He's got your hands," people tell me, looking at the giant paws on one of my sons. I'm charmed-who wouldn't be?-but I know what's ahead. Someday soon, somewhere on the bumpy road to independence, he'll look at my wife and utter a version of those immortal words, "Look, Ma, no hands!"

Like so many kids these days, my boys will probably learn to play soccer rather than the handball common in the New York of my youth. They'll resent me if my treatment of them isn't evenhanded, and they'll feel my absence, I hope, if I'm not sufficiently on hand. But what will they be like when they get older? Will they be handy around the house? Pull down a handsome income and get high-handed because of it? Or find themselves living hand-to-mouth and moping about in hand-me-downs?