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Maybe it is a function of my age—dad to a 20-something and a teenager who tend to view me as an unfortunate necessity—that I long for the early years of parenting. Oh, how I miss gnawing on fat wrists and elbows; getting tackled by a kid screeching “Daddy!” as I come through the front door; hearing the extended cut of a seven-year-old’s day, in lingering detail.

This is one of the reasons that I was so gutted on a recent trip to Lebanon and Syria, where—at the invitation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR)—I found myself among Syrian refugees. At some point, the terrible things I heard from adult refugees started to blur: the substandard living conditions, the scarce job opportunities, and the fear of police raids. These Syrians now face a terrible choice of remaining in miserable conditions in Lebanon or taking their chances in Syria, which the U.N. security team in Damascus described as “unstable and volatile.”

Maybe it is a function of my age—dad to a 20-something and a teenager who tend to view me as an unfortunate necessity—that I long for the early years of parenting. Oh, how I miss gnawing on fat wrists and elbows; getting tackled by a kid screeching “Daddy!” as I come through the front door; hearing the extended cut of a seven-year-old’s day, in lingering detail.

This is one of the reasons that I was so gutted on a recent trip to Lebanon and Syria, where—at the invitation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR)—I found myself among Syrian refugees. At some point, the terrible things I heard from adult refugees started to blur: the substandard living conditions, the scarce job opportunities, and the fear of police raids. These Syrians now face a terrible choice of remaining in miserable conditions in Lebanon or taking their chances in Syria, which the U.N. security team in Damascus described as “unstable and volatile.”

The........

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