Living in a wealthy section of town when you’re not wealthy can do that to you. When I’m in the yard, I frequently feel the gaze of my neighbors and hear their imagined voices. “Look at his ugly grass.” “Wish they’d invest more in that siding.” “When are they ever going to cut down that dying tree?” But those are my own insecurities talking. They are the voices we all get in our heads when we imagine others are staring at us, judging.
And so what do I do? I judge back. “Look at them with their fancy plows. Never do a day’s worth of hard work in their lives.” That’s what my original post was about: judging the character of others based on a common household chore.
Anyone who lives in the Northeast knows that this past week and a half has been monstrous. In our town, we got about 20″ of snow in blizzard conditions early last week, followed by an additional 8″ this week from a Nor’easter. So my wife and I found ourselves outside on at least 3 occasions, shoveling the walks and driveway.
And I listened.
I listened really hard, but I didn’t hear them. I didn’t hear the voices of disdain and condemnation from my neighbors. Instead, I heard the soft crunch of the shovel meeting the snow, the soft whistle of the wind, the creek of the swaying pines. (Punctuated by my old-man grunts as I hurled snow from the path. Yet another sign of my age.) But there was no inner voice imagining what the neighbors were saying. My eye didn’t drift down the street to see if I was the only one hard at work. I didn’t glance over at my neighbor’s already-plowed driveway with envy and frustration.
I was hard at work. My wife was hard at work. It was us, the snow, and teamwork, and I reveled in it. I could feel my body hard at work. I could feel the beads of sweat. I could feel the world around me. I felt accomplished. I looked over at my wife, and saw her toiling just as much as I was, and I knew that I had a true partner: someone ready and willing to do the hard work needed so that our family could survive another day. And I saw my son, 8 years old, picking up a tiny, forgot shovel and pitching in, moving whatever snow he could from the path. I knew we were setting a good example.
This snow storm wasn’t about contrasts. It wasn’t about what they’re doing versus what we’re doing. It was simply about what we were doing. And what we were doing was marvelous.
“Where’s Ted?” my wife asked one of the moms at a soccer game this summer.
Ted is the father of my son’s best friend. The friend with whom my son shares a 3rd grade class, a soccer team, and (previously) a fencing class, and so we see this kid and his family a lot. Over time, our families began inviting each other over for get-togethers, and a family friendship started to form. However, aside from the family functions, Ted was nowhere to be found while his harried wife toted their three kids to every imaginable after-school activity. “Where’s Ted?” became a mantra of sorts when we’d see the family.
Although both parents worked, Ted didn’t appear to take any interest in his kids, whether for mundane practices or bigger school events. One weekend Ted’s wife asked if my wife and I could bring their boy home from a game because she had to buzz off to some other kids’ event. We agreed, and when we finally pulled up to the kid’s house, Ted answered the door in his slippers and thanked us for dropping off his son. Where the hell were you, Ted, when your kid had a soccer game 7 blocks away?!? My perception of Ted took a nose-dive.
Over the years I’ve found that when I became a husband and a parent, my friendship standards shifted so that I evaluate others’ viability as a friend not only on their personalities, likes, and interests, but also on their attitudes toward marriage and parenting roles.
Throughout my 20’s, I judged whether a friendship would work based on how that person treated me and our mutual friends. First of all, did we click? If so, then could you be counted on? Were you reliable? Did you care about the same people and causes I cared about? These questions about friendship all centered around how that person treated me and our mutual friends.
When I got married, my focus began to shift. Dedicating my life to making my wife happy and building a life for us became the most important thing to me, and so I wanted to connect with others who had similar investments in their relationships. Are you dedicated to your wife or partner? Do you work hard in your relationships? Do you work to find balance in your responsibilities as a couple (i.e., do you cook, dude, or do the laundry, or clean the bathrooms)?
As the years went by and kids enter the picture, my focus shifted again. Being a candidate for friendship didn’t only mean how well we clicked and how well you treated your wife or significant other, it became about how well you treated your kids, your family. Are you an involved dad? Do you accept parenting responsibilities? Do you dedicate time with your child(ren) and honor their pursuits?
In this way, finding friends has become a multi-layered process. In retrospect, finding friends that I clicked with in my early 20s was pretty easy. Are you a cool guy? Great, then let’s hang out. Now I find that there are many more factors involved in figuring out whether a guy is “like me” and someone I can trust and invest in as a friend. It becomes a bit exhausting, and I find that it’s hard to do.
Here’s an example. I had a good friend several years back who was making some tough decisions. He was married with an infant, and he had decided to make a career change based on his principals (he wanted to do more socially-conscious union work) and by changing jobs he sunk his family’s income below the poverty line. Once in his new job, the family qualified for section 8 housing, which they pursued. After the move, he started donating his time to a political campaign (though his union work) that led him to canvass for votes several states away from home for weeks on end, leaving his wife at home to care for their toddler.
If I had known this guy when he was single, I’d probably have admired him. He was dedicated to social justice and willing to make difficult, moral-based decisions even if they resulted in personal loss. But because of where we were in our lives, his actions caused me to look at him through a different lens. I could understand feeling conflicted with his job, but I couldn’t understand threatening the well-being of your family based on principals alone. I also couldn’t stomach the fact that he opted to spend weeks away from his young daughter to volunteer his time. At the time, our family was close with his wife as well, so we heard directly from her how his decisions negatively impacted the family, which put me in a further bind. Eventually, the friendship ended abruptly, in many regards because of my change of attitude toward him.
The trickiest part of all this is that I didn’t feel as though I had the right to address the things about him that impacted our friendship. His decisions about his career, his family, and his child had nothing to do with me, and I knew I’d overstep my bounds by addressing his decisions. At the same time, these decisions were diminishing my respect for him and eroding our friendship.
So this is now where things stand with Ted, and yet I don’t know the guy enough to say, “So, you don’t spend much time with your kids, huh?” To do so would sound judgmental and presumptuous. It’s not my business how he decides to spend his time, but it certainly affects how I see him and whether I’d choose to pursue a friendship with him. This relationship, the entire family relationship, is slowly eroding because of value difference. As someone who already struggles with friends, these examples underscore just how tricky these relationships can get.
And yet, as I review my history of attitudes towards friends, I realize that no matter what stage of life, my priority has always been focused on how the other person treats the people in his life. How does he treat me, our mutual friends, his wife or partner, or his kids? Perhaps children are simply the most salient relationships in which to see whether someone cares about others. The job of a dad is so well-defined for me that it’s the easiest means to see whether someone is focused on the most important relationships in their lives.
When I was shopping around for a local Buddhist community, I sat down with the abbot and monk of a local Zen center for an interview.
“I’m a father, with a wife and son, and I don’t have much time that isn’t already dedicated to my work or family,” I explained to him. “What do I do about my practice and making time to come to the Zen center?”
“Your family is your priority and your practice,” he responded immediately, with great confidence. He went on to explain that being a father is the situation I am in, and that dictates how I use my time. I should dedicate myself to my family, he explained, and by fully engaging in every action with them, I am practicing Zen.
That did it for me. Up until that time, I had been half-halfheartedly searching for a Buddhist community, but had little faith in the process. I had been biased against American Buddhists for most of my life. I had met too many old White male Buddhists who were more interested in wearing beads and touting their belief system than being engaged and compassionate with those around them. But I’d come to a point in my life where I had to admit to Buddhism’s hold on me, and I wanted to give up my trepidation and stereotypes, and find what might be out there for me. The abbot’s response caught my attention, and I’ve been part of the community ever since.
But this has been the problem: even after I found a faith to embrace, the integration of my family life was a challenge. Most American Buddhist communities are very individualistic in their practice traditions. Most communities offer meditation, retreats, and interviews for the individual practitioner. They may also hold talks, community meals, or discussion groups but, for the most part, these events cater to the individual practitioners in the community. And who are these individual practitioners? Typically, they are the people who have time to go, by themselves, to a center or temple for meditation. In my journeys, this typically translates to young adults (folks in their early 20’s) or retirees, who have the time to dedicate to individualized practice.
So what about people my age? What about folks with kids? Where are the families?
From my experience, parents can’t make the time to go. Who will watch there kids? Plus it feels rather self-indulgent to go sit in meditation, when there’s a family dinner you’re missing or a soccer practice that the kids need to get to.
But is this what a faith community is supposed to be about? Faith communities are composed of two essential elements: faith and community. Ever religion has its believe system, comprised of world-view, ethics, story tradition, practices, etc. But in order for it to be a religion, it must have a community: that group of people who come together around a particular belief system. Most of these communities culminate naturally around a church, synagogue, or mosque, where there’s an expectation that the family commune regularly with other families of that faith. In some cases everyone in the family comes together for a service or practice, or kids head out for religious education or activity while the parents worship or practice. Regardless, most faith communities are inclusive and embrace families and family life. But few American Buddhist communities feel this way.
As for me, I’d much rather say, “Let’s get in the car and all go to church!” than “Have fun at dinner while dad goes off to sit quietly for an hour.” This was the impetus for me to start a kids group at my local Zen center. I knew that if I wanted a community of Buddhist families, I might just have to help create one. So my wife and I were instrumental in getting a children’s group off the ground. It’s had its ups and downs, but for a while it was quite special, and gave the kids and families an opportunity to come together to learn about mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism.
But four years later, the two elements never connected up: faith and community. Here’s what I mean. We overlaid our kids group onto a functioning Zen community, comprised mostly of the practitioners I mentioned above, young adults and retirees. In some ways, they enjoyed having kids around, but they didn’t know what to do with us. Although our group grew, it grew on the periphery. The second issue was that the parents coming for the kids programming weren’t really part of the Zen center community. They were interested in mindfulness classes for their kids, but they weren’t necessarily Buddhist or practitioners. Plus, most didn’t have the time or interest in connecting with the rest of the community because, although it’s fun to come to a kids class, they don’t have additional time to practice with the broader community. Therefore, we grew this community of kids and families, but it was segmented from the rest of the faith tradition.
At this point, the family community is transient. If you’re coming for a mindfulness “class” it’s much different from, say, going to church. The “class” mentality doesn’t keep parents dedicated to the group. Therefore, folks come and go, and there isn’t a consistent group attending. There isn’t much connection to the rest of the center. Everything feels disjointed.
My wife has more recently been going to a Unitarian Universalist church for services, and I’ve been coming along. UU’s are experts at children’s religious education. It’s a hallmark of the faith community, and I find it to be inclusive, respectful of difference, and amazingly varied across the lifespan. When I see this, I feel an emptiness in my heart. This emptiness comes from my strong desire to force something that isn’t easy. It comes from this a desire to be a part of a Zen faith community that also honors, engages, and loves families and kids. But this isn’t the case within most Zen centers. Even if there is a recognition of the importance of family, there is no outlet to foster and care for parents and kids.
I’m trying to come to peace with where things are for me now. I realize that forcing a community based on my own desire isn’t very Buddhist, isn’t very “Zen”. All my disappointment and grief are a product of that desire, and of seeing what I “can’t have” from the UU community in my own Zen center. I find that I need to remind myself of the teaching I received was from my initial interview with that abbot. My family is my priority and my practice. As an Zen practitioner, I engage fully with the situation I am faced with, whether it’s sitting down for a meal with my family, going to a kids group at the Zen center, or listening to a sermon at the Unitarian church. It will be a process letting go of my grief for the community that never was, but that grief is what holds me back from fully engaging, fully seeing the glory or the community I have right in front of me: my own family.
Soccer season is wrapping up for my son, which is a bitter-sweet conclusion to the Fall. With the end of the season, my wife and I get to reclaim our Monday nights, Friday nights, and Saturday mornings, but my son is left without his team and his new favorite sport. I will truly miss seeing my son out there are on the field. His gusto, resilience, and comradery remind me of all the ways he’s not like me, which is a good thing.
As a kid, I was super anxious. I was the good, quiet kid in the back of the class who kept his head down and did his work. I was the kid who was respectful around adults and shy with peers. I was also the kid who was terrified of group sports, because I was awkward, uncoordinated, and un-athletic. During PE or recess, I would shy away from group games and sports for fear that I would mess up and evoke the jeers and disappointment of kids in my class. To combat this scenario, I’d do two things: I’d stay away from competitive games and sports as much as possible, and I’d become self-deprecating among my peers.
When captains were picking teams among a huddle of elementary school boys, I’f be the first to say, “Uh oh, I hope you don’t get me on your team!” or “Okay, I’ll just move to the back so you get a better view of the good players.” or (when I was one of the last few kids) “Looks like you’re down to the worst of the worst.” Basically, I was a 10-year-old Richard Lewis.
In this way, I beat the other kids to the punch, protecting myself from insults because no one insulted me as well as I did. But I also self-segregated myself from other kids. I distinguished myself as the kid no one wanted on his team, and so I never really tried. If I was bad, then why fight against it? So I never tried my hardest. I never fought past the awkwardness to gain any skill.
Apples don’t fall far from the tree, and so my son is like me in many ways. He struggles with coordination and rhythm. He can’t quite move his body as fluidly and nimbly as some other kids his age. He’s also quite shy. He’s very quiet around adults and is slow to meet friends. When I see these traits in him, I feel badly, because he has inherited traits from me that hindered me as a kid. So when I see him shying away from social interactions, or struggling with sports, I feel sorry for him, and wish I hadn’t yoked him with these weighty obstacles.
I think many parents struggle with the challenging traits they see in their kids, especially those the recognize (consciously or unconsciously) as arising from their own genes. They trigger in us all the memories of how we suffered as kids or they ways in which we were hindered or held back because of who we were. Parents want the best for their kids, and so this realization of a parents’ less-optimal traits are sometimes a guiding force for how we attempt to shape our children.
For me, I always push my son to interact with others and have a voice in the world. I prod him to go up and ask adults questions, like librarians, waitresses, or cashiers. I coach him about how to respond to adults if they ask him questions, so he isn’t a nodding mute when confronted with an adult inquiry. I encourage him to make friends or approach other kids. I know I do these things because I was a shy kid who never took social risks and never had much of a voice. I don’t want my son to grow up like that, because I experienced it as so limiting.
Sports were different though. I never pushed him to do them, because I was always terrified of them. For myself, I felt as though they’d be a set-up for ridicule because of my awkwardness. I think that in many ways, perhaps unconsciously, I de-emphasize sports with my son, because I see myself in him, and want to protect him from any rejection.
But my son is not me. When soccer season came around, I was astounded that he wanted to try. He was (perhaps luckily) put on a team that my wife and I dubbed the Bad News Bears, because they were a troop of rag-tag kids on a loosing streak. Their abilities ranged from not-so-good to okay, and so there were very few superstars on the team. I was thankful because I didn’t want any cocky athletic kids making fun of my son.
My son was off to a rough start. He fumbled around with the ball at his feet and shied away from the action. When the kids charged for the ball, he would defer to his teammates and take a supportive role, never taking the lead. When he did get the ball, he’d quickly give it up or pass it to someone else. When I projected my 8-year-old self into his shoes, I knew I’d do the same, but I’d take it to a different level. I would have given up. I would have complained to my parents that I didn’t want to go, or I would completely opt out of receiving the ball for fear of how badly I’d do.
But not my son. Throughout the season, he stuck to it. He practiced and practiced. He gave his all during formal practices, only to go home and ask me to kick the ball around with him. He loved goal keeping and would ask me to shoot balls his way while he defended them from hitting our fence. As games progressed, he’d get gutsier and charge in with the other kids. He scored one of the team’s few goals during the season! He started asking the coach if he could be goalie, and even asked his mom and me to buy him goalie gloves. By the end of the season, he looked like a different player, still with a lot to learn, but a kid who wasn’t afraid to get in there, make mistakes, and push through the struggles.
A childless male friend recently asked me what’s the best part of being a parent. With this soccer season fresh in my mind, I responded that it’s seeing your child surprise you. It’s seeing aspects of you in your child, but realizing that in spite of being an amalgam of you and your partner’s genes, your child is a unique human being who can always surprise you.
Being a dad means taking on rough jobs, whether it’s unclogging toilets, cleaning vomit, or dressing like a big pink LEGO kitten for Halloween.
My son had a tricky time deciding what to be for Halloween this year, but finally landed on Emmett, the construction working main character of the LEGO Movie. In spite of the show’s popularity, we couldn’t find a single costume manufactured to look like any of the LEGO Movie characters. During our pursuit of a construction vest and Piece of Resistance, my family joked about us all dressing like characters from the movie. Immediately, my son said my wife should be Wyldstyle, the DJ-named master builder. My wife turned around and insisted that I be Unikitty. Not Batman, not Vitruvius, not even President Business. Unikitty.
For those unfamiliar with the movie, Unikitty is a pink, block-headed kitten that lives in land of rainbows and lollipops, and meets every challenge with syrupy sweetness while tamping down her seething rage.
At first I insisted there was no way in hell I was being Unikitty, but my wife and son were adamant that it would be the best possible costume. They thought it would be hilarious, and I’m a sucker for making the laugh. I also knew it would likely be one of the last years that my son would tolerate his parents dressing up for trick-or-treating, let alone dressing with a family theme. I’m sure that in the years to come, he’ll scoff at any suggestion that we dress up with him, and I’m sure as a middle schooler he’d drop dead from embarrassment if we aligned our costumes with his. So, I sucked it up and I did it: I became Unikitty.
As a dad, I think it’s my job to do whatever it takes to make my family happy. Sometimes that means accomplishing very practical tasks, like holding a job and making money so that we can have the comfort of food, home, and heating. Or, it might take the form of family activities, like apple picking, visits to the pumpkin patch, or trips to the amusement park. But other times it’s making a complete fool of myself to get a laugh.
I’m not a natural at putting myself in uncomfortable, semi-humiliating situations for a good laugh. My wife is naturally funny, irreverent, and goofy, and has such a knack for making herself the butt of a joke for a good laugh. She’s always ready with a crazy face, story, song, or dance. I usually have to be prodded to be the clown. Most of the time she has to spur on my goofiness, whether it’s making me do a weird dance, hiking my my pants up under my armpits, or giving me a wedgie that rips my boxers by pulling them over my head (yes, this has happened). Plus, there’s usually the double-embarrassment of photographing or videotaping the incident. I may feel self-conscious or ridiculous, but I’m so glad she encourages it. These times of goofiness are some of the most fun we have as a family, and are the times when we fall out of our chairs laughing, nearly peeing ourselves. Isn’t that what family’s about?
I’m actually a bit uncomfortable dressing up as a big pink box-headed kitten for Halloween. Especially since I have to see other fathers who wouldn’t be caught dead in a costume like mine. I kind of feel like a nervous kid who risks a daring costume or piece of clothing and fears that his friends are going to make fun of him. But screw that. My family wants me to be Unikitty. They think it’ll be hillarious, and that’s all that matters. So, for this Halloween, I’m happy to take one for the team, and strut around the neighborhood in second-hand ladies pink pajamas with a box over my head. I’m Unikitty, and I’m proud.
My wife and I started watching The League, a long-running show about fantasy football friends who basically love/hate (mostly hate) one another and are driven by their all-consuming goal of screwing each other out of the yearly league trophy. While the show’s a bit intense on the burns, cuts, digs, and jabs the friends throw at one another, there’s something refreshing about it. Although the guys’ exchanges verge on cruel (with the exception of digs on Andre, which are always cruel), their friendships are long-standing and committed.
I used to have friends like that. Okay, not quite that mean and not that obsessed with football (we were way too nerdy to be sports fans), but friends who were comfortable enough to dig on each other. I was only recently reminded of how much this aspect of friendship has been absent from my life when an old college friend wrote to a group of us about attempting a reunion. In the process of inviting me, he informed me that he’d been keeping an eye on the bestiality laws in California, and would let me know when it was legal for me to return to the state. He also told another friend that 1997 wanted its hotmail address back. What a d-bag, but a completely lovable one.
Since leaving college, I’ve moved around so much that I’m left with very few friends. As I get older, I’ve realized how hard it is to find new friends at my age (see my previous post). To make matters worse, I find myself living in a fairly boring suburban monoculture, which doesn’t provide the wealth of friendship possibilities I’d like. Let’s just say that open house night at the public elementary school is overly crowded with wealthy, grey-haired 50-something fathers and their very young wives. Not exactly my typical friendship pool.
I once made friends with one of these older gentleman, a local professor who had about 15 years on his wife (she was more my contemporary than he was). After getting to know him for a while, I had this back-log of old man jokes in my head; a wealth of walker-walking, Viagra-chomping, prostate-enlarging jokes that had nowhere to go. These didn’t pop into my head because I hated the guy, but because I wanted to test the relationship and see if it could evolve. It’s not because I’m a sick bastard, but because many of my best relationships have been marked with a level of comfort and humor in which guys could rag on each other, and which was the hallmark of a strong, mutual friendship. But there was something about this guy that told me he couldn’t handle it. Ultimately, the relationship died out. Our backgrounds, daily lives, and approaches were just too different.
Some might read this post and interpret these kinds of friendships as immature men holding misdirected hostility that seeps out in the form of competition and verbal aggression. In the context of comparing my experience with The League, I can understand this interpretation. In the show, there is very little love expressed between these fictional friends, and the threats they perceive in one another override any care they hold for one another. But that’s not what I’ve experienced in these friendships. These friendships, for me, have been some of the most caring I’ve experienced. In the case of my recent email exchange, after a few more quippy emails shared between the group, I reflected on my experience. I wrote a personal message to the friend who had suggested the reunion and expressed to him how much I missed having such a close friend in my life. He responded thoughtfully and kindly, and we exchanged flattery and well-wishes, planning on re-connecting soon. In spite of not seeing each other for 7 years, there’s a strong bond between us.
As a 40-year-old man, I think it’s incredibly hard forming new friendships, let alone those that can evolve to embody the comfort and care I’m talking about. Many friendships at this age are relegated to specific contexts (i.e., work-friends, soccer-sideline-acquaintances), but these contexts dictate specific sets of scripted interactions and limits. Plus, many men my age are (rightfully) consumed by their family and work lives, which don’t allow time to invest in friendships and cultivate strong bonds. I’m left with a sadness that some of my friendships may never be able to evolve to the point where we can insult each other’s size, intellect, and fashion-sense, and yet say goodbye being certain we have each other’s back.
These shouts ring from the sidelines a few feet away from me on a brisk October Saturday morning. I’m there to watch my son in the town’s U9 soccer league, and I’m loving being a newly christened soccer dad. There’s something great about having a new home team and it being your son’s. But what’s up with this dude down the line?
There are all sorts of soccer dad’s, as I’m beginning to learn. Surprisingly, the most popular version is the absent soccer dad, judging by the lack of men on the sidelines (but that’s fodder for another post). There are also the quiet watchers, the cheerers and, apparently, the beraters. I’m surprised to learn that I’m a cheerer, and a very vocal one. Like, verging-on-annoying-cheerer.
As a kid, I was always a quiet sports spectator. Sure, I would cheer and clap when a point was made or a ball was saved, but I never shouted words of encouragement or cheered for specific players. I was somewhat sports illiterate growing up, and so I think the prospect of shouting encouragement or advice felt overzealous or even hypocritical.
But now I see these 8-year-olds running their hearts out on the field and I want them to know we’re cheering for them. Although I’m historically bad about remembering kids names, I’ve been pretty good at learning most of the team members’ first name at this point in the season. I shout words of encouragement for each of them as they receive the ball, I praise their defense and passing, and I cheer when a ball is saved and (less frequently…we’re on a losing streak) when a goal is scored. Each time, I try to call the player by name.
I explain all this to convey that I understand this desire to be vocal on the sidelines. I’m not there to be a passive observer, but Isaiah’s dad takes active support to a new level, by becoming coach, ref, judge, and asshole. He’s the guy who’s there before every practice, running the ball with his son and giving him lots of pointers. He sits through practice and yells advice, peppered with lots of frustrated commentary. Game days are by far the worst. He shouts to his kid about where to be on the field (even when counter to the coach’s strategy). He yells at him to move faster or stop giving up. He berates him for slowing down, giving up the ball, or allowing a pass.
It’s hard sitting on the sidelines near this guy, hearing all this. My imaginary monologue to him goes something like this:
“Do you want your son to grow up hating you? Because that’s what you’re doing. Only two things can come out of this. Either he grows up hating and rejecting his dad who always gave him a hard time, or he grows up always trying to please you, while at the same time feeling like he’s never good enough. In the second scenario, he’s likely to treat his own kids to a life of insults because it’s his only model for how to be engaged as a dad. Pull back a bit dude. It’s great that you’re here, but let the coach coach, and chill out a bit.”
I can’t, however, imagine a scenario in which I have the balls big enough to confront this guy with my diatribe. But these same sentiments run though my mind each time I hear him. I don’t see anyone else (aside from my wife) holding the discomfort of hearing this guy’s comments, but I can’t imagine other parents find it unproblematic. Plus, the coach is always on the opposite side of the field from the spectators, and so a lot of it happens off the coach’s radar. Perhaps the most skilled and emotionally cognizant coach would be able to finesse a conversation with all parents about etiquette and the proper show of support.
But what do I do? As the season goes along and I become more invested in my son’s team and its players, what do I do with my discomfort and pity for this kid who’s given such a hard time by his dad. For now, when I see him set up his chair on the sidelines, I’ll set up mine a few dozen feet away. I’ll focus on the game and try to drown out his words, but that poor kid will hear them for the rest of his life.
I’d like to see a zombie movie in which the living dead are cognizant of the world around them, and are stunned by just how much the world they’ve woken to has changed. ParaNorman took that spin on things when its zombie Puritans run screaming from Main Street at the sight of TVs and neon lights. I’d imagine these culture-shocked zombies might be so taken aback by what they see, they lose their appetites. The best analogy I can conjure up is returning to your favorite restaurant after a long vacation, only to realize that they’ve changed the decor and the waitstaff so much that you’re too distracted to eat.
That’s what the last month of summer felt like to me. So much was changing in a short span of time, that I was too distracted to write it down. I’d like to say I took a planned break from blogging so that I could jump back into the fray in September, recharged. But this wasn’t the case. In fact, I even had several ideas for posts swarm inside my brain-case now and again, but none of them got me to sit down in front of the computer and tap them out. In fact, one blog idea that kept returning to me time and again was my reaction to watching my son cast a fishing rod this summer. I think that image floored me. Now, in retrospect, I can see that the thought of him being such a big kid, and entering the second grade, swept my writing legs out from under me. Here’s what happened.
My wife’s family was spending a couple of weeks in Cape Cod, and were gracious enough to invite us to stay with them for part of that time. Our work schedules are a little crazy, so we went up one weekend, and my wife and I came back home mid-week to go back to work, leaving our son with his cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandparents. I was away from everyone the longest, and when I returned to the Cape that Friday, my son raved about being taught by his grandfather how to fish. He was dying to show me, and we all headed down to the water that day. Now, these weren’t the piddly little poles that I grew up fishing with in the Midwest, but the big sea-faring poles, with the exposed reel that you have to manipulate with your fingers when you cast. Definitely not child’s play. After being baited up, my son held the base of the pole between his legs, set up the reel, pulled the line taught with his finger, hauled back, and released a perfect cast out into the water.
It doesn’t sound like much. Just a 7 year-old casting a fishing pole. But I was floored. He executed the maneuver with grace and ease, and without a single reminder or tip from an adult. I kept cheering loudly (like a bad fisherman) for him to “Do it again! Do it again!” I couldn’t believe that this kid, who just a few years ago was learning to walk, was now handling his own on a dock with a seven foot long fishing pole.
That’s the image that stopped me cold. The image that prevented me from writing a single word. Perhaps not the image itself, but what it signified. My son had grown. Grown quicker than I expected, and now we were about to head into another year of work and school. Not only had he grown, but he was old enough to be away from his parents, in another state, on vacation. He was getting so big.
Another thing that stopped me in my tracks was that he was now learning things, out there in the world, that had nothing to do with his parents. That sounds weird, as though I expect everything he knows to be taught by us, which certainly isn’t the case. Of course he has to learn things out there in the world beyond us. I think it was the fact that most everything he’s learned, from academics, to sports, to arts, were all facilitated by his mom or me. We helped him get to school or find a class or camp. In the case of fishing, he had been on his own in the world, decided he wanted to learn to fish, convinced his grandfather to teach him, and practiced on his own. What the hell! He’s no baby anymore.
And so I’m back to writing it all down, twisted up inside by the mixture of pride and anguish that comes with parenthood. I hope to stay put and keep up my appetite for writing, in spite of (or maybe because of) how much my world is changing.
The other day, I was in a shitty mood. One of those moods in which anything can annoy me. There wasn’t enough half-and-half for my coffee. My wife was using the bathroom when I needed it. My son woke up just a little too early for me to get anything done that morning. Wah, wah, wah.
Later that morning, we were heading out to the community pool, and my son was crazy excited. So excited that he was bouncing off the walls. When he’s super excited, he gets wild. Like singing at the top of his lungs, shrieking unexpectedly, and (literally) throwing himself into walls. Some things (singing) are cute, while other things (shrieking) are not. But no matter what he did, it all seemed to get under my skin.
We got into the car, my wife in the driver seat. My son excitedly yelped again in the car, and I let out a dramatic sigh.
“Do you remember when you were a kid and you were just so excited about something?” My wife asked.
“Yeah,” I responded reluctantly, already knowing where she was going with this.
“Did your parents ever give you a hard time when you were just so excited? My parents did, and it sucked. You’re kind of being that parent right now.”
Shit. She was right. And yet, I was feeling stubborn and couldn’t quite accept it. “But he’s being annoying!” I wanted to say, like I was talking about my little brother or something.
It’s just a downright bad combination if my son’s excited and I’m grumpy, because all the ways he expresses his excitement are somehow irritating to me. But what a terrible time to be irritable. The thing is, I DO remember what it was like to be crazy excited about something, only to be yelled at by my parents for making too much noise or to be threatened with having that fun thing taken away. Hell, I know what it’s like now as an adult to be excited about something and have someone rain on my parade.
That’s the tricky thing about being a parent. You’re not really allowed to be a crybaby or a grumpy old man. As a kid, I felt entitled when I was in a bad mood. “Screw everybody, I’m not feeling good so they can all go to hell.” But as a father, my grumpy attitude has so many far reaching ramifications. And I don’t want to be that parent.
After that much needed kick in the ass by my wife, I calmed myself down. We got to the pool and had fun. But, as a parent, I’m realizing that those kinds of wake-up calls are much needed doses of medicine. When I get into a funk, I sometimes feel entitled to it. My adolescent mind thinks that others should steer clear or keep themselves in check when around me, because I’m owed that much. But it isn’t true. My being stuck in a bad place doesn’t mean the world should shift to meet my mood. Once I’m able to recognize that my shitty behavior is really raining on other people’s (especially my son’s) parade, I have to force myself out of it.
Once I do force myself out of it, I sometimes realize how impermanent my moods are. That with a slight willful shift, I can actually have a good time again. I’m thankful for having a family. For having a wife and son who can help me see past myself and help me recognize that it’s me who creates my own suffering from time to time. If it weren’t for them, I’d likely turn into some rotted old man, yelling at the kids on his lawn.
As I write this, there’s a public works guy about 50 feet behind me, thinking this exact thought, “Who’s that freak in the tree?”
Last summer, when we moved to the burbs, I had the ingenious idea to build a tree house with my son. In my mind, it was meant to be a time to bond, a time to create a memory for my son that he’d pass down to his own children. It didn’t happen that way. My post from last year explored the whole debacle, and how my son couldn’t have cared less about the tree house in plan, construction, or product. It turned out I was just forcing “fun” down my son’s throat.
So here we are, a year later. In fact, this is probably very close to the time of year last summer when we bolted that first brace into the towering evergreen at the edge of our yard. And now the house sits dormant. Except for those rare early mornings when some creepy middle aged man can be spotted up there, doing god knows what.
That guy is me.
That’s because when you have a tree house in your backyard, which you spent a collective 100 hours building, you need to do something with it. The thought came to me when one of my friends visited us for brunch last Fall. He climbed up into the tree house, and exclaimed, “This is amazing. You should come up here sometime to meditate.”
I laughed. That was hilarious. I’m a grown-ass man. Like I’d actually climb up there in the morning to meditate. And yet a few weeks later I found myself grabbing my cushion and headed up into the tree. I was completely self-conscious. The tree house has windows on all sides, built almost like a look-out, from which you can see around on every side. So, even sitting on the floor, I could be seen from down below. To make matters worse, the tree’s set on the edge of our property, some 10 feet from the side of the road. Any passersby can look straight up into the tree from the road below.
But, I bit the bullet and I sat up in the tree that breezy Fall morning, and it was great. The calm of the outdoors, the birds singing in the trees, the sun glinting through the leaves.
Then the cops showed up.
I couldn’t help but notice that just minutes before I was set to end my sitting, there were blue and red flashing lights bouncing off the bare wooden studs surrounding me. I froze. I turned my head ever so slowly toward the street and spotted an officer emerging from his car, heading toward the guy he’d just pulled over. Whew! They weren’t here for the freak in the tree. But at that point I knew they probably hadn’t even seen me. So, how the hell was I going to get out of there? I silenced my timer, which was set to go off with a bell, and literally crawled out of the tree house on my belly, slunk down the steps, and ran back into the house.
My first messy visit up into the tree wasn’t my last, and I spent many more mornings up there. But up until now, I’d only used it for meditation. This morning, I knew that to get any writing done, I’d have to sneak out of the house before anyone woke up. But, without a dollar in my pocket, I wanted to avoid the coffee shops. So, I got the idea to grab my laptop and head into the tree.
I’m up here now, and I’m quite enjoying it. In spite of the public works guy leering behind me. Plus, I’m getting used to it. I nonchalantly sauntered up here just like I was heading to my front patio. I’m even perched up on a chair, so that the dozen cars and handful of joggers that have passed by have definitely spotted me. But at this point I don’t mind. The question is, how much longer can I do this?
For me, I don’t quite mind being the weird guy down the block, up in the tree. I think it has something to do with how stodgy this suburb is. There’s some deranged pride I take in being the guy up the tree. But, I have a family to think about, and a son’s reputation to uphold. For now, I’m sure it’s fine. My son’s only in first grade. But as the elementary years progress and he enters middle school, the last thing the poor kid needs is to be known as the boy whose creepy dad is up in the tree house every weekend.
For now, I’ll just go with it. I guess if I built this tree house based on my fantasy of what a kid wants, there must be some part of me that really wanted a tree house for myself. So, now I have it, and I might as well make use of it. At least until the cops show up again.
A couple of years ago I wrote a post about 30″ of snow hitting the Northeast and the back-breaking shoveling that took place at my house. The post was about contrasts: the amount of sweat and toil I invested in my hard work versus the money my neighbors spent on plow services.
undeaddad 