I've been a father for almost six years. During those years I've learned quite a bit about many subjects I never spent much time considering prior to the moment my wife told me the news. Some lessons I wish I hadn't learned (are you reading out there lamaze instructor?) and yet so many lessons I wish I had learned before the doctor was handing me surgical scissors and giving instructions about cutting the umbilical cord.
I know most of us live with varying degrees of regret about choices we've made through our lives, mostly because the results of those choices often stray from what we anticipated (if we thought that far ahead at all) when we made them. I have my fair share as well, but almost all of those pale in comparison to the regrets I have about poor parenting decisions I've made (and unfortunately will continue to make despite my best efforts).
For me, the fact that every choice I make as a father has the potential to affect my children in ways I can't always control is sobering and challenging. Even more sobering is the fact that they learn so much not just by what we say but by what they see us doing.
We are shaping their ideas about the world, marriage, gender roles, spiritual health, physical health, discipline, success, etc... That's a heavy responsibility if we think ahead and imagine the type of adults we want our children to become (I'll assume that most of us want our children to be successful, independent, articulate, expressive, intelligent, disciplined, caring and driven).
That's a challenge each of us faces daily, to be better than we were yesterday for the sake of our children's tomorrows. That's easier to say than it is to do but I have to believe this effort will pay off in the end for my sons. Even when I fail them or when they dislike my parenting methods or choices, I know that one day they will understand and be thankful for the effort.
I can live with my regrets if they are earned from intentional effort toward their tomorrows.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Guitar Incident
One of the most interesting and surprising moments I've had as a father happened this past summer. I've dubbed it "The Guitar Incident" but it was more like a pass/fail parenting pop quiz with an audience and no preparation. I'm happy to say that I passed this one with flying colors!
This story starts without me, sometime in the early 1980's when my wife was just a baby herself. Her parents raised her within a Pacific Islander culture of close friends and family that she eventually shared with me and later, our three sons.
Culture of any sort was a new concept for me to grasp, my family was white on one side and hispanic on the other, but neither side had anything but very vague cultural influences on our day to day life. Not many family or culture related recipes, traditions, activities or discussions ever occurred in my house growing up - not that I felt I was missing out on anything.
I didn't really expect anything to be much different from my family experience the first time I was brought to one of her "extended family" parties. Silly me...
Needless to say, if you haven't been exposed to Pacific Islander culture, especially as the Haole boyfriend dating the beautiful teenage niece/daughter/sister/precious flower/apple of everyone's eye - you probably don't understand the depth of my experience...
Ten years, three children and countless memorable shared moments later - this is now part of my culture, and a part that I cherish immeasurably!
One of the family traditions that I've become part of is the yearly visit to the Ho'olaule'a (and YES I can pronounce that correctly in case you're wondering, I'll confess that took me a few years to learn...) - the biggest Pacific Islander festival in the south bay. Two days at Alondra Park filled with all things Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian etc... Everything from wonderful and authentic food, treats, games, live music and dancing to vendors selling apparel, jewelry, hand-crafted specialty items, plants, etc... Almost anything you can think of - wrapped up in a bunch of smiles, hugs, kisses, laughter, pigeon accents and beautiful hot weather (most years the weather cooperates anyway).
There's always a day one after party/bbq at her uncle's house on Saturday night where we bring out our instruments, have a couple cold ones and share good times before we all hit the sack exhausted ready to do it all over again the next day.
This past summer was no different, aside from the growing number of children we brought with us. So there we were enjoying ourselves amongst some of the greatest people we know, sitting on folding chairs in the front yard with the bbq smells filling the air. Roman (our two year old) was playing catch with uncle Howie. Samson (our five year old) was running around with his cousins, Anissa was holding Tyson (our one year old) and I was playing my guitar as usual.
A few minutes later Samson had the baseball and underhand tossed it to Anissa, dangerously close to the baby and to my guitar a couple feet away. She tossed it back with a few words of caution about throwing a hardball anywhere around the baby or daddy's guitar and before I could comprehend what exactly she was saying, I felt and heard a crunching WHACK and realized that something had struck the guitar in my hands.
All the music and conversation stopped abruptly. I looked down and saw a giant crack on the face of my guitar (the beautiful Martin I had bought myself less than a year earlier, the nicest guitar I've ever owned - my baby) and the baseball that had cracked it resting on the grass below. I looked up to see the look of mortified panic on Samson's face with tears welling up and immediately my heart sank. Not for the guitar that was damaged, but for my son who obviously couldn't handle what he was feeling and needed someone to rescue him from the moment.
Before anyone could say anything I called him to me, set the guitar down and wrapped my arms around him and whispered in his ear, "It's ok son, it's just a guitar." He spoke while he cried and said, "But it's broken, that's your new guitar. It's the special one.". I kept telling him it was just a thing (an expensive thing, yet just a thing) and I was glad that he didn't hit a person with the ball, or the windows on the car a few feet behind me in the driveway.
A few minutes later he slowly stopped crying and was reassured that we could probably fix the guitar and reminded that he shouldn't throw a baseball at anyone who didn't have a glove on. It took some time for the shame to dissipate and for him to feel comfortable enough to move away from my embrace, but eventually he did and ran off to play with his cousins once again carefree.
I re-tuned the cracked guitar and played it the rest of the night and the next morning at church (I lead worship with that same guitar every Sunday at church) with no problems and got it fixed the next week for less than $100.
When I think back on that day I chuckle and thank God that instead of flying off the handle in anger to further embarrass my son in front of friends and family, my heart was filled with compassion for him and I was able to be a better father than guitar owner.
I don't know what the people around me thought, but I was proud to have passed the parenting test of that day - besides, every musician knows a guitar doesn't play or sound that great until it's got a battle scar or two! My Martin didn't have a blemish or any character before that day, but now carries the mark of one my favorite memories as a father and is a reminder of the kind of love being a parent can provoke in me.
This story starts without me, sometime in the early 1980's when my wife was just a baby herself. Her parents raised her within a Pacific Islander culture of close friends and family that she eventually shared with me and later, our three sons.
Culture of any sort was a new concept for me to grasp, my family was white on one side and hispanic on the other, but neither side had anything but very vague cultural influences on our day to day life. Not many family or culture related recipes, traditions, activities or discussions ever occurred in my house growing up - not that I felt I was missing out on anything.
I didn't really expect anything to be much different from my family experience the first time I was brought to one of her "extended family" parties. Silly me...
Needless to say, if you haven't been exposed to Pacific Islander culture, especially as the Haole boyfriend dating the beautiful teenage niece/daughter/sister/precious flower/apple of everyone's eye - you probably don't understand the depth of my experience...
Ten years, three children and countless memorable shared moments later - this is now part of my culture, and a part that I cherish immeasurably!
One of the family traditions that I've become part of is the yearly visit to the Ho'olaule'a (and YES I can pronounce that correctly in case you're wondering, I'll confess that took me a few years to learn...) - the biggest Pacific Islander festival in the south bay. Two days at Alondra Park filled with all things Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian etc... Everything from wonderful and authentic food, treats, games, live music and dancing to vendors selling apparel, jewelry, hand-crafted specialty items, plants, etc... Almost anything you can think of - wrapped up in a bunch of smiles, hugs, kisses, laughter, pigeon accents and beautiful hot weather (most years the weather cooperates anyway).
There's always a day one after party/bbq at her uncle's house on Saturday night where we bring out our instruments, have a couple cold ones and share good times before we all hit the sack exhausted ready to do it all over again the next day.
This past summer was no different, aside from the growing number of children we brought with us. So there we were enjoying ourselves amongst some of the greatest people we know, sitting on folding chairs in the front yard with the bbq smells filling the air. Roman (our two year old) was playing catch with uncle Howie. Samson (our five year old) was running around with his cousins, Anissa was holding Tyson (our one year old) and I was playing my guitar as usual.
A few minutes later Samson had the baseball and underhand tossed it to Anissa, dangerously close to the baby and to my guitar a couple feet away. She tossed it back with a few words of caution about throwing a hardball anywhere around the baby or daddy's guitar and before I could comprehend what exactly she was saying, I felt and heard a crunching WHACK and realized that something had struck the guitar in my hands.
All the music and conversation stopped abruptly. I looked down and saw a giant crack on the face of my guitar (the beautiful Martin I had bought myself less than a year earlier, the nicest guitar I've ever owned - my baby) and the baseball that had cracked it resting on the grass below. I looked up to see the look of mortified panic on Samson's face with tears welling up and immediately my heart sank. Not for the guitar that was damaged, but for my son who obviously couldn't handle what he was feeling and needed someone to rescue him from the moment.
Before anyone could say anything I called him to me, set the guitar down and wrapped my arms around him and whispered in his ear, "It's ok son, it's just a guitar." He spoke while he cried and said, "But it's broken, that's your new guitar. It's the special one.". I kept telling him it was just a thing (an expensive thing, yet just a thing) and I was glad that he didn't hit a person with the ball, or the windows on the car a few feet behind me in the driveway.
A few minutes later he slowly stopped crying and was reassured that we could probably fix the guitar and reminded that he shouldn't throw a baseball at anyone who didn't have a glove on. It took some time for the shame to dissipate and for him to feel comfortable enough to move away from my embrace, but eventually he did and ran off to play with his cousins once again carefree.
I re-tuned the cracked guitar and played it the rest of the night and the next morning at church (I lead worship with that same guitar every Sunday at church) with no problems and got it fixed the next week for less than $100.
When I think back on that day I chuckle and thank God that instead of flying off the handle in anger to further embarrass my son in front of friends and family, my heart was filled with compassion for him and I was able to be a better father than guitar owner.
I don't know what the people around me thought, but I was proud to have passed the parenting test of that day - besides, every musician knows a guitar doesn't play or sound that great until it's got a battle scar or two! My Martin didn't have a blemish or any character before that day, but now carries the mark of one my favorite memories as a father and is a reminder of the kind of love being a parent can provoke in me.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Humble Beginnings
I'm a stay at home dad...
It's a phrase that doesn't roll off the tongue naturally, not like housewife or homemaker does. It isn't necessarily what I thought I would be when I imagined my future family as a young man, though I confess I didn't envision myself as the suit wearing, hair parted to the right, sedan driving businessman with a white picket fenced home and Stepford wife either.
I didn't have a plan really, I just assumed it would work itself out and that my future wife and children would be the central part of what was sure to be a beautiful and fulfilling adventure into fatherhood and middle age.
So here I am - thirty five (already?!) with three amazing, unique sons (arrows in my quiver a friend once noted with a scriptural reference) a wife I'm lucky to have and the opportunity to be THE biggest influence on our children's lives during their most formative years.
No pressure, right?
It's easy to analyze everything I do and/or say and find faults and mistakes, but as with anything else I think the most important thing about being a good parent is taking each day and each moment and doing my very best in that moment because my children deserve the very best from me. The kicker with that thought process is that while it's easy to say, it's much more difficult to do - especially factoring in our all too human emotions.
What I've come to understand is that there is value in our children seeing us being human and not having it together all the time. Even if we have regrets about what we've said and/or done in those moments, as long as we approach the subjects honestly with them after the fact (and learn to apologize when you're wrong as a parent) it teaches them that they don't have to have it all together all the time either.
Careful though, if you let your emotions get the best of you and lose control it teaches them that the way to deal with heightened emotion is to give in to it and lose control as standard operating procedure. I think it's much better to teach them healthy ways of processing and digesting their emotions and dealing with the results honestly while they are young rather than trying to unlearn these behavioral flaws when they are teens.
One of the saddest things I see as an adult is when other adults display behavior we discipline our children for and have to explain it to my children:
A couple weeks ago I was driving my son to school just like every other morning with his two baby brothers along for the ride. A few minutes into the trip we happened to be driving behind a man in a minivan who decided that swerving left and right in our lane like a Nascar driver waiting for the caution flag to turn green on a restart was the best way to deal with the car in front of him driving slower than he wanted to go. Samson asks me, "Why is that guy driving crazy daddy?" and I say, "I think he doesn't like the way the guy in front of him is driving and sometimes when people get mad they do silly things.". Samson chuckles to himself and says, "That guy must be REALLY mad because he's driving REALLY silly!". I just smile and shake my head as the cars in front of me come to a stop light in the right hand turn lane while 'mad, silly guy' starts to gesture with his hands and mutter/yell to himself about it.
The car in front of 'mad, silly guy' turns right and out of the picture, I'm still shaking my head as I wait for this guy to turn right so that I can make the same right and be on my way. Then I notice he's turning back looking at me, still yelling and gesturing and directing his anger at me for shaking my head.
I raise my arms up in the air and shrug and then point to the right, signaling to him I don't know what the problem is but I just want to go where I'm going. He gets infuriated and starts screaming and flailing his arms even more, my adrenaline kicks in and I'm expecting to have to deal with a guy jumping out of his car and coming to fight.
A few seconds later he peels out and makes his turn, I make mine and I drive past him ignoring his tantrum. Samson asks me, "Daddy why was that guy yelling at you?", this time I say "He's just having a bad day and throwing a temper tantrum. I hope you never act like that when you're old enough to drive, that's just too silly for a Morris boy." He answers, "I won't.". We arrive at school a couple minutes later, say our goodbyes and are off into the day unharmed but with a colorful lesson.
That guy obviously never learned how to process or react to his emotions in a healthy way - something as insignificant as driving a few ticks slower than he wanted to drove him into a rage that he couldn't escape, definitely not the best he could've done in that moment.
Not to say that I've never had colorful language for another driver on the road, but I generally save that for when somebody does something dangerous and my family's safety is compromised. I couldn't help but feel sorry for this guy with road rage and be thankful that I'm not prone to losing control.
Being as honest with my sons as I am with myself and my wife and having the ability to admit mistakes and apologize for them gives me great confidence in my parenting philosophy, and subsequently the development of my children into healthy, thoughtful, intelligent and independent young men.
Nothing worthwhile happens accidentally, it requires effort and intentional thought - applying this sort of thinking to parenting will hopefully enrich the experience for my children, my wife and myself as we grow together.
How's that for humble blog beginnings?
NJM
It's a phrase that doesn't roll off the tongue naturally, not like housewife or homemaker does. It isn't necessarily what I thought I would be when I imagined my future family as a young man, though I confess I didn't envision myself as the suit wearing, hair parted to the right, sedan driving businessman with a white picket fenced home and Stepford wife either.
I didn't have a plan really, I just assumed it would work itself out and that my future wife and children would be the central part of what was sure to be a beautiful and fulfilling adventure into fatherhood and middle age.
So here I am - thirty five (already?!) with three amazing, unique sons (arrows in my quiver a friend once noted with a scriptural reference) a wife I'm lucky to have and the opportunity to be THE biggest influence on our children's lives during their most formative years.
No pressure, right?
It's easy to analyze everything I do and/or say and find faults and mistakes, but as with anything else I think the most important thing about being a good parent is taking each day and each moment and doing my very best in that moment because my children deserve the very best from me. The kicker with that thought process is that while it's easy to say, it's much more difficult to do - especially factoring in our all too human emotions.
What I've come to understand is that there is value in our children seeing us being human and not having it together all the time. Even if we have regrets about what we've said and/or done in those moments, as long as we approach the subjects honestly with them after the fact (and learn to apologize when you're wrong as a parent) it teaches them that they don't have to have it all together all the time either.
Careful though, if you let your emotions get the best of you and lose control it teaches them that the way to deal with heightened emotion is to give in to it and lose control as standard operating procedure. I think it's much better to teach them healthy ways of processing and digesting their emotions and dealing with the results honestly while they are young rather than trying to unlearn these behavioral flaws when they are teens.
One of the saddest things I see as an adult is when other adults display behavior we discipline our children for and have to explain it to my children:
A couple weeks ago I was driving my son to school just like every other morning with his two baby brothers along for the ride. A few minutes into the trip we happened to be driving behind a man in a minivan who decided that swerving left and right in our lane like a Nascar driver waiting for the caution flag to turn green on a restart was the best way to deal with the car in front of him driving slower than he wanted to go. Samson asks me, "Why is that guy driving crazy daddy?" and I say, "I think he doesn't like the way the guy in front of him is driving and sometimes when people get mad they do silly things.". Samson chuckles to himself and says, "That guy must be REALLY mad because he's driving REALLY silly!". I just smile and shake my head as the cars in front of me come to a stop light in the right hand turn lane while 'mad, silly guy' starts to gesture with his hands and mutter/yell to himself about it.
The car in front of 'mad, silly guy' turns right and out of the picture, I'm still shaking my head as I wait for this guy to turn right so that I can make the same right and be on my way. Then I notice he's turning back looking at me, still yelling and gesturing and directing his anger at me for shaking my head.
I raise my arms up in the air and shrug and then point to the right, signaling to him I don't know what the problem is but I just want to go where I'm going. He gets infuriated and starts screaming and flailing his arms even more, my adrenaline kicks in and I'm expecting to have to deal with a guy jumping out of his car and coming to fight.
A few seconds later he peels out and makes his turn, I make mine and I drive past him ignoring his tantrum. Samson asks me, "Daddy why was that guy yelling at you?", this time I say "He's just having a bad day and throwing a temper tantrum. I hope you never act like that when you're old enough to drive, that's just too silly for a Morris boy." He answers, "I won't.". We arrive at school a couple minutes later, say our goodbyes and are off into the day unharmed but with a colorful lesson.
That guy obviously never learned how to process or react to his emotions in a healthy way - something as insignificant as driving a few ticks slower than he wanted to drove him into a rage that he couldn't escape, definitely not the best he could've done in that moment.
Not to say that I've never had colorful language for another driver on the road, but I generally save that for when somebody does something dangerous and my family's safety is compromised. I couldn't help but feel sorry for this guy with road rage and be thankful that I'm not prone to losing control.
Being as honest with my sons as I am with myself and my wife and having the ability to admit mistakes and apologize for them gives me great confidence in my parenting philosophy, and subsequently the development of my children into healthy, thoughtful, intelligent and independent young men.
Nothing worthwhile happens accidentally, it requires effort and intentional thought - applying this sort of thinking to parenting will hopefully enrich the experience for my children, my wife and myself as we grow together.
How's that for humble blog beginnings?
NJM
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