Uncertainly Principled

Ours is world of polarization and extremes. Throw a stick into a crowded room, and you'll find a young-earth creationist, a 9/11-truther, an anti-vaxxer, and someone who believes the first moon landing was a hoax.

(For the record, I subscribe to none of those ideologies).

As an adult, one has to think carefully about the evidence presented to us; accepting something as "fact" on the basis of the authority of the author, or the reliability of the source, is a comforting, but fallacious policy. Even the experts are often wrong. One must question, not only the source of information, but also their bias, agenda, and the ever-present possibility that they may be wrong.

Now try teaching that to a child. I've mentioned before that my son has a strong desire for the world to be black and white. "Good" guys fight "bad" guys, and while the good side might not always win, they are always good. That very oversimplification is at the root of a significant amount of the ideological extremes that exist in our modern discourse (Not that extreme polarization is new, mind you. The volume is simply louder in modern contexts).

Yet it's necessary, in some respects, to teach my son in "absolutes". He lacks the reasoning skills to determine, for example, when he may be in danger. If I see an environmental danger that he does not, he must be conditioned to obey my instructions immediately, or his physical safety may be compromised. There is no time for a philosophical debate on why he must obey me when a car is barreling towards him.

But life-threatening danger is such a rare potential occurrence, that I cannot use it to condition him. I have to train him to obey in the mundane, so that he will instinctively obey in the extreme.

Which is the exact opposite of the message I want to send him.

In order to survive, adapt, and thrive in the adult world, he must develop a finely honed sense of skepticism. But in order for him to have the best chance to survive to that stage of life, he must also develop a healthy sense of obedience; until he has enough experience to suss out dangers (both immediate, and potential) on his own, he must rely on the adults around him.

Moreover, there a numerous dangers that are subtle and non-physical; the danger of trusting the wrong person, the danger of losing the respect of someone you care about, the danger of alienating those around you. I won't be able to spare him those, except in the most limited of ways...

The older I get, it's painfully obvious that the more I learn, the less clear things become. There are so many ideas and arguments, most of which have some kernel of verifiable fact within them. If I can't fully trust myself to know the truth about, well, anything, how on earth can I possibly teach my son?

I suppose I just have to do my best. And highly encourage him to learn math, the language of the universe. It's pretty hard to insert any uncertainty into a² + b² = c².

You Said What Now?

I've mentioned before that my son's perception of time is skewed. Sometimes, this manifests as a rather annoying or even frustrating trait. But every once in a while, it creates a situation of almost sitcom-level hilarity and absurdity.

My wife and I use a euphemistic code-phrase when we want some uninterrupted alone time while our son is awake. We tell him that we're "going in our room," and that he's not to disturb us. We make sure he has snacks and water, and he is generally free to occupy himself however he likes (reading, video games, etc.). He virtually never interrupts us, and most of the time, doesn't even acknowledge our entry or exit of our bedroom.

Most of the time.

However, one day, not long ago, my wife and I told our son that we were "going in our room", and that we didn't wish to be disturbed.

Our son asked how long we were going to be. He does this sometimes, I'm not actually certain why. He doesn't seem to care what the answer is, he just asks, seemingly, for the sake of asking.

At any rate, we told him we would be "a while", and that he was free to amuse himself with whatever choice he desired. He immediately became engrossed in a Youtube video, and my wife and I went into our room and did things that people attracted to each other do.

Now, as an aside, I don't have any particular hang-ups or insecurities about sex, nor does my wife. We're a fairly frank and open family, and we've discussed sex in an age appropriate and understandable manner many times. So our son knows what "going into our room" means; he just doesn't care.

With that said, I'm pretty sure what follows was unintentional on his part.

My wife and I were in our room for...well, the usual amount of time. There was nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever with this particular bedroom romp. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but we spent the same amount of time in our room as we almost always do.

Got it?

Yet as we exited our room, we heard a chipper, cheerful voice opine from the living room, "You guys weren't in there very long!"

And while I couldn't see his face when he said it, from his tone of voice, I am almost certain he had a giant, shit-eating grin on his face when he did. My first grader called me out for taking inadequate time in banging his mom.

If I could bottle those moments in time and sell them, I'd be a billionaire.

Multifaceted Motivation

Motivation is a tricky thing. When I was younger, I often would do the "bare minimum" required of me. Homework assignment? Whatever the barest amount of work was necessary was all I would commit. Doing chores? Exactly the number of tasks I was assigned and no more.

My mom insisted at the time that I was being lazy. To be truthful, until I became a father, I thought I was too.

Now I know better.

See, my son very clearly shares this trait with me. His most common retort when tasked with something is, "Do I have to?" In fact, he asked it so often, and with such obnoxious inflection, that we had to ban the phrase in our household.

Here's the thing; he's not lazy, and neither am I. We just have a low tolerance for tasks that are set for us by others. And this challenging aspect of my own nature plagued me until I was a fully-independent adult.

I am attempting to help him avoid that fault.

After all, life is filled with tasks we must complete that we don't set for ourselves. School, work, relationships...every facet of life is filled with required compromises of our time, energy, and attention.

Yet it can be difficult to find much pleasure or reward in the mundane, yes? Even more so if you recognize that the meaning of life is whatever you make of it. Nothing matters, in the abstract sense, except the things we choose to care about. So how does one find motivation for the mundane repetition that is day-to-day life?

I'd be lying if I said I had a complete answer to that question. It may sound like a simple thing, but to me at least, it isn't. I'm certain that my son is going to ask me though, so I continue to ponder it at length.

Personally, I motivate myself not by chasing what I want, but by fleeing what I don't. You may think me craven, but I've found that chasing desires becomes rapidly unfulfilling. Like a dog that finally catches a car, it's impossible to know what to do with it once you have it.

But fleeing the undesirable...now that contains a lifetime of possibility. You can't always know what you do want. But there will always be something you don't.

Will that hold true for him? Will it help him achieve success by his own definition? Or will he find that perspective unsatisfying and unacceptable?

When Dreams Die

Life has an interesting way of just...happening. Most parents I've spoken to agree that having children is metaphorically tantamount to having a volcano erupt right in the middle of your life plan. Even if you knew it was going to happen, the fallout is still unimaginable, permanent, and it obliterates the old landscape.

(This isn't inherently a good or bad thing; it's just a reflection on what seems to be).

I'm trying to teach this principle (that life just sorta happens) to my son, in an age-appropriate manner. Most of the time, this boils down to him asking me a question, and me replying with a five-minute soliloquy on how things are sometimes one way, then for no discernible reason, they are another, often in a very short span of time. Thus far he seems to both enjoy, and understand my pontificating (he is rarely satisfied with simple answers); time will tell if that remains to be true in his elder childhood years.

But I struggle sometimes with ideas surrounding dreams and accomplishments. I am a firmly grounded realist, and even when I was younger, though I took more risks than I take now, I was decidedly cautious and calculative in my approach to life decisions.

I was, and still am, the person in the first panel on left side of this XKCD.

However, the message in the rest of that comic haunts me. I do not wish to push my son into a mold that is foreign to him, yet I also don't want to fill his head with unlikely scenarios and nearly impossible to accomplish fantasies. I want him to be prudent with his speech (especially today when it lives on forever in the ether), but be free to speak his mind. I want him to be free to dream big...

Yet it's not true that anyone can grow up to be an astronaut or fighter pilot (strict height and physical health requirements). The vast majority of humans are ineligible to ever be President of the United States (strict age and citizenship requirements). And luck will always play a far larger role in our accomplishments than any of us are likely comfortable admitting.

So what does that leave for my son? I cannot lie to him; it's not in my nature to hide the truth, no matter how difficult it may be to face. Nor am I comfortable sugar-coating reality; the world can be a beautiful, magical place. It can also be (and let's be honest, much more frequently is) cold, cruel, lonely, crushing, and terrifying.

I'm still trying to find the right equilibrium. Maybe there isn't one to be found. Perhaps the balance lies somewhere in the middle, although the older I get, the less true I find that to be.

As for my own dreams? A long, healthy, and happy life for my son. Who could ask for anything more?

Teachers Aide

We seem to live in an age of endless hand-wringing about the state of education. There are infinite reasons proffered as to why America typically ranks so low compared to other wealthy, industrialized nations.

Having volunteered at my son's school, in multiple elementary grade classrooms, I confess I am unable to pinpoint any one problem at the root of our (alleged) educational malady. But I have noticed some trends that often come up in the conversation, and in no particular order, I offer my observations on them.

It's an oft-quoted truism that children learn better when class sizes are smaller. This has been fairly well proven to be true in K-3 learning, although, the results aren't as clear-cut as common sense might seem to dictate.

In my own observation, class size seems to matter much less than class composition. A large class of well-behaved (in the abstract sense) children is much easier to manage than even a class half its size, filled with unruly behavior. One child throwing a loud temper-tantrum can just as easily derail a class of 15, as it can a class of 25.

The question then becomes, what techniques can a teacher employ to maintain order in their classroom? This is an interesting problem, I've observed, and there probably is no real right answer. But I've certainly seen techniques that are effective...and others that are less so.

But as I look at my own parenting style and skills, I am reminded that our ability as parents to direct our children's behavior becomes more and more limited the older they get. They are, after all, small humans, with all of the complex emotions and incomprehensible decision-making instincts that we adults have, without the benefit of experience and logic to temper them. The more I observe of a day in the classroom, the more I'm convinced that Nature is a far bigger influence on our growth than Nurture.

My son, for example, exhibits numerous traits that I too expressed as a child. Yet he's never observed me directly engaging in such activities or behavior. There are times when he speaks, I hear my own voice reflected, from decades past, saying (virtually) the exact same thing in the exact tone of voice.

You may accuse me here of projecting my own psyche onto my son (and I can't honestly be certain you'd be wrong), but even if that's true...it's a sobering thought. That these patterns, even unconsciously, repeat themselves in the imprint of our offspring.

Perhaps that's the uncomfortable truth at the core of the "problems" we see in the classroom. It's not necessarily a lack of parental engagement, or dysfunctional schools (though those likely play a part); perhaps it's more our inability to understand our own actions and motives. Our own dysfunctions as human beings, reflected back at us through the immutable lens of our children's eyes.

If I'm honest with myself (and I owe you at least that, dear reader), I can't really say that I enjoy my time spent at his school. Don't get me wrong, I want and choose to be there, and I think it's important. I believe I need to model the behavior I expect my son to emulate, and a big part of that is demonstrating that progress is made by the people who show up. But I struggle when I'm there with an overwhelming sense of...melancholy? A profound sense that the struggles and challenges manifested in these children are not problems that can be "solved"; rather they are a fundamental component of who and what humanity is.

That probably sounds far more hopeless than I intend. Rest assured, I have no illusions that the way things are now is the way they have to be. Which is why I'll continue to volunteer and show up. Because if there is any progress to be made, it'll be made by those who do.

Velocity, Like Family, Is Relative

My son's perception of time is skewed. It always has been. He claims that 300 years is not a long time; you have to get into the million+ range to elicit from him a span of time deemed "lengthy".

I spend more time than I really ought to, trying to remember my own perceptions at his age. I do remember sitting in the car while my mom would run errands, becoming more and more furious that her errand-running was causing me an inordinate amount of boredom. I'm certain at least one of my adult neuroses is directly related to those experiences (though even with a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you which one). Thanks a lot mom!

But in all seriousness, I'm fascinated by the curious way my son's brain organizes relative concepts. While it's entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that he's just being oppositional for his own sake of fun, part of me is convinced he really doesn't believe anything less than a million is a "lot". And given that such things are relative...I can't really say he's wrong, can I? I mean, a million of something is a lot. And when compared to 300, a million really is a lot, and 300 really isn't. I can count to 300 comfortably in a sitting. A million? Not so much.

It's these kinds of things that really throw me for a loop. I endeavor to teach my son the nuanced and complicated nature of the world. He often asks me if characters in a movie or show are "good guys" or "bad guys", and I tell him that it largely depends on your perspective. He wants the world to be black and white (understandably), but I can't abide washing the world of it's vibrant (and complicated) colors. He seems to find this, at varying turns, irritating or illuminating, and if it's possible to quantify and predict which one he'll choose, I'm damned if I can figure out how.

So, I do my best to provide him with the length and breadth of the universe (or at least as much as I understand of it), and hope that in time he and I can fill in the blanks together. I think we're in for a treat when we get to E=mc².

Everything Old Is New...

In 2008, I started a blog about fatherhood, or more specifically, my experiences being a father. At the time, my son was less than a year old, so the posts were largely centered around the joys (and more often, perils) of having an infant.

I kept writing, until 2010, when life, the universe, and everything simply sapped my time and energy, and the blog fell by the wayside. Apparently, in the intervening years, our all-knowing lord and master Google purged inactive blogs, such as mine, and all of that content was lost to the ether.

Just as well; I highly doubt anything I wrote at the time was particularly interesting or novel. (Spoiler alert; the same is likely true for this resurrected incarnation, but that's the risk you take, dear reader.)

The truth is, after 7 years of parenting, I've found that very few of my ideas or experiences are actually unique (I know, stop the presses, right?). Whatever existential angst this understanding might have caused me is overwhelmed by a resounding "meh", as I contemplate the fact that so it has been for every parent who has gone before me.

So what prompted me to breathe life back into this idea, which wasn't very good the first time around? Authenticity.

Seven years into this lifelong gig, the one thing that's held true for me as a person, outside of being a parent, is the necessity of living an authentic life. In trying to model behavior that I want my son to emulate, I have to have a frank and honest conversation with myself; is what I'm modeling really how I behave, or is it just something I'm doing for him? If it's the former, then there is an outside chance that the seeds I plant may sprout as he grows into a man, surviving the crucible of puberty and taking deep root in the core of who he defines himself to be.

But, if it's the latter, he'll suss that out immediately and recognize my hypocrisy faster than he wolfs down cupcakes at grandma's house.

So it's on me to be true and authentic. That is the the theme this reborn blog will explore, as it relates to parenting. And like parenting, I can't really guarantee much. I can't guarantee that I'll post as often as I'd like. I can't even promise the content will prove to be interesting. But like I'm trying to teach my son, I'll do my best along the way. If that's not the crux of parenting, then I don't know what is.