Finding Your Voice

The journey is often more rewarding than the goal.  The experience of getting there so often outweighs the experience of arriving, it ends up being the part of the story we tend to retell.  Is that because we gleaned some valuable life lesson along the way?  Perhaps that's why the journey is the part we ask others about.  End results are all well and good, but the fascinating aspect always involves how.

One of the hardest lessons of my life was learning to undo my upbringing.  Speaking up for myself was often labeled as "bragging" or "selfish," therefore it was bad and shouldn't be done.  This was a lesson coming from a shameless braggart full of stories that rarely held up under the slightest of scrutiny.  He was allowed to drone on an on about his supposed exploits of grandeur while I was forced to have my actions do my speaking for me.

"Actions speak louder than words" may sound romantic enough, but like many sayings in our language, this one falls short of reality.  One only needs to imagine trying to convey hunger using actions in lieu of words to see the flaw in this particular anecdote.  This approach will only ensure you are continually passed over for opportunities you desire, or are saddled with options you would rather avoid because it relies on the assumption that those around you are highly perceptive.  Nobody will advocate for you more than you, because people have their own agendas that rarely take your circumstances into consideration.  That's a hard lesson at any age, but even harder when you learn on the fly as an adult the way I did, because it forced me to change deeply ingrained habits.

When I became a father, I promised myself that I would undo the flaws that were passed onto me.  I never invalidate how my children feel, and always encourage them to communicate: they need to find their voice.  If they want something, they need to ask for it.  They may not get what they want, but at least they made their position known.  There is an unmistakeable sense of pride when you see these lessons being applied by your children.  Your ego swells a bit, and you try not to tear a rotator cuff while patting yourself on the back, until the entire scene unfolds in the most unexpected of ways.

My daughter, being the oldest, tended to get what she wanted out of her brother until he was able to find his voice.  It happened when she was five and he was three.  My daughter had already found her voice, and she really wanted him to play with her in her room.  She made it known that his presence was required because she needed help doing something.  The problem was her competition: Star Wars.  As she was demanding (not requesting) his presence, he could be heard quite clearly, playing with his Star Wars action figures, making laser sounds (Pew!  Pew!  Pew!).  He stopped playing momentarily to respond:

"You do it yourself!  I busy!"  He shouted from the depths of his bedroom, shortly followed by a renewed chorus of, "Pew!  Pew!  Pew!"

Busy indeed.  At least he found his voice.  I hope it continues to serve him well.

Counting On Daddy

We are the examples for our children.  If we show them that it's okay to disregard our health, they will follow our lead.  With my son's birth quickly approaching, I had a very small window to make some significant changes.  I was 29 and could no longer run, so getting myself into shape seemed impossible until a friend of mine recommended (and subsequently loaned me a copy of) P90X.  Although the now-famous workout had yet to reach the mainstream, there were still plenty of infomercials to be found on basic cable after sunset, and unlike most infomercials focused on fitness, this one seemed plausible.

I had been struggling to recover from multiple surgeries on both knees over a three year period, which, combined with my age and inactivity, had led me to fall into the worst physical shape of my life.  I have always been a thin man, and while I never developed a gut that hung over my belt, I had gone to seed and was unhappy with my physique.  That's when I decided I was going to do something about it.  

And so it began: I was going to get into the best shape of my life in 90 days.  With the help of a handy spreadsheet I found online, I was able to keep track of my workouts digitally, taking notes on limitations I encountered, as well as keeping diligent records of weights and reps.  Endurance athletes are self-starters by nature, and as a former endurance athlete, the objective data in the spreadsheet was all the motivation I needed.

Completing the full P90X program was a humbling experience.  In my mind, I thought of myself as an endurance athlete in the present tense, but P90X forced me to reevaluate.  Pull-ups and chin-ups were particularly challenging ... as in, I couldn't do one.  The program advises you to put one leg on a chair until you build up to doing them properly.  When I started out, I discovered that one leg would not suffice.  Instead, I needed both legs on the chair, and I couldn't do very many even with my legs doing most of the work.

That's where my daughter comes in.  Seeing me exercise inspired her to participate.  She was twenty-two months old and she knew her numbers and needed to help me count.  The problem was, she was still ironing out the whole sequential order nonsense as well as basic pronunciation.  Instead of counting my reps as "one, two, three," she would say numbers at random in her chirpy voice, making it even harder for me to perform any chin-ups or pull-ups.  

She also had trouble with the number seven.  If she referenced 7up soda, it sounded more like "smell it up," but when she was talking about the number after six, but before eight, it was "fuddiss."  Don't ask me how she settled on those, because my wife and I still haven't figured it out, but my workouts became much less efficient with my daughter's assistance.

"One.  Two.  Eight.  Fuddiss.  Tree."

That's how you count!  I was able to complete the program shortly after my son was born, despite my daughter's efforts.  She may not have been helpful, but she thought she was, and that was good enough for me.

Entomology

One of the more remarkable aspects of parenthood doesn't really take shape until your children start attending school.  This isn't something anyone really prepares you for, either.  Parents only seem to relate shared experiences like this after the fact (much like the less-than-rosy aspects of pregnancy).  In school, your children spend most of their time with people outside their household, and yes, they get to make friends and play games at recess, but more importantly, school is where they receive their first taste of principle learning from someone other than their parents.  I suppose had my children been in daycare, they would have experienced some of this prior to attending school, but we were fortunate enough to never need daycare.

The oddest aspect of my children attending school (for me, anyway) is their genuine enthusiasm.  I remember initially being eager to attend school as a child, only to have that feeling evaporate as the reality of the grind set in.  Education "back in my day" was painfully dull.  Days filled with unnecessary repetition, coupled with lots of yelling and corporal punishment made for a poor learning environment.  Fun was rarely a consideration.

Thankfully, watching my children learn is anything but dull.  In fact, it is something to behold.  They're like sponges, eager to soak up everything within reach.  They're fascinated by things most adults consider to be mundane, because they're learning, reading, and discovering the mundane for the first time.  While I'm sure they will become just as dismissive as I am when they're adults, I'm grateful that moment has yet to arrive.

Their interest in (and enthusiasm for) learning is surprisingly contagious — especially when they decide to share as though we couldn't possibly know a thing about that fascinating subject they just learned in school.  When my son was in kindergarten, for example, they were studying insects.  The age appropriate nature of their studies involved identifying insects properly and understanding the differences between insects and arachnids.  During dinner, he decided to share some of the finer points he had learned during class.

"Insects have six legs, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen," he advised us.  "Spiders are not insects."

"Very good, mijo!"  My wife exclaimed, though he waved her off immediately as though she were ruining his train of thought.

"Spiders are not insects," he reiterated, before flexing his arms and dropping his five-year-old voice into as low of a growl as he could manage.  "They belong to SPIDER-MAN!!!"  

Of course they do.

Modeling

People behave in ways they're often unaware of (or only marginally aware of).  Since we are being ourselves, everything feels normal, or at least as normal as we expected from yesterday, or as normal as we expect tomorrow will be.  We tend to assume our sense of norms are the same as others, yet this couldn't be further from the truth when you consider that all of us learned our sense of normality from different sources, which are then magnified exponentially when you factor in race, culture, as well as one's regional origin.

This innately arrogant approach becomes amplified once you enter the realm of parenthood, because you have now become the example by which very impressionable, miniature versions of yourself are now taking their cues.  The real question then becomes: am I setting a good example?  If you haven't asked yourself this question as a parent, perhaps you should.  "Do as I say not as I do" was a favorite of elders when I was growing up.  It was in heavier rotation than that new pop song on terrestrial radio stations (didn't we just hear this?!).

The problem with this antiquated approach is the reality that we learn from the examples others set before us.  Minding our social graces comes from more than just the verbal reminders.  The examples of when and where things are appropriate come from those whom we look up to and respect, even when those people are modeling poor behavior.  Everything from vices, to spending habits, to political and religious leanings, to our attitudes toward genders and people from differing ethnic backgrounds, are being keenly observed and incorporated by those sponges we call our children — yes, everything.

I remember the exact moment of this epiphany.  Thankfully, I hadn't been a father for too long prior.  My wife was nursing our newborn son, and still avoiding things like caffeine and alcohol, but craving sour treats like lemonade.  My daughter was two, and playing with her tea party set.  She was serving drinks while I watched football, and offered me a choice.

"Daddy," she asked, "would you like coffee, lemonade, or beer?"

Without thinking about what I was doing, or the (poor) example I was setting, I was largely transitioning from coffee to beer while watching football every Sunday during football season.  It seems someone took notice.  Perhaps I should have been drinking more water.

"I'll take some lemonade, please."

This was the first of many steps toward setting a better example.

The Tea Party

Children are influenced by far more than we parents tend to appreciate.  Unless you plan to home school your children AND cut them off from social media and other forms of pop-culture (including television and radio), there's a good chance your child is being influenced in ways you are only marginally aware of.  It's a delicate balance trying to decide age-appropriate content to expose them to, but at some point, time simply does not allow for all the hand-holding that was possible prior to your children enrolling at school.

One example of this was when my children wanted to watch movies.  Rather than worrying about endless discs and packages that would otherwise be ruined by the less-than-careful handling of my children, I built a server complete with media hubs they can control themselves.  I may have given them access to age-appropriate content that they could peruse at their leisure, but I'm not enough of a micro-manager to look at which content they tend to play more often than others.

Sometimes, their consumption habits will spill over in unexpected ways.  When my son was five, for example, he was constantly testing our creativity with respect to motivation.  On one morning, as we were getting ready to leave for an overdue play-date with some family friends, my wife and I, as is often the case, were searching for that elusive button that needed to be pressed to light the proverbial fire under his backside.

"Hurry!"  His mother advised him, "You don't want to be late to see everyone, do you?"  She asked, shaking her head.  "That means we won't be able to spend as much time with them."

"No," he responded with atypical calmness, "I don't want to be late to the tea party."

Of course you don't, except — tea party?!  Apparently, my children had been consuming copious amounts of "Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010)."

So it was that we went to our Tea Party.  The instant the door was opened to allow us entry into our friends' home, my son, ignoring the need for pleasantries, rushed across the threshold first and gleefully announced, "I'm here!"

Of course you are.  Needless to say, he caught everyone off-guard ... again.

Welcoming

Being included was always a goal of mine growing up.  It may seem like a silly goal to those who have grown up with love and acceptance, but then you probably grew up having close friendships that have lasted a lifetime.  Perhaps you have cousins and other extended family who are happy with who you are, and talk to you for reasons beyond social obligation.  If you're a bit more sheltered, you may have nothing more than siblings and parents who accept you, and go out of their way to include you.  It's lonely outside of your family circle, but at least you would have a place that feels safe and welcoming.  I had none of these things.

The first time I experienced true acceptance was as an exchange student.  Nobody cared that my teeth pointed in irregular directions or that I had no sense of fashion.  My social awkwardness was also irrelevant.  All that mattered was that I was the exchange student from California.  Sure, there were many who disliked me simply for being American, as any American who has traveled internationally can attest to, but the overwhelming majority were willing to elbow their way through a crowd just to introduce themselves to me.  It may have been celebrity-like acceptance, resulting in mostly superficial interactions, but it was nothing like I had ever experienced.  Let's face it, when you spend the majority of your time being excluded at every turn, simple things like acceptance are not taken for granted.

The funny thing is, when you're accepted for who you are, flaws and all, you achieve a connection to humanity that is hard to measure.  Decades have passed since my year as an exchange student, and yet I have maintained relationships that began during that year.  Other students from all over the world have remained part of my life, but more importantly, my bond with the family that took me in has endured.  They were just being themselves, but the gift they gave me is irreplaceable.

I returned home to California to find things had not really changed — but my perception of them had.  Being included and valued for who you are starts with your willingness to accept yourself, flaws and all.  I found I was no longer able to value, or fight to maintain, toxic, one-sided relationships with people who were all take and no give.  As a result, my relationships improved, because I was seeking healthy connections and no longer settling for whatever I could get.

Naturally, inclusiveness and tempered judgement are traits we have actively sought to teach our children as parents.  Not only is it better for relationship-building, but things are much less stressful when you're not surrounded by toxicity.  Regardless of how much emphasis is placed on things, I'm not always sure how much my children absorb.  We do our best to lead by example, but you never really know what they believe until they show you.

When my daughter was eight, she received a new princess doll as a gift: Merida from Disney/Pixar's Brave (2012).  As I was going past her room, I glanced in and stopped dead.  I couldn't help but notice her princess dolls sitting in a circle with Merida clearly apart from the rest.  Before I could say or do anything beyond my quizzical expression, she advised me, "we're having a 'princess meeting,' to welcome Merida!"

Of course you are.  Even at eight, she gets something that continues to elude many adults.

Lucky Be Mine

Parenthood is full of curveballs and unexpected changes of pace that go way beyond the milestones that every "normal" child is expected to reach.  Some things, like Trips to the ER that end up creating The Gnarly of Scars, are par for the course for most of us.  Allergies can be bumps in the road, but aren't altogether unexpected considering the prevalence of seasonal allergies.  But when your child has an anaphylactic allergy of any kind, it tests your resolve as a parent, particularly if that allergy is food.

The reality that food — not poison — is suddenly poisonous to another human being is a challenging concept for most of us.  "Why?"  "Will it really be lethal?"  "But I washed it, so it's okay."  We've heard all of these statements.  When your child has an anaphylactic food allergy to anything that is a staple of your national cuisine, the complications become exponential.  Explaining the difference between protein and bacteria, or between food-related pathogens and protein, has become routine, and yet it confuses people.  Educated people.  Intelligent people.  Well-intentioned people.

Then there's everyone else.  Unfortunately, the intelligent, educated, well-intentioned people make up the extreme minority.  Everyone else deliberately or ignorantly goes out of their way to exclude your child.  They also want to argue the merits of our requests for accommodations as though the meme they read on social media somehow makes them as much of an expert on allergies as a board-certified allergist.  Take school parties, for example, where food is passed out and your child is forced to navigate the proverbial minefield that ensues.  There is a dearth of consideration for inclusion, and a general indifference when confronted.

When my son was in kindergarten, his class Valentine's Day party provided another opportunity for exclusion.  All of the other children received goodie bags full of various candies.  A selection of stuffed animals were also passed out.  Not one of the other parents thought to provide something my son could have other than the stuffed animal, but when they were passed out, the one he actually wanted and requested (a stuffed Dalmatian puppy) was purposefully given to a different child.

Seeing his disappointment, his mother went to the store and was fortunate to locate the last one on the shelf and add it to the goodie bag she had made for him.  Thanks to his mother, he had a plush toy and a goodie bag full of candy he could safely consume.  If his mother hadn't gone out of her way to create something special for him, the other parents would have succeeded in excluding our son from participating in a "normal" activity.

Children are amazingly resilient though.  My son's disappointment was a distant memory thanks to the efforts of his mother.  In fact, he couldn't stop discussing his new plush toy, which he decided to name "Lucky."  Carrying his doll around in a full embrace, front paws stretched open like arms, the way a child wraps their arms around a parent, he approached his mother and said, "Mama, Lucky doesn't have 'be mine' (like a conversation heart), but she can still 'Be Mine!'"  He flashed his golden smile, instantly melting his mother's heart.

Of course she can.