fathers and sons – Page 4

Unburdened

I’ve always been hypersensitive. Which isn’t something I’ve always been comfortable acknowledging.

When I was growing up it was a real issue for me. It’s still a thing that can be hard for me. But as I get older, especially after having kids, it’s practically unavoidable. When I was young everything I felt was turned into the only emotions testosterone could amplify. Rage, Joy, Jealousy, Sadness or Frustration.

Having feelings, being filled with emotion was terrible. The loss of control was awful. It felt vulnerable. It felt dangerous and I chose instead to express my feelings, at least the joy, jealousy and sadness ones through stoic denial of them. Which conveniently turned them all to rage and frustration. The two emotions I felt comfortable showing the world. Somehow those two feelings felt invulnerable.

But sadness was there at times. Sadness is still hard. It tends to come out as rage, but I can at least recognize it now. Jealousy is mostly gone. Sometimes I might feel a touch of envy but it’s mostly for made up stuff like money. Sometimes I read something brilliant and wish I’d thought of it, but I don’t know if that’s jealousy.

The world instills in boys the misconception that painful feelings are the opposite of strength. They aren’t. The fact that I couldn’t kill them completely, those vulnerable, painful feelings is because they were important. They were protecting a part of me that couldn’t be fully removed. No matter how hard I might have tried. The part of me that is ultimately my greatest strength.

The only feelings that can own me are those I hide. The ones I keep to myself. The ones that I’m afraid of people seeing.

I would never have believed that I’d ever have been comfortable sharing so much of my concerns and so many of my worries with the world. So many of my shortcomings, failings and feelings. I was invested in them staying hidden. I’d made them shameful by keeping them hidden. I’d made such simple and beautiful things as feelings and need and frailties and worries my undoing by being so afraid of them that I loaded them into my bones and my body and my bags and anything I could carry and then dragged them with me wherever I went. When they inevitably became too heavy and I’d become weary I’d crumble, drop it all in private, curse my weakness and then add that weakness to the pile that I’d once again pick up, pack on and carry around. It was untenable.

I don’t imagine that I would have carried this burden forever. I imagine that some event would eventually have shown me the light and taught me that I needed to unburden myself. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been an event. Perhaps it would have been the slow learning of a lifetime of pain that would have taught me my lessons and prodded me and encouraged me to finally let it go by putting it down, laying it out and sharing my load with anyone who’d care to see and take stock of it with me. I imagine I’d have gotten there some way or other had I not gotten there as I did. But thankfully I didn’t have to wait for either of these things.

What let me know it was okay to be my entire person in front of the entire world was becoming a father. I have two sons who will grow up in a world that is prone to teaching it’s young men that ‘manhood’ means being more powerful than feelings of frailty and weakness. It’s an unfortunate tradition and residual instinct of a time less enlightened than one I hope we get to some day soon. But until we do I need to be the proof that having feelings and being sensitive to them, all of them, rage and compassion and needing and passion and frustration and sadness and guilt and all of them, is a strength. It’s in fact how you grow strong. Having feelings, expressing them, then putting them down is the only way to move on. It’s my duty and my pleasure to show them this, to be the proof of this valuable nugget of earned wisdom.

More so than that even, it’s my pleasure to show them gratitude for teaching me this lesson. For making my life so much more harmonious with the life that has been coursing through me that I could never fully come to grips with and feel comfortable in before meeting them and learning how to be brave and strong because of the love I have for them.

Thank you guys. You opened life to me. You made me strong enough to live it fully and honestly. You’ve made all of it, the joy and pain, pure bliss.

Our Kindergarten Dilemma

I’m stressed. We’re stressed. It’s mid January and I’m stressing about how we’ll handle things come September.

I have a fairly Idyllic situation. I drive both my sons, Charlie and Teddy, five and three respectively, to and from daycare every day. I’m able to do this because I work where the best daycare we have ever seen happens to be. Every day has challenges, some have really big challenges, but in all it’s a pretty great trade off.

For every time I snap and growl aggressively at one of them for not listening to me about opening the garbage can full of salt for melting the yet non-existent snow or have to carry a kid into the building who isn’t yet ready for the ride to be over, squirming and fighting to run back to the car I get ten chances most dads don’t. Most parents don’t for that matter.

I get to see them throughout the day as I bump into their class heading here or there. I get to poke my head around corners when I know they’re going to be somewhere and watch them making friends and being three or five and breathtaking. I have a relationship with the people that take care of them all day that is just a tad more than it would be if I were to drop them off and leave for the day. Hell, I get to relax my shoulders all day knowing that they are right around the corner and I can see them whenever I want.

Still, I’m stressed. Tense.

It’s time for us to sign Charlie up for Kindergarten next year and we don’t know how we are going to do it. While we live literally across the street from where he’ll be going to school, we both work a half hour from there. On top of that the kindergarten that’s offered is of the half-day variety. Meaning we’d have to come get him by 11:30. So this kid, who’s thought of ‘school’, which is how we refer to the daycare, as something that runs about 8 hours a day every day for several years now has to go to ‘real’ school, where its serious. And where it lasts a couple of hours.

Logistically this causes a good many problems. How are we supposed to get him from there, again a half hour away, back to where I work, which will give him free aftercare, five days a week. I can’t take that much time every day. For Karen it would be twice as much time as she works about a half hour away from me.

We’re investigating everything but nothing seems simple. The local place that could do aftercare costs $900 a month for 2 days a week. There’s another program that is held where we took him for a few months for daycare before I took this job a couple years ago where they might be able to take him and we might be able to remain solvent, emphasis on ‘might’ for that last part. But he cried literally all day every day there. He’s so comfortable in his school now and the thought of that is traumatizing to us. We could and will if we have to, try to pick him up everyday. It will be a very stressful year but of course we could figure it out. The consideration at the top of our list is to move out to where I work. This is for kindergarten. Public school, half day , no wait list or crazy application process kindergarten.

I’m tense without a solution. I’m the ‘don’t worry, we’ll figure it out spouse’ in my marriage and even I’m fretting this one from here, 8 months out. Who knows what we’ll end up choosing and who knows if it’ll work.

Truthfully these are wonderful stresses to have. He’s a lucky kid (at times) for having parents this concerned. The stress is endurable and the solution will be whatever it is we choose. We’ll see how it goes and if we need to change course midstream it wouldn’t be the first time. Woudn’t even be the fiftieth time. We’re actually getting better and better and switching saddles whilst wading in low waters.

I’m not bothered by it, even if I am a bit annoyed from time to time. Because I remember ten years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I can tell you what was on TV and what it was I was doing on Tuesday nights at that time. It was a flash. All of it. It was a blink of an eye. Ten years from now I’ll be starting the conversations with him about college. If that’s the direction he goes. If not I’ll be talking to him about a thousand other things and I’ll be looking back on all the time we spent driving back and forth from wherever he may end up in September and back to work with me. I’ll be remembering it with a full heart and so much wistful nostalgia for a time that was the fullest of my life. A time I thought was stressful but was actually the most joy filled days I’ll ever know. None of it lasts forever anywhere else but in my mind and I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to be stocking my memories so generously.

The Pretender

It was early morning and the rising suns rays streamed through the windows. I sat upon the floor playing with toys at the foot of the old man. As long as the old man was there I was safe. I was happy.

I pretended that he was the king of the whole world and that it was because of him that the sun came up. That it was merely a decision of his as to whether there would be clouds, how many they would be and how white. He sat benevolently above me reading the newspaper, grunting and groaning but never wavering or leaving. He was my own personal deity after all and while it was certainly my responsibility to obey him and to revere him, it was also his duty to keep watch over me.

Ever since I can remember I’ve pretended. When I was little it was virtually all I did. I pretended everything. I pretended to know everything. I pretended that my explainations, almost all initially at least, completely conjured and of a remarkably unbelievable nature as I had no information from which to reasonably surmise my attestations, were in fact correct. Accurate and made so by my imagining. I made up the world around me and went about testing it. In time it would come to pass that all of my presumptions, ones that were as preposterous as they were inconsistent, would be debunked through observation and experience.

While in this bubble though, playing with the others around the feet of my parents something terrible would get through. Perhaps a baby in a well or a superhero in a pinch on a Saturday morning with little more than minutes to free themselves of the seemingly insurmountable bind they found themselves in. I’d pretend the danger was mine and it was me that needed to resolve it. I’d pretend so convincingly that I’d express my concern, with great sincerity, about what would come to pass in this wholly conjured reality that was as real as anything inside my head.

‘Hey, Buddy. You know this is all pretend, right? There’s nothing bad that can happen to pretend people. This is nothing to worry about.’ the old man would tell me.

‘I know.’ I’d say, as defensive as I was relieved to know there was still order. There was still someone helming this ship.

‘It’s all…’ He’d prompt me any time my anxiety piqued, from his seat at the table presiding over all he or anyone could see.

‘Pretend.’ I’d say, relieved to be reminded.

By midday the light would have ceased being a nuisance and we would be rearranged by the passing of the sun, all of us moving throughout the morning to keep the painful power of unshrouded sunlight from blinding us with it’s insistent stare. By now I found myself in the chair that the great one had once been in. It would never occur to me to think myself on his plane simply because I was in his chair. I was a placeholder and it was merely my job to pretend. To think about what he might have done were he faced with a dilemma, to strain to remember what he’d done when I was the child on the floor who needed him in order to know I was safe, to know there was order.

I had to pretend I knew the answers. Had to pretend that I’d made the world so orderly and surmountable as he had for me. I had to as there were now kids at my feet. Kids making up worlds of their own. Conjuring from places of pure fantasy that which had reason, imbuing it instead with pure whimsy. Playing with ideas as banal and powerful as darkness and light, good and evil, meaningfulness and meaninglessness. At times I could see there minds working, believing the folly that all of this is whimsy, all of it nonsensical and all of us prone to fortunes good and wicked. At times like this I’d see there fragile worlds sucumbing to playful dreams that had gone past the point of purpose and I knew they needed me. So I’d remind them there was order and they weren’t in danger. That the world made sense and I was there to make it work for them. It was my own act of pretending, my own form of necessary and fanciful creativity put to good use, to guide them through the terrifying imaginings they had no idea needed to be reigned in from time to time if they ever wanted to feel at home in the world. I fixed it and it was easy.

‘Hey, Buddy. You know that this is all pretend, don’t you.’ I’d say to each as they needed to hear it.

‘Yes, I know.’ They’d answer a tad too defensively, betraying their own attempts at obscuring how genuinely scared they were and how genuinely relieved I could make them. They needed to feel independent and safe and this was the balance.

I imagined that I had things under control. I imagined that there was some way to guarantee safe passage for those I loved. I imagined that I had reached some level of mastery that allowed me to control certain outcomes. More outcomes then I’d ever thought possible. I built my life around this belief. I had to believe it after all, otherwise how would I be able to do all that needed doing if I thought that I had no control, that it was often out of my hands and could all go away in an instant. That awareness would cripple me. So I pretended I had dominion over it. And I did.

Until I didn’t. Until the gods I knew, the god’s from when the world was new, young, crawling on the flor and conjuring from whole cloth, began to fade. Were I to have been as good to them as they’d been to me I’d have been more present. Were I not to have the full burden of a new, young world strapped to me. Had I had any imagination at all I’d come up with a reason, a pretend one if necesarry as to why I needed to be away as much as I was. But when my gods passed I knew the world I’d known, the blueprint for the one I was imagining for the next generation, had crumbled with them.

What was left of the world they’d made for me was in my minds eye, imagined almost completely. The sadness would never leave me, but what sadness there was had been stolen from the past and left in its place, in the life I knew when I was young, was only the beautiful and ordered and wonderful world that made sense so much more now that it was a place that needed nothing but time and a clear mind to come back to existence fully behind my closed eyes.

I kept up the charade for my kids, knowing that to them there was something real in the world I’d made with them. The one I worked with them to imagine and create. I did so becuase what alternative was there. But I knew. I knew the real world was the one that I’d imagined with the gods that were the real residents of the realm that had the power to truly make a world worth having.

As I grew tired and my own children now greying and grown came to me I marvelled at the worlds they were creating. I couldn’t help but recognize that they were the rightful heirs and I just a vessel for them as the greatness I’d known as a young man from the gods that came before was present again in the world and I was just glad to have seen them through their youth so they could grab the reigns and put the world in order. I was overwhelmed by their capacity to do so and baffled by the means they used.

As the sun now set and the time was running thin I sat in my chair as my children came to me again looking for a meaning to it all and all I could think to tell them was all I’d learned.

‘It’s all pretend. You know that, right? I mean, life, death, joy and pain. All of it, it’s an act of creation. We all get this one chance to have a hand in our fate. We get to create the world our life will play out in. Don’tever forget, it’s all an act of imagination. You guys are the best I’ve ever seen. You have no idea how much that means as I was born of the best. As the light fades I can’t tell you how happy I am to have had the opportunity to watch you making the world anew. I’m going to leave soon and when I do I’ll do so knowing the world is in good hands. Trust your imagination, it’s the only thing that will ever change the world the way it needs to change.’

With that I passed and the darkness sat heavy for a short time.

Then the sun came up anew.

Little Man, Big World

I complain, mostly for comic effect, but occasionally sincerely, about the extremities of emotions displayed by my boys, who are 4 and 2. It can be overwhelming and exhausting at times trying to keep up. But lately the older one’s been starting to show shading. Middling not just between feelings but mixing them with thoughts and presumptions. Calculation and calibration. He’s developing nuance and forethought. His communication can be veiled by strategy. He’s different. He’s becoming a bit more independent in thought, developing an inner life. He’s becoming a little boy and revealing the nascent aspects of his character. The character he will be judged by independent of us.

All in all I’m sure it’s not a very big deal. We are all separate people. It’s a transition we feel lucky to be able to watch. We will be afforded endless opportunities to warn against danger, to praise the many wonderful examples we will surely see of his kind heart. We will be there to fight him when he thinks he’s right and we know he’s wrong. Hell, there’s even a far horizon, one perhaps not as far as I imagine, when we will be there to fight him when he knows he’s right and we think he’s wrong. That will be another transition. For all of us.

But for a second I’m going to take a breath and be thankful. Stop to acknowledge how lucky we were before moving on to how lucky we are in a new, future present. Be thankful for the time when we were his everything. It’s going to dawn on him soon that we’re not infallible, but rather flawed. It’s been nice for us to be his sun and him to be ours, all circling one another. Providing each other with all the power and light needed for an entire universe that existed in the spaces between us. Before he grew and his light couldn’t be contained in our galaxy any longer.

There’s still time. He’s a very very big boy and often people think him much older than he is. Hell, sometimes we hold him to account like a kid twice his age. But he isn’t twice his age. He’s still a few months away from five years old. He may be the size of an eight year old but he’s still naturally inclined to climb up onto my lap and tell me he loves me. He knows what it does to me now. Knows how happy it makes me. There’s certainly something lost in the exchange now that he’s aware of how his words effect me, but there’s a ton more gained. His spontaneous proclamations of love were wonderful and pure. But the thought that he sees me and knows how happy I am made by him saying, ‘I love you, Daddy’ and he does so not only because it is true but also because he wants to exercise this newly discovered power of his to make me happy, that packs a pretty powerful punch as well.

We’re going to do our duty bound best to foster his independence and we’re going to try to teach him what we find to be most important; that he think about others and how to be a kind and thoughtful person. But for as long as we can, in the bubble that was once a universe, we’re going to try our hardest to pay attention to the times when he isn’t ready to be a small boy in a big world. When he wants to pretend like he’s still a big man in a small universe. After all for all his eagerness to venture out he still needs to know that whenever he wants to come home and pretend to be the big kid in a two kid world he’s always welcome. Besides, he’ll quickly learn that doing that will make his Mommy and Daddy very, very happy.

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. I 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.

Holding On

He’s too old to need this. He shouldn’t need to be cuddled and huddled to sleep. But I do it. I shouldn’t need it either. But we’re simpatico this way.

Like him, I too am refusing some transitions now that I know there’ll likely be no return, no future facsimile, no one ever who will need me this way again. It’s really hard early on, but it’s also so simple. The hours are neverending but the repeated need, once the electricity is on, the fridge is stocked, the house is clean and warm, the bum is wiped, powdered and covered, is just love. Hugs and kisses and cuddles. It’s all I need really. Its what he gives me in exchange for everything I can provide him. I’m getting the better end of the deal. It’s not even that close.

He was sleep trained before. At least this part. The ‘going to bed’ part of the sleep training. There was a month or two about six months back when he could be read a story or two, put down and largely left to fall asleep. It was a miraculous thing. At first. Until it dawned on me that I’d made myself obsolete. It’s my job to give independence and I relish it, but in such a task as this it was too soon. All the sacrifice this little angel has demanded of me, I’ll be damned if I’m going to drop this one exhausting, truly taxing, wonderful hour of my night just because he’s ready.

Gone is the swelled brain, feverish, red-eared exhaustion of the newborn phase. The nights aren’t ridiculous anymore, they’re just tiring. Tiring is okay. So I did it. I untrained him. I once again insisted on holding him to sleep. I cursed myself for bringing all this work back but I was and suspect I always will be, happy that I got it back. He’s gonna get these added perks denied his older brother who does more teaching of us than we do teaching of him. It’s a balance to all the things the first gets that the second can’t.

We’re on vacation now and naps are hard to come by. Our days are filled. Sleep routines be damned. When the occasion does arise for me to once again ‘put him to bed’ he enjoys it for a bit, then, from time to time, asks to be put down in his bed. It’s a sweet request and one I surely oblige immediately. I kiss him goodnight and tell him I’ll see him soon, as we still like to take him in with us when he wakes in the night. It used to be consistently between 2 and 3 but now is often at 4 and even later.

I can’t really untrain him anymore. I won’t do it, I’ll let him grow up, of course. But from time to time, when it won’t hurt him, I might take advantage of my position and keep him my little boy a little boy for a little longer than he needs to be, and a little shorter than I’d like him to be. We’ll meet in the middle between his need to grow up and my need to hold on. Time will come when he will need to shed the burden of me, the burden he can hardly see as it is so buried in his need for me at the moment. Someday these roles will be reversed. I’ll need him more than he’ll need me. Perhaps it will have always been the case, for that matter. But someday he’ll surely notice. When he does, when he sees that my need for him is more than his need for me I hope he’ll know how much I’ll appreciate his concern and his efforts. I hope he’ll have an understanding of how much it will mean to me.

Riding In Cars with Boys

Driving with my kids is a joy that I’ll always relish. I wrote a piece once about the road trip to my future that I took with my dad decades ago. He responded to it. In his response he gave me one of those direct instructions that he’s parsed out over the years that are offered so sparingly that you know immediately he’s giving me instructions. Were he a more crass person it might be accompanied by something along the lines of, ‘Hey, don’t be a dope…’. Not being a crass person, he just stated directly, ‘Always say yes if your kids need to be driven somewhere far away. Its the best conversations you’ll ever have with them.’ Its great advice, I can tell already.

Driving the kids to ‘school’ each day at this age when they are coming to as people, where every discovery is a process and there are a thousand discoveries exploding like fireworks in their constantly curious minds, is a privilege. These trips are filled with questions and laughter and tears and fights and I Love You’s and play that song loud’s and the rest. It occasionally is even accompanied by long stretches of silence, believe it or not. We have a long, nearly unbroken off the beaten path two lane road that takes us through a beautiful ‘country edge of town’ that allows for smooth passage lending itself to peacefulness. Enough peacefulness at least that they can breath quietly for a few minutes if the mood hits. It’s all quite blissful really. It’s the calm between the hubbub of morning prodding and deal making and the hustle and bustle of the day for both them and for me.

This morning was different. It happens from time to time. But I only had one with me. Today it was because the younger one, Teddy, has been pretty congested this week, and since Mom would be working from home today and also slightly under the weather, he’s home as well. Having moved his car seat to mom’s car it’s always arresting to see the bare (though disgustingly, VISIBLY sticky with all the drippings of a toddler through the whole winter when it’s too terrifyingly cold to clean it up!) seat where a kid, an adorable, cheeky kid, usually sits. Its even a little viscerally disturbing.

Just last week I came home and Karen told me that she had one of those close calls where somebody nearly ran her over with a truck. It’s the kind of thing that happens to anyone that drives at some point. Probably a few times. When it does it has a way of immediately reordering ones priorities and this was evident in her as she retold the tale. It was really scary and she was appropriately shaken up. Nothing to stop her from anything, and nothing to scare her off driving or anything, just palpably aware of life’s fragility. We all have been there, and it passes. It’s always good to feed that respect.

It’s a respect that I didn’t fully have until I had kids. Amongst the surprising reactions to parenthood for me has been the awareness of my mortality. It was amongst the first reactions I had after the love and adoration and uber respect for my wife, right after Charlie was delivered and made me a dad. My healthy respect for and mild fear of death became a different thing and it has remained different ever since. I’m pretty much solely worried about death because I can never ever be okay with leaving these guys. Even if it happens 50 years from now, in my sleep, peaceful and having said my goodbye’s. This dream scenario will still leave a gaping hole in my kids hearts and it’s natural and I can’t stand the thought.

The other fear, the true fear, is the fear that something unnatural could happen. That the proper order could get mixed up and we’re left without one of them, or the thought that Karen or I, or the truly awful thought, Karen AND I could be randomly run over by a truck and that’s it. Done. It’s at the same time too scary to consider and so scary it’s hard to ever fully rid it from your head. I even play out the scenarios. I can’t help it.

Being a dad is not often scary. It’s exhausting, confusing, exhilarating, exasperating, inspiring and even liberating. But occasionally, when a bit of scary slips in, it’s terrifying.

Then your little man asks you to put on the funny song and turn it up loud and the car is filled with the beat boxing skills of Matisyahu as we drive down the road having the time of our lives and it passes.

Meltdowns and Moments

There’s a lot of little boy in Char these days but his fading toddlerhood is grasping tightly and asserting itself. He’s resisting a change that is as inevitable as it is terrifying as it is exciting. With every transition like this parts of him pass to history and parts of us do as well. While the resistance can be annoying, we all get it. We understand more than he knows. We abhor the idea of him being independent in all the ways we are diligently training him to be. We’re at the ‘finishing school’ stage of toddlerdom. We are working to teach him courtesy, niceties, the expected behavior of polite society. As a conscientious objector to such responsibility he is reverting to earlier tools of resistance, such as crying, yelling, aggressively resisting direction, stamping feet and crying louder.

The kid is in an epic phase of melting down. He has the toddler equivalent of senioritis. He’s resisting the change that he wants. Now that it’s upon him he’s freaking out. When I think of it this way I’m able to have some more patience. He doesn’t want to be acting this way either. He just is discovering that big parts of life are not controlled by him and he doesn’t believe that the way life should be.

He’s taken to hurting us to test the limits of his powers. To explore the darker side of life. He is fond of telling me my status in his eyes upon seeing me. “I don’t like you, daddy.’ He’s even said he hates us. He’s four and we are the safe space to explore these things, so I tell him that that’s fine, but that I’m still the grown up and he has to obey me because I’m in charge. I tell him that mommy and I and his teachers are in charge because we know how to keep him safe. To which he says, having heard who the hell knows what, ‘but daddy, I don’t like you.’

But here’s the thing, Charlie. In the way that you mean it, that I’m doing something that makes you unhappy or uncomfortable, even though it’s what must be done, in that exact same way, I don’t like you right now. In fact, when I see you, changing into a boy, leaving behind most of your toddler ways, and for the final time putting down all of what was you as my precious little baby, I too don’t like you for doing it. Were I as in tune and in touch with my emotions as you are, and lacking all of the niceties of adulthood, I’d have an epic tear spewing meltdown too. I may not be thinking it when I’m pulling my hair out trying to convince you to take your medicine or brush your teeth, but you are beginning the long walk away from me. You’re simple need to grow up is chipping away at your need for me. And once you’ve had that feeling, the feeling I still have for you, feelings that are ever so slightly less necessary with every tiny milestone you cross, I am sad and wistful. Sometimes I yell and shout and try desperately to hold on to every inch of my influence and necessity, because, and this is where I’m with you my melting down boy, the second I was given that gift of being your daddy I’ve treasured every difficult, painful, joyful, hysterical, maddening and delightful aspect of it and I know that I’m never going to have any of it back. I’m going to grow, and our relationship will morph into other things, but I’m never going to rock you to sleep in a swaddle ever again. I’m not going to change another one of your diapers. I won’t be buying you stuffed animals at Thruway rest stops and delighting in catching you in the rear view mirror, snuggling your buddy until you fall asleep. More things will be added, but now begins the subtractions. You are growing up, and for that I’m mad at you. Don’t mistake me, I’m proud of you, thrilled for you, impressed by you and awed by you and everything you do, even the tough and challenging stuff. Its just that I’m also sad. And when I realize what that portends, I’m even a little mad.

Life is full of change and transitions and they often are as painful as they are exciting. This won’t be the last time you are made uncomfortable by change. That’s okay. The changes are okay and so is the discomfort. The discomfort and the resistance are signs that we continue to move through life, accepting challenges, some of our choosing and many that are thrust upon us. While it may not be pleasant all the time, change is the one constant. Everything changes all the time. Resisting the change, being uncomfortable and even angry at the change makes you human. Keep changing, keep resisting, keep fighting and keep crying. It’s the road to where you’re going. It’s a road with beautiful and tragic changes and sometimes it’s hard to know which is which until it’s over. But keep changing, stay curious, keep that fire that so infuriates the people that fear the changes as much as you do and don’t be afraid to be afraid. Without the changes and the fears and the failures you’ll never get to where you’re going. But once you get there, and for me that’s here, with you and your brother and mommy, you’ll appreciate every fall and every wrong turn that got you to precisely where you were meant to be.

The Dumb Dads Guide to Love and Parenthood

Those of you reading this are parents. If you are not a parent, go away. Go outside. Have a drink in the middle of the day. Have two. Go speed dating and drive anywhere within ten hours to go see live music that makes you happy, or even sad if that’s your thing with music. Go read a book, for hours, until you are so tired you fade to sleep. You get the hell out of here. Stop reading this instant and go live the life you will look back on fondly someday. Leave this echo chamber. You don’t belong here and the chatter of this place will only annoy you. TAKE. A. NAP. and know that we all look at you with piteous envy. Pity cause babies are awesome. Envy because of every other thing. Almost literally, every other one.

Now that it’s just us, allow me to tell you, my people, the people that will ‘get me’, what’s the what. But before that, if you go around telling people things like, ‘I never had any troubles with it. My kids slept through the night from the start.’ go to hell. Seriously. Get out of my sight. Its fine if your little magic unicorn babies were perfect. I believe you and I’m happy for you. But if you’ve been exposed to the same parent talk that all of the rest of us have and you still choose to say such things to people having really difficult times, I have no need of you. Disperse. You are not welcome here. You are simply one of two types of people. You are either just straight up a mean person that practices the unhealthy art of Schadenfreude or you are so lacking in self awareness and just plain old awareness that I don’t allow that you could possibly enjoy this. Get. Scatter.

For the rest of US, the brave truth tellers unafraid to bare themselves, failure in front (I happen to suffer a similar biological trait, come to think of it) this is our story. I wish that this were a list of misfortunes and that I would be deserving of your feelings of empathy. But it is not. It is in fact a listing of decisions made, some of them resulting in unnecessarily difficult situations, bordering on the untenable. While I appreciate the empathy you may have, I warn you now, it is undeserved. These are the decisions of a dumb and loving dad who has made many decisions that could be mocked by anyone with even a passing understanding of foresight.

We have a spare room, yet we choose to put our two toddlers in the same one. This is the result of idealism mixed with laziness. This is a standard form of reasoning for me. One that causes many a situation I regret, but one that almost never results in me learning a lesson.
We were so overwhelmed, and perhaps so old, that it took so much of our energy to get through the baby times that I walked away from a job because I wasn’t good at balancing my responsibilities. This comes from love. Pure love. Its dumb and defensible and I’d do it again. But if you’d like to donate to the dumb daddy fund please note this in the comments. I’d link to a fundraising page, but, you know, lazy.
We have had exactly one evening (maybe 3 and a half hours, give or take) away from our kids. Ever. Our oldest just turned 4. This may be the dumbest, and oddly, considering what it is we’re talking about, the laziest of our transgressions.
For all our tough talk with our kids we break like 7th grade shoplifters in the mall security office when they get feisty. Our precious little boy is now four and like many other four year olds he’s added a hefty dose of monstrousness to his repertoire. It’s to be expected and yet, it’s incredibly unpleasant. We are considering just barricading ourselves in the kitchen and throwing sugary treats at him when he gets ~~angry~~ emotional.
We have a memory of putting our little man to bed and it taking all of five minutes. Granted, the lead up has always been a bear, but now, both of them require their own hour of support, love, confrontation therapy and 7-12 separate tuck ins. I’m not really sure what of the many dumb things we’ve done has resulted in this, but make no mistake, whatever part of this is natural, we’ve done our share to make sure it is as bad as it can be.
Superheroes. We dumbly allowed these to happen. Damn. Wish I could have that one back.

Their is no amount of trials and tribulations that having kids has brought us that could even move the scale when it is balanced against the shear awesomeness of having kids. But my god, will I ever stop adding to the challenges with my own stubborn commitment to being a dummy.

What It Means To Be White

My son’s are 2 and 3 at the moment. Neither of them are aware of ~~Fergusonthe Eric Garner casethe horrible incidences of police violence against and apparent murder of African Americans~~ the event that has taken the lives of 9 American’s in a church praying, and for now that’s fine. I’m in a position to never have to discuss race with my kids. Both I and them are white middle class male’s in America. If we ever hope to end the constant cycle of tragedies, both of the acute variety and of the overarching sort that allows entire lives with potential that could solve many of the worlds problems to play out in despair, white dads who hope to change this have to begin to speak to our white kids, especially sons, about the truth of our lives. At present it certainly feels like the world we inhabit will offer endless opportunities to us for discussing the unusual brutality and the common inequality that we choose to explain away rather than to resolve.

Life is hard. Even for white guys with jobs. And my kids will surely be angry at times about how much they don’t have. This may blind them to what they do have. When I see this I intend to address it directly and to discuss with them the following realities as far as I see them.

Be aware that you have lived life free of being assessed negatively on sight. This is a distinct and ever present advantage you have over your counterparts of other demographic distinctions. This is the result of constant systemic disadvantages that have nothing to do with them. But over time, to have the world look at you like this, in every situation and at all times can be crushing and formative at the same time. Greet anger with empathy whenever you can.
Be conscious of the fact that your successes are not solely yours. They are the result of a thousand factors, mostly beyond your control and benefiting you in ways that may have cost someone of a different background access to the opportunities that you may think you accomplished free of bias. You are white, male, American and as a bonus, you’re in all likelihood, tall. All of these factors have helped you. A lot. And unfairly.
If the world changes for the better it may be uncomfortable for you. Don’t whine about that. You’re still likely to have systemic advantages, just, hopefully, not as many.
Be intentional about inclusiveness. Some might suggest that a meritocracy is the only fair option. In my opinion they are invested in the status quo in which they, and you, are afforded distinct advantages not easily seen by you, but evident to the many people not similarly fortunate.
Our country’s original sin of slavery created a false economic reality based on dehumanizing people, crumbling their self-worth and codifying their inequality. To this day you have housing laws, drug laws, educational funding laws and even voting laws that SEEK to continue to segregate people from the opportunities that have been protected for us. We have a long way to go to truly level the playing field. Like I said above, if things are harder for you, they should be. You have a massive Karmic debt to pay, one not of your specific making, but you are the rightful inheritor. And not just to black men or men of other backgrounds, but also to ALL women. I’m paying a piece of it now, but mostly I’m still benefiting from a world that favors me. To wit..
The world tilts toward you. Be proud of what successes your life brings. Hard work is still hard work and what you have earned you should respect. Try to create opportunities that will empower. Distribute those opportunities to people that aren’t reflections of yourself. As you would find in any distribution, some people will disappoint and some will surprise, but either way, its just right to try to repay some of the favor the world shows you.
Don’t be afraid of people who appear ‘different’ from you. Try instead to be curious. You’re likely to find they are just like you in what they want from life. They want security and friendship and to laugh and to provide and to feel good about themselves. But sometimes life is so insistent that these are not attainable (a problem you won’t have to deal with in any real way) that we can see only people’s defenses and armor and forget that they are whole beings needing of what it is we all need. Life reinforces for them in a way you can’t fully understand, that they are suspect, feared and not to be trusted or loved. This can have tragic consequences. Much more often the outcome is remarkable and beautiful and truly inspiring evidence of the human spirits ability to endure and prosper. All too often the world ignores these outcomes to fit a narrative that reinforces fear of differences, no matter how small. Don’t buy it.
Be part of the solution. I don’t know what that means yet. I hope my life will be assessed in such a way that you will be proud of the person I am. I KNOW I’m still the beneficiary of discriminatory policy. But keep looking, keep trying and never forget to be thankful for all that life has afforded you.

The debate in the media aside, for whatever tragedy of the moment we are dissecting when i get to these conversations, I hope I’m able to keep my head unburied and hope they find themselves in a world changing to meet our highest ideals. I know I’ll discuss them forthrightly and encourage them not to be too self-pitying when life is hard or unfair. Truth is however unfair it is to me or them, and we all will face cruel misfortune from time to time, the odds make it likely that they will have it good.

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