My father always tried to keep me in line by convincing me that his rules were what was best for me. He never relied on the brute force of authority: Never said, “You have to do it this way, because I am the father and I say so.” He would explain, as carefully as he could, why doing it my way would hurt me, or hurt someone else, or violate justice or common sense. If we had objections to his rules, he would answer them with careful arguments. This trained us to think and reason, which didn’t work out as well for him in the long run. Once we could out-argue him, his authority got seriously undermined, which was humiliating for him and frightening for us. But in the long run, he rolled with the punches, and changed his mind in response to many of our arguments, and we did the same for him. He always used to say that his favorite rock song was “Teach your children well”, especially the second verse which went “teach your parents well”. God, I miss him. Of all the many privileges I was gifted, being raised as his son was the greatest.