Handle with Care

I sometimes take a picture of you because you’re just so adorable and amazing and beautiful. And sometimes I catch a hint of fragility in what the camera catches. Other times I see huge heaping mounds of it. Giant reserves of delicate. Like you’re a crystal chandelier in the shape of my beautiful boy. And then, in my minds eye, I see all the thousand ways you’ll be disappointed by the realities of life you can’t even fathom at this point. Sculpted from this thing of beauty into another thing of beauty to be sure. But still, that journey is treacherous and full of potential. Potential harm. Potential fortune. Potential damage and grace.

Maybe it’s you. Maybe I’m not just a proud dad that’s just insanely obsessed with my kids. Maybe your specialness, your perfectness is not a function of my pride. Perhaps you are magical and I’m afraid of being at the helm and breaking you by some silly decision I make that seems necessary that I’ll grow to regret years from now.

I could stare at the pictures of you, the you you are now, on the precipice of independence and I dread the pain that growing up can be.

You’ll be fine. I know that. But you’ll be broken too. You have to be. Good, happy little boys can’t survive growing up. If they could they’d never grow up. Which sounds good until you realize that never growing up makes it hard to be a good man. That’s just the way it is. It’s okay. If you figure out what’s important from being a boy you can pull some of those parts out and take them with you. You may have to pack them away for a time, but they will be there when the time comes and you need them again.

A broken arm is one thing. I can handle that. Easy, actually. But the thought of you being teased or picked on or not knowing what to do in a school cafeteria and feeling sick and disoriented because you think everyone doesn’t like you, that thought ties me in knots. I got caught up in that process when I was a kid. I cried everyday for months when I was sent to school the first time. I was removed eventually and allowed to return the following year, but by then I knew to be cautious. I knew people didn’t like me. I knew they didn’t have to. What was wrong, though, was that I looked at the few that enjoyed making fun of me and thought ‘how can I do what they want me to do? How can I make them like me and stop picking on me?’. All along there was a world of kids who’d have been delighted to play and be my friends. But I just kept trying to impress the cool kids, even shunning kids I’d have gotten along with great who weren’t at the ‘right’ table.

Eventually I figured it out and sat safely where I didn’t want to be. It was mostly fine and it largely defined who I was to the world, or at least to my classmates who comprised the entirety of the world for me then. It took so long for me to be the me I liked and was comfortable being. I learned early on how to make them like me and I leaned on that all the way through school, which I hated because of how it all began. I spent so many years not liking me, internalizing the voices of all the wrong people.

All because I had some tough early days. The types of days grown ups like to say are ‘tough but you get through them’. Days we fool ourselves into thinking aren’t all that important because we were 5 and how much damage can really happen to a healthy and loved 5 year old. But we’re wrong. We can get hurt and scar up in tender places at very young ages. Even those of us that had enough of everything. imageI see your precious face and your beautiful and awesome expectation that nothing breaks and everyone will love you always and it scares the hell out of me. Because some day you’ll feel weird, alone and scared. And you won’t know why. And it will break you as it must. In the end I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about the ‘weird’ and the ‘scared’. You need to get through these things. We all do. But if we can help you with the alone part for as long as possible and stay present for the times you’ll need to explore being ‘away’ than maybe, just maybe, a small but invaluable piece of you, a piece of the you you are now might be able to make it through to the other side. If it does I hope that you are able to see all the things that I’m getting to see in you. If you do you’ll see what all that breaking was for. You’ll know once again what it feels like to be a fragile chandelier. To look at something you love so much that you can’t even imagine it ever not loving you back. The mere thought makes me break just a little.

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Author: joejmedler

Joe Medler lives in New Jersey with his wife, who is universally understood to be far too good for him, and his two young sons, who are far too smart for him. His work has been featured on MamaLode, The Original Bunker Punks and Sammiches and Psych Meds. You can find more of his work at https://developingdad.com/ and follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/developingdad

208 thoughts on “Handle with Care”

  3. I thought this was really Beautiful to see that type of emotion expressed in words by a Father.. usually you hear this side only from mother’s and father’s hold back how they feel or from expressing it. Even though, regardless of gender both parent’s have love for their child in an equal way. It’s just nice to see in words the love of a father because it’s not often conveyed. I enjoyed reading your writing.

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    1. Thank you so much for your very kind words. Took a long time and it was a rare moment that i could access all of this emotion. Most men, me included, arent holding back. We just don’t know how to express emotion of this sort. Actually most of the time we dont even recognize it. So thank you so much for noticing it!!

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  8. “…some day you’ll feel weird, alone and scared. And you won’t know why. And it will break you as it must. In the end I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about the ‘weird’ and the ‘scared’. You need to get through these things. We all do.”

    Damn. Can you be all our Dads?

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  10. Ah, poignant and perfect. As the parent of a beautiful boy (who is now a beautiful man) with Asperger’s syndrome, I so connect to longing to jump in ahead and clear the path. And we can’t do that. And we shouldn’t do that. But you are so right: we can help with the alone part. All the best to you and yours on this wonderful journey….

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  17. Wow. I honestly don’t enjoy the whole pretencious, “fatherly” fear of the world destroying us and the apparent impulse to deny us the opportunity of learning from insightful experiences. The cycle ends with us. Share the best you know with your kids, respect the way they think and trust their capabilities in thought and individuality. There will come a time when they will break free from your restrictive arms, happily. And you must accept that and let them. They are not fragile eggs. Exposure to tough things makes us stronger based on the choices we make. We all deserve to choose. And parents deserve the victory of trusting what they have done and the honesty of having faith in their little ones. We cannot protect everyone because there was never a need to. We will all cut our feet against stones at a point it time when we walk barefoot. Take solace, parents everywhere. We Will Be Fine.

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      3. Oh my god i know. Im lamenting that im human too and my feelings MUST be ignores and im taking time to lament since its going yo slip past faster than id like. Im accepting it, just having fewlibgs about it.

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      4. Well, its good to know you are human too. I never did imply you weren’t. I learnt from my own experiences with a suicidal and self harming friend that trusting other’s judgement and believing in their capabilities helps them come of their own. Not teplicate the subconscious message that they are nit brave, strong or smart enough to handle the daunting things in life. That friend of mine is alive, well and stronger than ever despite adversities he faces even today. Its wrong to entertain certain kinds of fear. It represses our lives.

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  19. You mentioned a line which said “at times we wonder how much damage can happen to a 5 year old?” It really touched me. Often people fail to understand how certain things like being picked on, or feeling lonely and questioning your own self, can cause deep emotional turmoil. Often people don’t see how these little things change someone from the inside. I am glad you put it into words.

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  25. This is beautiful. You really capture the worries I carry about ever having children. When we’re grown, we remember the hurt of our childhoods and scary to know that the painful experiences we had might be passed on to them.
    Thank you. You have spurred an idea for a post of my own – expect a pingback soon!

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  30. Wow. This brought tears to my eyes. My husband and I sometimes talk about our worries, our fears about our 4-year old son with ASD and how we won’t always be around to protect him from people who will take advantage of him or make fun of him. I know how some people think
    children will grow up and “will be fine,” but NOT every single one of them. We can only hope for the best.

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  37. The sort of thing that makes me want to build ten foot high fences around my boys so they can’t get hurt. It’s hard knowing you do have to let their little hearts break eventually.
    I love that just for now, they don’t imagine that someone wouldn’t like them. That they love the world they live in. Giant hug from one parent to another.

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