FIRST WORLD WHINGE:

I have many happy memories of the meals prepared by my single mother and my extended family during the holidays. I know well the debate between turkey and ham as the central dish. I was taught to recognize the difference between good and mediocre macaroni and cheese. I remember spades tournaments, games of dominoes and the rich tenor of Black male laughter. My family found happiness even when it was hard to come by.

The difference between my childhood Thanksgivings and those of my kids is the world that existed around the holiday. My mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor when I was in elementary school; she couldn't work full time, so we lived mostly on government assistance. Our home was in Huntsville, Ala., some 100 miles northeast of Birmingham, the site of so many pivotal events of the civil rights movement. My little corner of the city, Northwest Huntsville, still bears the scars from redlining and the inadequate desegregation of its schools during the civil rights era.

Violence complicated school, parties and sporting events. As far back as I can remember, I've known how to look into a person's eyes and tell the difference between someone who is willing to fight and someone who is comfortable with much worse.

I loved my neighborhood and fought anyone who tried to reduce us to a series of stereotypes. But the violence exhausted me. I felt as if it would kill me if I didn't leave -- maybe not physically but spiritually. I needed more. I needed space.

Education was a path toward finding that space, and, in some sense, I succeeded. I made it to college and graduate school, and then became a professor. But now I find myself in a difficult, bewildering position: My children do not know how to read a room, observe the set of a jaw or assess the determination of a glare. They wave at strangers and are apt to start up conversations, assuming that the other person bears them good will. They speak about college and futures as lawyers, doctors and teachers as a matter of course. They open the refrigerator and expect to find food. And I sometimes find that I don't know how to be their father.

This tension is pressing, because this fall, after years as nomads -- first because of my wife's military career and later because of the rough and tumble world of academia -- we purchased a beautiful home that we expect to live in for a while. Two of our children entered a private Christian school. We have obtained what many consider to be the American dream. I'm not sure what comes next for me or for them. What has been lost among all the things we have gained?

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