I know I haven't blogged in a while (been busy being a parent), though I am (finally) working on some new ideas. In the meantime--and in the spirit of this blog--I thought I'd share this link to a very touching and very short film about parents, children and lifetime love.I hope you enjoy it.
-David
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Friday, June 3, 2011
On hope, expectations, and disappointment.
One of the most normal and touching things that people in the U.S. do as loving adults invested in an infant is to dream and hope on its behalf. These hopes are often quite specific and usually follow a pretty standard script:
It is not that I am against having dreams for our children. As I started out saying, I think it is normal, it is beautiful, and it is touching.
I worry about what happens when the dreamers loose perspective, and specifically what will happen if this dreamer looses perspective. What if I imbue his future with visions of specific accomplishments that I think he should want or will benefit him so much that I eventually--through no fault of his own--set him up to disappoint me when the collections of little details that I had envisioned for him did not turn out as they could have?
So, how do I reap the benefits of hoping and dreaming without risking an obsession with the ultimately non-important? The solution I've been considering involves hoping (and shaping) qualities not accomplishments, and most importantly those qualities that will make him a person that enriches the world under most any scenario (including scenarios I'd rather not imagine). I hope this allows me to raise a happy and worthwhile person, which seems far more important than whether he turns out to be a pipefitter, a pianist, a prince or a pauper.
As of this morning, I've worked it down to three things.
First, I hope he will have unrelenting kindness. I hope he grows up to be the type of anonymous person you'll be happy exists on the day you find yourself in need. I hope he works everyday to make the world a better place in a million small ways (and, for extra credit, a couple big ones) without ever caring if anyone notices, because perfect compassion should be so delicately woven into its holder's life that it most often goes unnoticed.
Second, I hope he has unfailing integrity. That he lives in a way that respects his rights and those of everyone else. That he realizes that there cannot be peace when its essential elements are watered down, and that because of this he is unfailing when it comes to principled decisions and pragmatic with just about everything else.
Finally, I hope he is more comfortable in his skin than I am in mine. There is an old-timey wisdom about "people who can look you in the eye." To me, genuine (gen-yoo-wine) in-the-eye-lookers are people who carry themselves comfortably in the word because they own who they are. Following a sage mentor's advice to "fake it until I make it," I've spent a lifetime looking people in eye; however, the end point--being comfortable rather than just looking comfortable--has not yet arrived. I hope that if my son can be the first and second of the things I wish for him, this last one will come by default.
Any other hopes, whether they involve piano, ping pong, paintball, punk rock, plastic explosives, or Phi Beta Kappa, I'll leave to the other people that love him.
I hope the baby is [FAVORITE QUALITY], so that [DESIRABLE ACCOMPLISHMENT] happens"Say for instance:
I hope the baby is BRILLIANT, so that he CAN GET INTO A GOOD COLLEGE,"or:
I hope the baby is BEAUTIFUL, so that he CAN MORE EASILY FIND LOVE,"and even the less ambitious form of the previous example:
I hope the baby is AT LEAST NOT GOOFY LOOKING, so that he CAN GO TROUGH LIFE WITHOUT GETTING PICKED ON."Although I imagine some specific hopes are more common than others, their overall range is as wildly diverse as are the people that have them. If you add in your favorite qualities--say sensitive, athletic, clever, tough, creative, unique--and your favorite list of accomplishments--say becomes a poet, or a singer, or a movie star, gets an MVP, stars in a reality show--you begin to develop an idea of the full range of the human experience, and--getting to my point--of the full range of ways we can run the risk of setting up our children to fail to meet some relatively random expectations.
It is not that I am against having dreams for our children. As I started out saying, I think it is normal, it is beautiful, and it is touching.
I worry about what happens when the dreamers loose perspective, and specifically what will happen if this dreamer looses perspective. What if I imbue his future with visions of specific accomplishments that I think he should want or will benefit him so much that I eventually--through no fault of his own--set him up to disappoint me when the collections of little details that I had envisioned for him did not turn out as they could have?
So, how do I reap the benefits of hoping and dreaming without risking an obsession with the ultimately non-important? The solution I've been considering involves hoping (and shaping) qualities not accomplishments, and most importantly those qualities that will make him a person that enriches the world under most any scenario (including scenarios I'd rather not imagine). I hope this allows me to raise a happy and worthwhile person, which seems far more important than whether he turns out to be a pipefitter, a pianist, a prince or a pauper.
As of this morning, I've worked it down to three things.
First, I hope he will have unrelenting kindness. I hope he grows up to be the type of anonymous person you'll be happy exists on the day you find yourself in need. I hope he works everyday to make the world a better place in a million small ways (and, for extra credit, a couple big ones) without ever caring if anyone notices, because perfect compassion should be so delicately woven into its holder's life that it most often goes unnoticed.
Second, I hope he has unfailing integrity. That he lives in a way that respects his rights and those of everyone else. That he realizes that there cannot be peace when its essential elements are watered down, and that because of this he is unfailing when it comes to principled decisions and pragmatic with just about everything else.
Finally, I hope he is more comfortable in his skin than I am in mine. There is an old-timey wisdom about "people who can look you in the eye." To me, genuine (gen-yoo-wine) in-the-eye-lookers are people who carry themselves comfortably in the word because they own who they are. Following a sage mentor's advice to "fake it until I make it," I've spent a lifetime looking people in eye; however, the end point--being comfortable rather than just looking comfortable--has not yet arrived. I hope that if my son can be the first and second of the things I wish for him, this last one will come by default.
Any other hopes, whether they involve piano, ping pong, paintball, punk rock, plastic explosives, or Phi Beta Kappa, I'll leave to the other people that love him.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Evolution: It's a good thing (...for humans and baby care books).
Although scientists are still working out the exact details, sometime about 100,000 to 190,000 years ago homo sapiens sapiens--the redundantly-named wise wise human--evolved. I can think of several reasons why picking a basic baby care and parenting guide must have been much easier back then.
For one thing, our wise wise ancestors usually lived, hunted, gathered, and slept in small packs. Chances were pretty good that a fully-mobile and interactive guide--also known as a grandparent, grandparent in law, or other wise elder human--was around. Having already screwed up their own children (usually you), these elder humans were full of wisdom on what not to do. Nuggets of knowledge like "Turns out keeping a saber tooth IS totally bad ass, but not a safe family pet," "Childproof your fire pit by circling rocks around it, just remember cousin Blister," and so on. It is because of the cumulative knowledge gained through thousands of years of observations by these wise elder humans that we eventually arrived at the boppy pillow.
Another reason that good baby care guides were easier to find back then is that the whole survival of the species thing was very much in. Wise wise elders scored some major popularity points by helping you figure out how to keep your younglings around long enough to become wise wise themselves. The more successful they were at helping your pack's younglings stay around that long, the more likely they were to get invited to parties and score some swag. ("Hi Gurp. Nice to see you. Thanks for keeping my kid alive that one time. Sure you can have some of my mastodon. Anytime.")
Also, there was no writing.
How things have evolved. We take survival for granted, our packs consist of the server at our favorite lunch spot and the barista at the local coffee bar, our wise wise elders live in Florida and throw their own parties, and the whole writing thing really took off in the last five millennia.
A lot of that writing has been devoted to replacing the fully-mobile and interactive wise wise elder with a less costly, equally mobile, but much less interactive written guide. With more than fifty million copies sold, Dr. Spock's (the pediatrician not the Vulcan) Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is one of the best selling books of all time (less copies than the Bible, more than Who Stole my Cheese?). And he's far from the only game in town. Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg, and Sandee Hathaway, all of What to Expect When You're Expecting fame, have an entire series of books to subtly freak parents out about their children's failure to meet expectations through the first year, the second year, and the toddler years (In the works: What to Expect When Your Kid Graduates College in a Down Economy and Moves Back In). By comparison, the American Academy of Pediatrics offers you a bundled bargain (they are--gladly--doctors not businesspeople) with the much more comprehensive single volume Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5. Point is, if you are of the reading, non-pack living, and still survival-of-the-species-focused kind, there are rich pickings. (Amazon.com offers you more than one thousand options of these mobile, non-interactive, written guides).
Its a little overwhelming.
Maybe it's just an evolutionary leftover from our shared early ancestors, but for me the ideal baby care book should be like the ideal wise wise elder of yore: Useful, easy to spend time with, available when required, and funny when it needs to be. So--while copies of many of the aforementioned books do grace my shelves and were purchased by me--for my money one of the best baby books out there is The Baby Owner's Manual (Owner's and Instruction Manual) by Louis Borgenicht and Joe Borgenicht. Taking advantage of the tech-focused lives of modern wise wise folk, the book recasts the traditional baby care guide as the type of owner's manual you get with a new smartphone (helpful illustrations included). In doing so, these authors have managed to put together a book that is as informative and helpful as it is entertaining. Literally everyone who has picked it up in our house--including one of the hardest to please wise wise elders when it comes to baby care, my mother in law--has read it cover to cover, with audible laughs in between.
Here is a typical selection taken from one of the early chapters (p 16-17.):
Being the much more diligent, and freaked out, of what The Baby Owner's Manual might call our baby's end users, Sharon has dutifully studied her way through the American Academy of Pediatrics book. Although this has come in handy at times, there is a surprising number of times that we've learned something helpful about our baby not because of the excellent compendium brought to print by the august body of fine physicians for tiny wise wise humans, but because the silly little book that a good friend gifted us presented it in a simple and memorable manner
For a book that you can finish in one sitting, The Baby Owner's Manual covers a surprising amount of topics in a straightforward and practical manner. Changing diapers, childproofing your home, dealing with separation anxiety, hiccups, you name it, its likely to be there. Moreover, it's manual size allows you to toss it in the stroller or other "Essential Transportation Accessory" (once you've read the section, beginning on page 30, on picking and using one) and have it handy when/if its needed. The big book by the august group of experts is still on our shelf, and often gets visited for a second opinion, but the The Baby Owner's Manual has become an incredibly useful cliff's notes version. If you count yourself among the more diligent, and freaked out, of your baby's end users, I should also note that one of the manual's authors is a fine physician for tiny wise wise humans, just like the best-selling Vulcan.
We've been lucky to have the wise elders in our pack make frequent visits, and one is even staying with us for the time (and will undoubtedly be written about in the safer future), but--on that surprisingly not infrequent moment that you want to feel competent without your wise elders (or one-up them because the passive looks of pity and disapproval have become too much to bear)--this book is something that may have been worth the 150,000-ish year wait.
Note to my readers: No one other than my all-too-kind friends and family read my rants, so it should go without saying that someone compensating me in any form for a positive recommendation of their baby product--though appreciated--would be a terrible investment of their resources. Therefore, no one has so far.
For one thing, our wise wise ancestors usually lived, hunted, gathered, and slept in small packs. Chances were pretty good that a fully-mobile and interactive guide--also known as a grandparent, grandparent in law, or other wise elder human--was around. Having already screwed up their own children (usually you), these elder humans were full of wisdom on what not to do. Nuggets of knowledge like "Turns out keeping a saber tooth IS totally bad ass, but not a safe family pet," "Childproof your fire pit by circling rocks around it, just remember cousin Blister," and so on. It is because of the cumulative knowledge gained through thousands of years of observations by these wise elder humans that we eventually arrived at the boppy pillow.
Another reason that good baby care guides were easier to find back then is that the whole survival of the species thing was very much in. Wise wise elders scored some major popularity points by helping you figure out how to keep your younglings around long enough to become wise wise themselves. The more successful they were at helping your pack's younglings stay around that long, the more likely they were to get invited to parties and score some swag. ("Hi Gurp. Nice to see you. Thanks for keeping my kid alive that one time. Sure you can have some of my mastodon. Anytime.")
Also, there was no writing.
How things have evolved. We take survival for granted, our packs consist of the server at our favorite lunch spot and the barista at the local coffee bar, our wise wise elders live in Florida and throw their own parties, and the whole writing thing really took off in the last five millennia.
A lot of that writing has been devoted to replacing the fully-mobile and interactive wise wise elder with a less costly, equally mobile, but much less interactive written guide. With more than fifty million copies sold, Dr. Spock's (the pediatrician not the Vulcan) Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is one of the best selling books of all time (less copies than the Bible, more than Who Stole my Cheese?). And he's far from the only game in town. Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg, and Sandee Hathaway, all of What to Expect When You're Expecting fame, have an entire series of books to subtly freak parents out about their children's failure to meet expectations through the first year, the second year, and the toddler years (In the works: What to Expect When Your Kid Graduates College in a Down Economy and Moves Back In). By comparison, the American Academy of Pediatrics offers you a bundled bargain (they are--gladly--doctors not businesspeople) with the much more comprehensive single volume Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5. Point is, if you are of the reading, non-pack living, and still survival-of-the-species-focused kind, there are rich pickings. (Amazon.com offers you more than one thousand options of these mobile, non-interactive, written guides).
Its a little overwhelming.
Maybe it's just an evolutionary leftover from our shared early ancestors, but for me the ideal baby care book should be like the ideal wise wise elder of yore: Useful, easy to spend time with, available when required, and funny when it needs to be. So--while copies of many of the aforementioned books do grace my shelves and were purchased by me--for my money one of the best baby books out there is The Baby Owner's Manual (Owner's and Instruction Manual) by Louis Borgenicht and Joe Borgenicht. Taking advantage of the tech-focused lives of modern wise wise folk, the book recasts the traditional baby care guide as the type of owner's manual you get with a new smartphone (helpful illustrations included). In doing so, these authors have managed to put together a book that is as informative and helpful as it is entertaining. Literally everyone who has picked it up in our house--including one of the hardest to please wise wise elders when it comes to baby care, my mother in law--has read it cover to cover, with audible laughs in between.
Here is a typical selection taken from one of the early chapters (p 16-17.):
The Baby:So forth and so on, with an accompanying two page technical diagram to help you identify the correct location and placement of each of your baby's components. Very non-threatening and very easy to remember.
Diagram and Parts List
Virtually all current models come pre-installed with the following features and capabilities. If a baby is missing one or more of the functions described herein, contact the baby's service provider immediately.
The Head
Head: May initially appear unusually large or even cone-shaped, depending on model and delivery option. A cone-shaped head will become more rounded after four to eight weeks.
...
Neck:Upon arrival this feature may appear useless. This is not a defect. The neck will become more useful in two to four months.
Being the much more diligent, and freaked out, of what The Baby Owner's Manual might call our baby's end users, Sharon has dutifully studied her way through the American Academy of Pediatrics book. Although this has come in handy at times, there is a surprising number of times that we've learned something helpful about our baby not because of the excellent compendium brought to print by the august body of fine physicians for tiny wise wise humans, but because the silly little book that a good friend gifted us presented it in a simple and memorable manner
For a book that you can finish in one sitting, The Baby Owner's Manual covers a surprising amount of topics in a straightforward and practical manner. Changing diapers, childproofing your home, dealing with separation anxiety, hiccups, you name it, its likely to be there. Moreover, it's manual size allows you to toss it in the stroller or other "Essential Transportation Accessory" (once you've read the section, beginning on page 30, on picking and using one) and have it handy when/if its needed. The big book by the august group of experts is still on our shelf, and often gets visited for a second opinion, but the The Baby Owner's Manual has become an incredibly useful cliff's notes version. If you count yourself among the more diligent, and freaked out, of your baby's end users, I should also note that one of the manual's authors is a fine physician for tiny wise wise humans, just like the best-selling Vulcan.
We've been lucky to have the wise elders in our pack make frequent visits, and one is even staying with us for the time (and will undoubtedly be written about in the safer future), but--on that surprisingly not infrequent moment that you want to feel competent without your wise elders (or one-up them because the passive looks of pity and disapproval have become too much to bear)--this book is something that may have been worth the 150,000-ish year wait.
Note to my readers: No one other than my all-too-kind friends and family read my rants, so it should go without saying that someone compensating me in any form for a positive recommendation of their baby product--though appreciated--would be a terrible investment of their resources. Therefore, no one has so far.
Monday, May 16, 2011
On SportsCenter and SleepsChedules.
Every day since the rookie was drafted has been a bizarre doubleheader. The day game is played on our home field, there are rules we understand, and--given a decent game plan and a solid execution--there is a player's chance we'll take home the win.
The night game is another story. We play on his field, by his rules, and our best chance is to have worn him out during game one. In other words, we either show up to the day game or we're getting swept.
Having strung together a couple of solid sweeps of our own, we've gotten enough swagger back to brag about our game plan to the media:
FIRST PERIOD (7 am)
The rookie goes audible with his opening play. We adjust in time, feed him before its all downhill wailing, and before he knows what hit him we've got him in a milk coma and a clean diaper. Score one for the veterans.
SECOND PERIOD (8:30 am)
Slick thinks we were born yesterday, (he was), and throws down a rookie move: He drives too early for the feeding. Sharon reads the milk fake, plays a disciplined wait game, puts up with a whole lot of trash talking (screaming really), and--in classic rope a dope--hits him with a knock out feeding right when he's started to slow down. Sorry son, better bring your A game.
THIRD PERIOD (11:30)
Ok, so he catches us sleeping (literally). We don't communicate, our match up zone breaks down, and before we know it the diaper count gets away from us. We take a 30, get back on the game plan, and come in ready for period four.
So forth and so on, until the night game started. By that point, we'd won most day periods, tied a couple, lost one maybe two, but came in ahead for the series. Five hours later we had the first nighttime five hours of sleep we'd gotten since opening day. He rallied a bit at 4am, but we blitzed, fed and changed him before he could get back in the game, and got three more sleep hours in return.
Three days in a row now: We're calling it a win streak.
Until the rookie gets cagey, or one of us goes on injured reserve.
The night game is another story. We play on his field, by his rules, and our best chance is to have worn him out during game one. In other words, we either show up to the day game or we're getting swept.
Having strung together a couple of solid sweeps of our own, we've gotten enough swagger back to brag about our game plan to the media:
Break the day game down into periods. Win enough of them and you're starting the night game one point ahead in the series.Here's a recent highlight reel:
FIRST PERIOD (7 am)
The rookie goes audible with his opening play. We adjust in time, feed him before its all downhill wailing, and before he knows what hit him we've got him in a milk coma and a clean diaper. Score one for the veterans.
SECOND PERIOD (8:30 am)
Slick thinks we were born yesterday, (he was), and throws down a rookie move: He drives too early for the feeding. Sharon reads the milk fake, plays a disciplined wait game, puts up with a whole lot of trash talking (screaming really), and--in classic rope a dope--hits him with a knock out feeding right when he's started to slow down. Sorry son, better bring your A game.
THIRD PERIOD (11:30)
Ok, so he catches us sleeping (literally). We don't communicate, our match up zone breaks down, and before we know it the diaper count gets away from us. We take a 30, get back on the game plan, and come in ready for period four.
So forth and so on, until the night game started. By that point, we'd won most day periods, tied a couple, lost one maybe two, but came in ahead for the series. Five hours later we had the first nighttime five hours of sleep we'd gotten since opening day. He rallied a bit at 4am, but we blitzed, fed and changed him before he could get back in the game, and got three more sleep hours in return.
Three days in a row now: We're calling it a win streak.
Until the rookie gets cagey, or one of us goes on injured reserve.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
In the beginning ...
"In the beginning there was the hospital,I hate to start on a less than optimistic tone--it is not the style I choose when I get to choose one--but we daddys have a bum rap. Its a non-helping, spouse-demeaning, emotionally-stunted, type of rap that--like all bum raps--someone probably earned for us. And yet, the likelihood that our terrible reputation applies to any one of us ranges wildly from daddy to daddy.
and very few people seemed to expect me at the hospital.
When they did expect me, most expected me to be an ornament.
When I turned out to be no ornament, most assumed me to be controlling.
When it turned out I was not, few seemed to have any idea what to do with me."
In some ways this blog is about the opposite of our bum rap. Its about the things fathers today care about when they care about being fathers. Some would be familiar to my father's father: Providing a safe home, an education, and opportunities in general. Others--like picking diaper cream or wearing a baby carrier without surrendering my inner action hero--are still beyond my own father's well-intentioned best attempts. All are things that took center stage on the frightening and wonderful day our firstborn showed up to meet us.
I am going to write about me, and my newborn son, and my very patient very understanding spouse, but I hope that is not all that I am really writing about.
Because I am sick of the bum rap, and I know I don't deserve it.
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