The Seven AM Practice: Stories of Family Life

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“Somewhere along the way we developed a distrust of idle time.
Children became an investment; it cost[s] money to join the classes and
courses and sports that are supposed to turn them into well-rounded
little human beings. ... There is, simply, no time for play in such a
serious undertaking.”

A sharp scent of wistfulness hangs over this book. The author has been
a writer/journalist for more than two decades and has survived both
parenting and organized children’s sports for almost as long. The
Seven A.M. Practice is a collection of thoughts, mostly gleaned from
previously published newspaper columns and magazine articles, about life
as a forty-something with children. Much of the book is about amateur
hockey teams, but there are side trips into other topics, such as
discussing the merits of ear-piercing with your son, conducting a
pet-snake hunt in your bedroom, and suddenly realizing that you are old
enough to have a child with a driver’s licence.

With a sports writer’s ear for a colorful phrase, MacGregor
effortlessly captures the essence of life’s little turning points,
which to a forty-something parent often seem like a continuous downward
spiral. The book is divided into essays averaging about a page and a
half each. The author’s dry wit and lyrical style make them a treat to
read.