Never met a boy who wasn't a little buggy, and I don't mean with flies and fleas. Just buggy — you know, flawed, frazzled, errant.

Yet, I watch the little guy and the way a bit more of his boyishness drains from him every day — fewer milk mustaches, fewer freckles. When he loses this boyishness, I lose a little of mine. I dread the day we both grow up.

So how do you keep a young man young? How do you maintain his mad boyish spirit? A few suggestions:

- Arm him with irony, not cynicism. Cynicism…