Adventures in Public Space

There is a difference between public space and private space. This difference has nothing to do with physical arrangements or locations or whether one is inside or outside a home. Instead, it has everything to do with how we distribute our activities and regulate our behaviors across different places.

I find myself very conscious of these differential spaces when I am out with my children. When we step outside our home I am aware that people are watching. The expectations I assume they have lead me to subtly alter what I let the children do. While Polly and Pip don’t fully comprehend the reasons for this, they certainly are aware that some difference exists. They know that outside our home they cannot do exactly the same things that they do in our living room.

During our family’s recent trip to Florida, this dynamic became the key element in creating one of those incredible, unscripted moments that make having children so much fun.

*****

Last fall, I checked out a CD of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf from our public library and brought it home for Pip and Polly. In looking for things to do as the days were getting colder and shorter, I thought this might capture their attention. The music, as I remembered it, was lively and interesting without being too complicated, and, as a bonus, it provided a brief introduction to the instruments of the orchestra. I hoped that on a morning when we could not get outside, we might be able to sit down and pass a good half-an-hour listening to it.

As it turned out, Pip loved it. The first time I popped the CD in the stereo he sat still and listened to the entire thing. Then, immediately after it finished, he asked to listen to it again. The next day I showed him pictures of the instruments as we listened and he quickly became able to identify both the instrument being played and the character that instrument represented (a flute for the bird, violins for Peter, french horns for the wolf, a clarinet for the cat, an oboe for the duck, a bassoon for grandfather, etc). Soon Polly began to pick up on these associations as well. Over the next several months Ava and I checked out the CD a few more times and with each iteration Polly and Pip added something new to the way they interacted with the music. First, they pretended to play the various instruments, turning appropriately shaped toys into a flute, a clarinet, a bassoon, a french horn, and a violin. Next, they took to rearranging the furniture in our living room to create the setting of the story. They put Peter’s meadow with its pond and tree in the middle of the room, built a stone wall out of the couch, designated the dining room as the forest, and placed the garden gate by the front door. When all this was set, they then proceeded to act out the characters’ various movements – Peter dancing through the meadow, the duck swimming in the pond, the wolf circling the tree where the bird and the cat had taken refuge, Peter lassoing the wolf’s tail from the tree.

Most recently, Polly and Pip have begun to sing the different character themes even when the music is not playing. They do this mostly when they are bored or want to add some noise to a quiet moment. Pip has a good handle on the basic rhythms and tone changes involved in the themes for Peter, the wolf, and grandfather. He also knows snippets from the action scenes like when Peter and the bird work together to lasso the wolf. Polly knows the wolf fairly well and can follow Pip’s lead on the other bits.

Pip’s favorite segment is what he calls the “Triumphant Peter.” In this segment, Peter’s theme is played loudly and happily by the entire orchestra as Peter and the rest of the characters escort the captured wolf to the village zoo. Pip likes to belt this out at the top of his lungs while marching and waving his arms in the air. After watching him do this a couple of times, Polly now joins in with him whenever Pip gets the Triumphant Peter going.

*****

During the first full day of a week-long Florida vacation, while we were all both exhausted from the long drive and excited by the sunshine and warm temperatures, we went out to lunch with Ava’s parents. They took us to a foodie version of the Old Country Buffet called Sweet Tomatoes which combined a twenty-yard long salad bar, a foccacia pizza station, a variety of freshly made soups, and an ice cream bar with cafeteria-style trays and service. It was housed in a space that was reminiscent of what loft apartments used to look like – concrete floors, walls of painted cinderblocks, an open ceiling where steel girders were snaked with electrical conduit and HVAC ductwork. It was the kind of room that echoes, and the full lunchtime crowd created a constant, though not unpleasant, din.

After filling our plates for the first time, we found a table in one corner of the sitting area. Then Ava and I took turns eating and shuttling small plates of food to the kids while Grandma and Grandpa entertained themselves by watching Pip alternately nibble on raisins and engulf slices of cheesy foccacia bread and Polly hammer a plate of macaroni and cheese. We all found it particularly funny when Polly finally eschewed utensils altogether and started grabbing little fistfuls of noodles and cramming them into her mouth.

Once he got some food in him, Pip’s attention drifted towards his grandparents, and he began telling them about all the things he had done that morning. I don’t know the exact sequence of the conversation, but at some point he started singing some bits from Peter and the Wolf for them. This singing was relatively quiet at first as Pip gave them quick renditions of the themes for Peter and grandfather. Polly then followed with her version of the wolf theme. The bemused smiles on their grandparents’ faces encouraged them to continue, and Pip launched into a three-quarter volume version of Triumphant Peter.

As he got going, his eyes turned to watch my reaction. When I didn’t move to stop him, he started ramping up the volume and raising his arms above his head. Polly followed right along with him and by the time they made their second pass through the Triumphant Peter theme, they were singing so loud that Ava could easily hear them from her spot in the buffet line and the people to our left were openly gawking at us with a mixture of amusement and incredulity.

I’m not sure why I didn’t stop them. Normally this kind of spectacle is something I work to avoid because it makes me look like I don’t know how to control my kids. That potential for being judged harshly by others is a perpetual quality of public space, and as a full-time father, I feel it acutely even in moments when that role is not obvious to others. This awareness has me constantly trying to rein in my kids’ public displays of silliness with the hope that they will be perceived as the most polite, most intelligent children ever to walk the earth.

This time, though, Pip and Polly caught me off guard. Maybe it was the idea of being on vacation or perhaps I had subconsciously handed them off to their grandparents for a few minutes. Whatever it was, by the time I fully realized where they were headed it was too late to reel them in. They were going full-bore and their singing was so vibrant, so free, so purely happy that the only thing to do was to let that corner of Sweet Tomatoes become our living room for a little while.

*****

When they were done, there was no clapping or cheering. Everyone around us just chuckled a little and turned back to their food. The background noise of the restaurant, which Pip and Polly had muted with their singing, quickly returned in a clamor of overlapping conversations, utensils clinking against plates, and serving trays sliding along the buffet lines. Nevertheless, Polly and Pip were thrilled by their moment of ecstatic transgression. They knew they had done something out of the ordinary, and they were excited by the attention it had brought them. The satisfaction of commanding that corner of the restaurant for a few minutes shone in their eyes.

There were plenty of memorable moments during our Florida vacation. We saw fireworks. We played in the sand. We rode in boats. We watched birds. But all of these activities were things that we planned to do, and because of that I imagine most of them will fade into photo-memories relatively quickly.

However, that moment in Sweet Tomatoes with its unscripted, exuberant, and slightly discomfiting quality will remain with me far longer. For a short while, the kids turned my world upside down. They took control while the adults stood by and watched. They brought some of our home’s idiosyncrasies into a public place. They basked in the attention that came their way. And, in the process, they conjured up one of those rare moments of pure freedom when the divisions of space, time, and social expectations vanish into thin air.

It makes me think I should let them loose a bit more often.

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Interested in stories about our family or just some thoughts about being a parent in this day and age?

Take a look at my blog at http://www.postindustrialparenthood.blogspot.com/.

There's a new post every Thursday.

Doing the Wrong Thing is Better Than Doing Nothing -- Rad Dad 19

Note: we will have a Rad Dad Release Party on March 26th at 7pm at Actual Cafe in Oakland. Please come say hello and pick up some copies of Rad Dad (and other zines - there will be a zine table), listen to two bands with papas in them (Team Nisto and Nomi), and hear a few radical parents read!




Parenting has taught me a lot about dealing with things I’d rather not deal with. I’ve been forced to breathe deeply and make the call to the doctor at three in the morning: um, my daughter won’t stop crying, and when the doctor asks why she’s crying, I’ve had to confess, well I kinda dropped her on her head today.

That never feels good to admit to.

Or I’ve had to clench my mouth shut tightly and just let my daughter have her feelings, be disappointed, resist the urge to placate her, to try to “make” her feel better by saying something inane like, well your little ten year old friend who won’t share with you is a jerk.

Definitely, not good parental role modeling.

I’ve also learned to deal with larger, seemingly inhuman bureaucratic systems such as the institutionalized schooling with all its rules and policies that seem to believe learning only takes place in a classroom. No, I don’t think it’s fair that my seventh grader gets an F in classes because I took her on a trip to see a sick relative. I’ve learned to face a police and justice system that views children and particularly teenaged men as criminals first and foremost.

Parenting, however, has also demonstrated that there are the choices we need to make between letting some things slide while focusing on others.

My daughter, arriving home ten minutes later than she said she would, might be ok now and then. I can raise an eyebrow and shrug off her, what, the bus was late, exasperated remark when I ask why she’s not on time. Because when she’s out at night and forgets to call when I explicitly explained that I expected her to, that ain’t something you can let slide. It’s something you have to address, and it’s difficult to hold her to the agreed upon consequences. It’s painful to hear her anger, her frustration, to be the target of her unmitigated teenage rage. And that shit’s scary.

So parenting has taught me how to stand firm face difficult situations and also that some things are negotiable, that there’s a balance between holding your child or your community accountable and creating transparency in your agreements. However, this is not an essay about my children.

Let me stop stalling.

A friend of mine was arrested for domestic violence. There’s a story there. There are reasons for his anger and even empathy around the whole situation: towards him, towards his partner. The whole affair is sad. In the end, perhaps it will all be for the best for both of them and their kids.

But there is no excuse for violence in a relationship.

None.

Ever.

The crisis is over. She’s moved out of their home. They have a routine set up. Things are almost back to normal. People in my circle of friends are even joking about it.

And that is what bothers me, what makes me uncomfortable.

I started to ask around: what is my role in all this now? How do I address this with my daughters and son? How to be a true friend?

I don’t want to be the one to constantly bring it up every time I see him, but I also don’t want a ‘business as usual’ type friendship, a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ relationship because that is so much easier: pretend it never happened.

I remember when the Chris Brown and Rhianna incident occurred. I immediately talked to my kids about it, especially my youngest daughter who was very into both of them. I asked how they felt about hearing the news. I didn’t want to let this opportunity slip: a chance to address the unacceptability of domestic violence, to establish a clear ‘zero-tolerance’ policy.

Some things can slide; physical and emotional abuse can’t.

But what to do with my friend? Why did this feel so much more difficult?

Soon after all this happened, I spoke with another friend of mine, a woman, a person who had been in an abusive relationship in the past, and she gave me some advice I hold dearly now. She said when she was going through it, that she wished people would have done something, anything. She looked at me and stated: sometimes doing the wrong thing is better than doing nothing.

I understood immediately that that was why I was so uncomfortable. I could see how easy doing nothing could have been. Denial is powerful. But as parenting has taught me some things can’t slide and so sometimes you just gotta grin and bear it. You have to face it.

I knew I needed to talk to him before he moved off the block, so one night when he came over to borrow something, I did.

We stood out on my stoop, and we talked. First I expressed my anger and disappointment. I told him I knew it would be work, but that I wanted to be the kind of friend who is wiling to both stand up for someone and to hold them accountable. I expressed my concerns about how he was taking responsibility for his actions.
I did however acknowledge that I had no answers, only questions. But I told him I’m willing to struggle to find those answers with him, together.

We hugged, and he left.

A few days later, I raised the subject again with my daughters and my twenty-year-old son who was visiting. He heard all about it from his mom and his sisters. Everyone was arguing over it. Gossiping about it. In fact, my youngest daughter and I saw the cop cars in front of their house when it happened and I said to her almost in jest, I hope that’s not what I think it is. I cringe thinking about how uncritical a statement that is in regards to domestic abuse.

So we were all sitting around the table, my two daughters and my son eating dinner. I confessed, I am angry that I don’t know what to do or say. I feel like a hypocrite ridiculing Chris Brown, and yet when it happens on my street I’m at a loss as to what I should do. Just because I’m a friend with someone doesn’t mean they’re not accountable, you know.

My youngest daughter shook her head and said finally, you know it’s not your fault dad, as if I was acting foolish.

Getting chastised by your kids is another thing you learn how to deal with from parenting.

I know, I said, I just don’t want to sweep this under the rug.

It was then that I realized I was looking at my son was sitting across from me. He was looking at me.

I realized I haven’t had a conversation like this with him ever. As a man. As a person who might disagree with me, who might not see it the way I do. I was terrified.

My son breathed in deeply.

I know dad, he said I know, and he looked me in the eye, that shit is totally fucked up.

Not the most eloquent response, but it was clear that he meant it.

It was one of the most reassuring moments in my life. It’s strange to love this young person so much, and for years feeling like I could control or at least strongly influence his actions. Now he stands taller than me, muscular, lean, a man, and I have no control over anything anymore in his life (well, except for kicking in money for his rent), and yet I still have such expectations of him. And he may let me down in the future, may make mistakes in relationships. But one thing I think he knows is that domestic abuse is a line you don’t cross.

Hearing him say that with such conviction, without equivocation in front of his sisters was a profound moment for me.

As the weeks pass, I still bring it up with my daughters now and then. In fact, now, my middle child has a boyfriend. I see how quickly I will have little control in her life as well. It’s hard to let go. But I’m gonna do it. With love and with encouragement and with trust.

They taught me that.

I will not let things slide anymore and this is a lesson I dedicate to all those who are victims of violence: from the batons or gun barrels of the police, because of the words and intimidation of bullies, or even at the hands of their own family.

I promise you I will never look the other way.

I promise you I will do something whether it’s the right thing or not at the time.

I promise. I will.

Cold Weather Parenting; or, For the Love of Snow

People don't complain about the fact that they will eventually die. The same is not true of taxes or the weather. Though immortality remains a dream, the earthly draw of the next best thing -- a sunny locale, tax-free and with yearly lows around 65°F -- remains powerful for those who feel that more spiritual satisfactions are unattainable. Thus the popularity of such strange places as Arizona and Florida -- a desert and a barren swamp -- not just for retirees, but for those who seek to trade the certainty of death for the hope of a painless earthly transit; to trade a snow shovel and jumper cables for the tax-deferred serotonin boost of high-volume sunshine. The post-orgasmic lull of uniform, indistinct seasons stands as a questionable rebuttal to the wisdom of Job, or a defensive denial of what Melville knew as the cosmic significance of anything powerful, vast, and white -- like a really big whale, or a howling blizzard.

We do not trade in sunshine futures, Junior and I. We attend to the fundamentals of making a life, the way factories used to make things, where it makes most sense to do so. We take what comes with, and let it infuse us with the energy and beauty and dynamism of all the changes that accompany a planet's traverse around the sun.

We are adventurers of the polar season that visits our city once a year. This is our story.

********

My son was born on a particularly cold and clear day in January. One of the first instructions I was given as a father came from a nurse of the maternity ward, concerned that my child might freeze to death because I had chosen to sit close to a window while holding Junior against my chest. "Of course a man would sit next to a window with a newborn baby!" she said, only half jokingly.

Since then, I have learned that the kinds of drafts one does indeed encounter near windows in winter are the subject of a global folk mythology that, at the extreme, equates cool breaths of air with demons and malevolent agents of the Evil Eye. A cool breeze to the neck can trigger mononucleosis; chilly droughts on the chest, bronchitis; an improperly swaddled infant, vitamin B-12 deficiency and improper brain formation.

But the nurse in the maternity ward had a point. Ferociously cold January weather with below-zero wind chills is an inhospitable environment from which a newborn must be sheltered. My goal as a new father, moving about snow-bound and often glacially cold neighborhoods, was to provide a cocoon of warmth and protection, an environment so stable and secure that only the changing shade of light inside Junior's stroller, or the muffled sound of Daddy's profanations from deep within the hood of his snorkel jacket, might indicate that we had passed into and out of a rampaging storm of sleet.

Junior's Cocoon and Gear

(Begin Excursus)

I should state here that the only excuse for "being cold" is "being stupid." Survival, and even enjoyment and triumph in winter weather is fundamentally a question not of the weather itself, but of the gear used to render the weather irrelevant. In the early 21st century, even the cheapest winter clothing is very warm, and at the higher end, quite stylish. Providing the cocoon necessary to keep baby warm is a technique of winter parenting that extends to the parent as well. Yet, while Junior is toasty and warm and romping on the snowdrift above the buried and abandoned Yellow Cab, yon 20-something office drone goes hat-less for fear of matting his gelled hair -- though he may be wearing one of these, the bikini of men's winter head ware:

Male Ear Bikini

As I say, said office drone may be clenching his red and bared fists as he leans into the wind making its way from the Arctic Circle and down the middle of LaSalle Street. In his free time, this same fellow and his friends can be seen hailing the same Yellow Cabs on Clark Street, wearing little more than imported Polish Fonzi jackets and blue jeans that have the property of transforming from soft denim to chafing sheet metal at around 32 degrees. These hardy fools -- and I know, because I was one -- lack the most basic wisdom of any cartoon character from South Park: that you must insulate every inch of your body in appropriate gear, and get used to spending most of your time that way.

(End Excursus)

As much as I enjoy the seasons, I will not deny the grueling exertion demanded by the wet, sloppy snowstorms of late February and early March. The snow dropped in these gales, unlike the powder that falls at colder temperatures, blows horizontally into your car and soaks everything it touches. Pushing a stroller through the pools of slushy ice (the scientific term: "frazil ice") that fill all the inconspicuous depressions in streets and sidewalks, sometimes even entire intersections, across which the cocoon must be not pushed but lifted, can be exhausting and wet enough to compromise the most weatherproof boots. Junior, in his cocoon, is oblivious to these dramas, and once home the parent wisely chooses to remain there. Junior is still napping heartily at this early stage, meaning that, as he snores through the winter blast, it is possible to read much great literature.

As Junior enters the toddler stage and becomes correspondingly more mobile, I begin to entertain hopes, as all upper Midwestern fathers do, that he might come to enjoy what winter has to offer. The prospect presents twin advantages: of being able to share the animal and aesthetic pleasures of bracing air under brilliant skies, snowball fights, the transcendent beauty of snow-covered landscapes, and the mysterious silence of a snow storm in process, as well as being able to kill bad cases of cabin fever by simply getting out of the house.

It is an understandably slow and awkward process, so shortly out of the womb, his Edenic nakedness so recently covered, for Junior to encumber himelf with boots, a hat, mittens clipped to a huge poofy jacket or even bulkier snowsuit, all over at least two and probably three layers of clothing and sometimes topped off with ski goggles. Each item is resisted. And so we negotiate, as Junior's second and third winter seasons wear on, each of these items, occasionally assisted by Junior's own animal intelligence alerting him that HEY! it really is better to wear your gloves when your fingers get cold!

But alas, even at the height of winter #3, it is all still too foreign, too messy. Our first sled ride, more dad's idea than Junior's, ends with a debacle: a child spilled on the curb, snow going up the nose, and tears coming from the eyes. "I don't like snow" is the motto of this period, and Dad resigns himself to a routine of indoor activities along with all the other parents: soccer class, various bookstores, caffeinated museum trips, play-dates, and the local super-heated tot-lot in the company of all the nannies. The hearty naps continue as before, and still more great literature is read.

Junior and Fellow Snow Enthusiast

It is in the current, fourth winter that the breakthrough occurs, and Junior, to the great joy of his father, discovers his own joy of snow. In December and January, he begins to kick at the snow with his boots, to make patterns with his tracks. He watches with keener curiosity as the more adventurous child of our friend climbs a pile of snow thrown off the street by city plows and citizen shovelers, layered with last fall's matted leaves and gravel and laced with streaks of blue Slurpy-colored snow melt, and sticks his head into the snow to better dig at it with his tongue. Not long after that, he tells Daddy, "I want you to teach me how to ski," and Daddy, with a borrowed pair of Junior-sized Nordic skis, complies.

I began by completely shielding Junior from winter; now it is his playground. I feel fortunate that I have the energy to lift him to the top of the six foot snowdrift that has buried the Yellow Cab, to shove his sled over the edge; a passing woman, looking for her own car buried in a drift still further on, tells me it is Junior who is fortunate to have a father who will go play in the snow with him. She flatters me. It is no work at all. We all know that what you once loved as a child, you can never fully turn away from.

[A version of this post is also available on the Outdoor Baby Network.]

How to Talk to Your Kids about Star Wars

Revolutionary questions

About two weeks ago, Pip dug out from the far end of our bookshelf two children’s biographies that had belonged to me as a kid and had somehow managed to survive all my subsequent moves and book purges. One recounted the life of Thomas Jefferson. The other was about Benjamin Franklin. Re-reading these books for the first time in about two decades, while popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were toppling dictatorial governments in the background, made me very aware of the almost magical ease with which the transition from revolution to stable democratic governance occurs in America’s founding mythology. This awareness made me question whether this mythology will ultimately do my children a disservice. Will it lead them to expect at an intuitive level that any dramatic break from established patterns will resolve itself neatly and in a way that is universally good? And, as such, will this expectation lead them towards a naive embrace of revolutionary change at the expense of careful and programmatic efforts (such as happened with the Bush-Rumsfeld strategy for creating a democratic Iraq)? My own experience makes me think that this is not a totally ridiculous question.

*****

First let me explain why I use the term ‘mythology’ instead of ‘history.’ Usually the term ‘mythology’ is used to describe the stories of gods and heroes told in times or places where the explanations of science do not predominate. What is sometimes lost in the retelling of the tales of Hercules or Prometheus or Beowulf is how these stories functioned in their time to explain how the world came to be what it is and why certain practices or institutions or values were important. Myths are mechanisms for transmitting cultural knowledge across generations. The ‘truth’ of a myth lies not in the factuality of the characters and places and dates it contains but in the themes and relations that play out within it.

When mythology is understood in this way, the only difference between it and history is the historian’s claim that the events described “really happened.” At her core the historian is a story-teller. She takes details gleaned from various sources and spins a narrative thread of power, destiny, hubris or luck that pulls those details together and makes them comprehensible. It is this thread that is the critical element of the knowledge or meaning we seek to gain from history. While I am not suggesting that the facts are irrelevant, a focus on the factuality of a historian’s account can often distract our attention from the work that the account’s narrative thread performs. Mythology brings no such distraction.

The power of this narrative thread is even more significant when it comes to presenting history to children. We talk to kids about basic facts and important people in order to give them a foundational understanding of a historical event. Not only do these necessary simplifications demand a strong narrative to make them understandable (and interesting), they also blur facts that may complicate or confuse that narrative. As a result of this blurring, historical figures in children’s books are usually not real people. Instead they represent clearly defined values or ideas that support the direction of the narrative. In many respects, this makes stories told about, for example, the Founding Fathers very close in form to ones told about the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus.

*****
I spent some time as a child idolizing America’s Founding Fathers. This was in part because I have a genealogical relationship with one and in part because I lived in southern Virginia where, if you want to, you can feel a strong residue of the American Revolution and the early years of the United States all over the place. I certainly did. I learned early on that the state motto, “Sic Semper Tyrannis” or “thus always to tyrants,” was adopted as a direct challenge to King George III and the British Parliament. I was very proud that Virginians wrote the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson), commanded the Continental Army (George Washington), and crafted the Bill of Rights (James Madison). I enjoyed visiting places like Monticello (the home of Thomas Jefferson), Mt. Vernon (the home of George Washington), Red Hill (the home of Patrick Henry), Colonial Williamsburg, and Yorktown because they gave me the sense that the place where I lived was critically important to the very beginnings of my country’s existence.

All this exposure to America’s founding mythology made me particularly open to consuming any story that included the possibility of a democratic revolution. I have eagerly watched the fall of the Berlin Wall, the events of Tiananmen Square, Yeltsin’s rise in Russia, protests in Iran, independence in East Timor, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the democracy protests in Georgia and Ukraine, and the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt with an almost naïve sense that history is being made in the most positive of ways. While I know my history well enough to understand that the reality of these situations is complex and difficult, the mythological narrative of the American Revolution that I learned as a child still inclines me to believe in the idea that these events will ultimately enable people to gain their “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

*****

The power of this mythology is also such that the critical documents of America’s founding – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights – sit in my mind in much the same way as they do in the National Archives: side by side. These are some of the narrative high points of America’s founding myth and their cohesion within this myth make it difficult to remember that the Declaration and the Constitution were separated by 11 years and the Bill of Rights was added another four years after that. I often forget that the Constitution was at least a second try at forming a functional government and, even after its ratification, was by no means a guaranteed success. These complications don’t fit into the narrative thread that I originally learned.

But what if they did? What would it mean if the National Archives displayed the Articles of Confederation in between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? What would it mean if we added a person like Daniel Shays – the Revolutionary War veteran and debt-ridden farmer from Massachusetts whose rebellion laid bare the impotence of the national government under the Articles of Confederation – to the pantheon of the Founding Fathers? What would it mean if those books Pip pulled from the shelf mentioned the uncertainty, turmoil, and failure of the United States in the first years after the revolution? Would he react differently than I do to stories of revolution? Would he sense a little less magical destiny and a little more struggle and trial in the core of his American identity?

I don’t know, but I want to give something like this a try. The practices that this kind of struggle demands – experimentation, negotiation, perseverance – represent qualities I want my children to embrace in both their politics and their personal lives. It will serve them much better than the aura of predestined greatness that pervades the current version of America’s founding mythology.

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Interested in stories about our family or just some thoughts about being a parent in this day and age?

Take a look at my blog at http://www.postindustrialparenthood.blogspot.com/

There's a new post every Thursday.

Daddyfreak: A Q&A with Steve Almond

Courtesy Steve Almond

Steve Almond wrote one of my top 10 books of the twenty-first century, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America. More recently, he published another book that I like quite a lot, the memoir Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. But I truly became a Steve Almond fan when he started writing columns about how fatherhood had changed his perspective on politics. In this piece for Salon.com, for example, he explains why he “totally loves tax day.” Here’s reason number two, “Children, It Turns Out, Are Extremely Fragile”:

This hadn't occurred to me until I had two of my own. I now spend a lot of time worrying about stuff that I never used to worry about. Such as: the quality of my drinking water and food and local public schools and parks and playgrounds and roads. And thus the notion that my taxes actually pay for things required by my fragile children has managed to burrow its way through my thick American skull. Paying a small portion of my income for these collective benefits is not only a basic civic duty, in other words, but it is in my interest.

Since I’m also a dad and since I also totally love taxes, it seemed obvious to me that I should meet this person Steve Almond. That actually hasn’t yet happened, but this past December I did interview him over email. Here are the results, exclusively for you Daddy Dialectic readers:

JAS: Do you have in your mind any image of an ideal father? Are there any dads in real life or popular culture or literature that you see as being someone for you to emulate?

SA: Most parents have some hallowed vision of the perfect parent—who loves unconditionally but also sets limits, who overcomes his bullshit for the sake of the kids. But these visions are mostly self-punishment. My own sense is that nobody knows what the hell they're doing, especially today, with so many roles having shifted. I know for a fact that I screw up every day, mostly out of my own emotional neediness. I try to please the kids too much. I lose my cool. I send mixed messages. And so on. The problem with parenting in the precincts of plenty is that fathers (and even more so mothers) hold themselves up to this impossible ideal.

As for the pastures of literature, it doesn't contain a lot of ideal dads. Nor does popular culture. The reality is that being a parent is an incredibly private, day-to-day business. It's a million little moments and decisions, not some calibrated Hollywood plot. The person I admire the most, and try to emulate, is my wife.

JAS: What does she do that you try to emulate?

SA: She's just a lot more patient and thoughtful, better able to control her frustration, more organized. Etc. There are exceptions, but generally speaking most dads would do really well to emulate moms. Not saying moms are perfect -- nor should they be held to some higher standard. I just think they're better equipped emotionally to deal with kids, who are basically lovable but also irrational creatures.

JAS: What pisses you off about fatherhood, if anything? I don't mean what pisses you off about being a father--I mean about the idea of fatherhood. Or to put it a different way, do you ever feel like the kind of father you're trying to be is at odds with what kind of father the rest of society wants you to be?

SA: Again, the main thing that pisses me off is my own weaknesses and failings. I'm not inclined to blame "society" for that. About the only large-scale thing that society wants people to be—at least in America— is consumers. But that applies to everyone.

JAS: Sure. So how do you raise your kids to not be little consumers without turning them into total freaks in the eyes of their peers?

SA: Yeah, my kids are small enough that peer pressure—at least to buy stuff—isn't a factor yet. So I'm not speaking as some kind of authority. But one pretty common sense thing would be to throw your TV out the window. It's not doing anyone any favors spiritually. We have computers and let the kids watch videos, but no commercials. We try to limit the over-stimulation in general. Honestly, I'm not sure what sort of kid would consider another kid "a total freak" because they don't own enough junk. That sounds kind of crazy.

JAS: Hmmm. I think you're underestimating the crazy that's coming your way; I'm especially conscious of this right now because of Christmas. Now that my son's in elementary school, I see kids routinely tease or even ostracize each other based on the stuff they don't own. "What? You don't have a wii? What a dork!" There’s shame in not owning the latest crap. And actually, I think the refusal (or inability) to consume is perceived as very challenging in both the adult and kid worlds. Lots of people think my wife and I are slightly freakish for not owning a car or a TV; they seem to see it as some sort of failure—maybe I’m being paranoid and insecure, I often think some see it specifically as my failure as the father, since the father is supposed to be the breadwinner and thus the provider of junk. Our natural response has been to surround ourselves with people who also don't own cars and TVs and other crap, though of course then you start to live in a bubble. This to me is a classic parenting dilemma, for people across the political and cultural spectrum: how do you raise a child so that they can resist the negative aspects of the culture while still being equipped to thrive in that culture?

SA: Yeah, sounds like you're facing the same dilemma we are. And you're deeper into the disconnect. I can see why you feel you're living in a bubble, but to me the slavish devotion to material crapola is the ultimate bubble. It keeps people insulated from what really matters. I'm pretty sure I'm not saying anything Christ didn't say in his Sermon on the Mount. My argument would be that, as a parent, if you're troubled by the values of the dominant culture, you should seek to change that culture, in whatever humble ways you can, and to urge your children to do the same thing. I hear you on being a breadwinner. But part of my larger point is that fathers are also moral actors, both in the small but crucial world of the family, and in the larger world.

JAS: I haven’t made a systematic study of it or anything, but my perception is that your writing has taken a more political turn in recent years. Is that a wrong impression? If it's true, was the political turn influenced at all by becoming a dad?

SA: Absolutely. Look, I've got skin in the game now. Back when I was single, it just didn't matter to me as much that we had a bunch greedy, deluded maniacs holding this country's moral progress hostage. Now it does. They're fucking with my kids' future. A lot of parents—particularly prosperous, over-determined, parents like myself—get sucked inward by parenting. It's a trap, because our apathy and moral disengagement is going to cost our kids in the long run.

JAS: Ok, so, how do you escape from that trap?

SA: Again, I'm not an expert, just a concerned loudmouth. My kids are quite young. But I'm guessing, based on my limited experience, that the biggest thing is the example you set. I'm not saying we read our kids the Marx/Engel Reader at night, and ask that they recycle their poop, but we do try to send them the message that we're pretty lucky to have all the great stuff we have, that we shouldn't take it for granted, and that one of their big jobs is to learn to share. It will get more complicated as their awareness of the world grows. The idea is not to hide them from reality, or vice versa. But that's really a process, and an inconvenient one. Most parents are so exhausted by parenting that they tend to turn away from social responsibility, and toward convenience. That's just what Madison Avenue wants. Get the juice box. Get the SUV. Get the mollifying toy. I'm not suggesting that we do things perfectly. We don't. But we're trying in the ways we can.

JAS: In an op-ed you wrote for the Boston Globe back in 2009, you argue that all good parents are "de facto socialists," because they are constantly trying teach kids to share their stuff. What kind of response did you get to that column?

SA: Just what you'd expect. A few people saying, "Hey, yeah, that sounds reasonable." And a ton of folks saying, "Kill that commie!" That's American discourse at the moment.

JAS: At the end of the piece you ask—but don't really answer—"Why are Americans afraid to express their morality in the political arena in the same way they do as parents?" Why indeed? Where does that disconnect occur?

SA: In large part because our entire culture (and economy) is predicated on keeping all citizens in a state of insecurity and overstimulation and exhaustion. Also because the political system is fueled by special interest money, folks who are paid, in essence, to make sure a genuine morality doesn't intrude on the business of the government. We saw a brilliant example in the extension of the Bush tax cuts. That was about greed, pure and simple, and virtually nobody would say that. The Fourth Estate, which also runs on a for-profit model, is in the business of making money, not serving as the peoples' representative in Washington. I think most Americans see "politics" as some kind of absurd sport played on cable TV. It's become unmoored from issues of morality. And, like I say, most parents simply want to get through the day however they can. Amid the inconvenience of children, they don't want the further inconvenience of having to consider themselves moral actors.

JAS: You write a lot about your (sometimes raunchy) life, and you’ve blogged for Babble about your first child’s life as a baby. Has the relationship between your life and your writing changed because of fatherhood—for example, do you feel yourself to be reluctant to write down certain experiences? As your kids get older, how are their lives going to fit into your writing, if at all?

SA: The more pressing question for me is how my writing is going to fit into their lives. And I don't entirely know the answer. Obviously, I've written a good deal about my life. But there is a realm of privacy, both for me and for my wife and kids, and that's something I take seriously. It's part of the reason I stopped blogging for Babble. And I'm sure I'll hold back on writing more and more stuff as they and their friends become readers. Nobody wants to go through adolescence with their dad taking notes and writing "humorous" columns about them. That being said, my wife and I hope we're raising the sort of kids who recognize the value of storytelling. (We had considered not teaching the children to read, but they seem to be picking it up pretty quickly.) My hunch is that they'll want nothing to do with our work. But we certainly can't hide what we do. Honesty is always the best policy. Or at least, the inevitable one.

Parenting While Male: 74 Fathers Talk about Playground Discrimination

You’ve probably heard the phrase “driving while black,” which refers to a perception that black drivers are more likely to be stopped by cops. This was whispered in the African-American community for years before it broke out into the wider cultural conversation and was gradually validated by empirical studies.

Similarly, stay-at-home dads have whispered for years about feeling unfairly targeted for "parenting while male," and recently their concerns have started to get mainstream attention. In last week's Wall Street Journal, Free-Range Kids author Lenore Skenazy explored what happens when “when almost any man who has anything to do with a child can find himself suspected of being a creep.”

I spotted the column in a tweet from the redoubtable DadLabs. I replied: “I was once asked to leave a playground by a grandmother. I wonder how many guys have had that experience?” DadLabs tweeted back: “Most? Or faced playdate discrimination of one kind or another? #dadsnotpervs.”

This little twitter exchange echoes less-public discussion I’ve heard many times at gatherings of fathers: that they are often made to feel like outsiders at parks, playgrounds, and situations where most of the other parents are moms or grandmoms—and that their participation in playgroups or classes is sometimes rejected.

Atrocity stories circulate, but how widespread are actual "parenting while male" experiences, really? To start to get the answer, on Monday I created this survey, which as of this morning had been taken by 74 guys—60 percent of whom spend 31 or more hours a week taking care of a child. Here are the results so far:

• Three men—4.5% of the participants who answered this question—said that they had been asked to leave a playground by a caregiver.

• Twenty-four percent said that they had been refused entry to a gathering of parents and children.

• Fifty-five percent said that their parenting skills had been criticized or corrected in a public setting.

• Fifty-eight percent of participants felt that this criticism or exclusion occurred on the grounds that they are male.

• Twenty-eight percent of participants reported that they had experienced these incidents on five or more occasions.

At the end of the survey, I asked how experiences of criticism or exclusion shaped their attitudes and behavior. Many reported feeling hurt or resentful, but then getting over it and moving forward with their lives:

"At first I was a little indignant. As someone who was forced into being the primary caregiver role, my confidence was already shot from losing my job, and so to have other mothers correcting me or looking at me crossways was an extra gut-punch. At some point, though, I realized being a full-time father was my role and that's what my wife and kids needed more so than a paycheck. Once I reached this mindset, what other mothers thought of me didn't matter any more. I just did the best I could, and tried to be as charming as possible. In a way, it turned the tables because most of these mothers had insecurities of their own in their role, and to come across a dad who seemed to be handling full-time parenting just fine, I think made them feel threatened.”

“In our neighborhood, people occasionally offering my wife and I unsequestered (and unwanted) advise [sic] pertaining to parenting. It generally annoys or perplexes me, but I don't believe that it has changed my behavior or attitudes, except to wonder about cultural differences to parenting and advise giving.”

However, a majority reported permanent changes in their day-to-day behavior and feelings as caregivers:

“I am very reluctant to put myself out there to groups of moms with their kids. I often let my sons go and play with kids at the park and I will stand on the periphery as the other moms talk. I often feel excluded and thus am more reserved.”

“It certainly made me feel excluded, possibly looked-down-upon. The strange thing was that each time such criticism or behavior was couched in such a way that it excused itself. 'Of course, it's better for the children for a mother to do these things' was one comment I remember, delivered with a short, self-conscious, judgmental laugh. As though it were self-evident that I wasn't the best choice to take care of my daughters.”

“I currently tend to be more on guard, and intervene between my child and another child in a public setting. This is due to twice where an unknown parent in a public playground setting has confronted me as a parent on my child's play being unsafe or rough.”

“I avoided events/organized activities that were dominated by stay at home moms.”

“Makes me instantly defensive, so after the first incident or two, even if the comments weren't made because I was male, I probably assumed the worst and reacted as if they were.”

Some participants did not did not hear outright comments, but modified their behavior based on ambient fears about men on playgrounds:

“I was playing t-ball with my son and a couple of other toddlers on the playground and my own wife (who arrived after I'd been there for an hour or so) pointed out that I should be careful about touching the other kids when helping them hit the ball. That surprised me, as it hadn't previously occurred to me that anybody would think it was an issue. Now I am much more self-conscious about it and try to remember to ask parents' permission in similar situations. Which is annoying.”

“I don't think I've ever been excluded from a play situation as a dad. I have had odd experiences - the mist [sic] salient here us that I've had young children who were strangers to me approach me at the playground and climb into my lab. That made me distinctly uncomfortable - I actually went and found the mom and told her about it, both to give her a heads up as to what her kid was doing with men she didn't know and also to protect myself.”

It’s important to emphasize that a minority of respondents did not report any kind of overt discriminatory behavior:

“After 14 years of being a father, 11 of them as primary caregiver, I have never been asked to leave a setting nor been criticized. While I may have been ignored by the moms a few times, that is not the norm.”

“I have never felt excluded from a playground or other public setting, nor a playgroup. All group activities related to my childrens [sic] school and peer group have been supportive of involved fathers. I have received a couple of comments about parenting choices - one was probably not without reason (I was distracting my toddler with a bottle of eyedrops and got ‘It's medicine, not a toy.’) but I found the delivery and attitude to be rude. I have never felt that the comments were made with an ‘incompetent dad’ attitude, but were specific to the action that was being criticized.”

A few respondents felt that the discrimination had a basis in reality:

“No change - I understand that women may not feel comfortable with a 'random guy' at the playgroup. It sucks, but I wasn't doing anything wrong so I didn't feel like changing. Plus, it's a little hard changing being a guy.”

“Nobody wants unattached, creepy dudes hanging around playgrounds.”

For others, discrimination provoked them to try to build a community of fathers:

“I've never been explicitly excluded because I was a male. Criticism based on my gender only prompted me to write about being a SAHD and to make connections and build community with other like-minded parents.”

“I am very confident in the way that I parent, so I was not affected by nannies questioning my skills. Men are specifically excluded from the local mothers' group, so it wasn't personal. I did work with a friend to start a dads' group in our city.”

There was another type of response: some dads used the experience as a way to understand the experiences of others. As one guy put it, “It made me sympathetic for the bias that others feel from white men.” Nearly all of the respondents identified themselves as “white” (obviously a limitation of this survey; I plan to do something later that casts a wider net) and so I think it’s fair to say that in many cases these men were experiencing social discrimination for the first time in their lives.

I have many thoughts about the context and how to interpret these results, but first I'd like to have a discussion. Please share your reactions, thoughts, and experiences in the comments, and invite others to join the conversation through your own blogs and social media.

Have You Ever Been Kicked Out of a Playground?

In this week's Wall Street Journal, Free-Range Kids author Lenore Skenazy explores what happens when all men are treated like predators.

This got me to thinking: Exactly how many guys have had the experience of being excluded from gatherings of children and parents? To get the answer, I created this survey, which I hope you will take and pass on to other male caregivers. I'll report the results here on Daddy Dialectic.

Failing to access my inner Tiger Mother

By the time you read this, the outrage caused by Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal essay, entitled "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," will have mostly died down. A lot of people will read her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (#4 on Amazon's bestseller list at the time of this writing); but those who don't will remember her only as the crazy bitch who calls her straight-A, musically prodigious daughters "garbage," and violates a dozen articles of the Geneva Convention while overseeing their piano practice--all in the name of helping them achieve their potential.

And sadly, many who read the WSJ essay, or even just scan a few of the bazillion blog rants and Twitter freakouts it inspired, may have forever etched in their minds the stereotype of the hardcore Asian Mama who shuns affection always, and breathes the fire of shame when her kid gets an A-minus, despite Chua's subsequent backpedaling regarding her overstated claims and bombastic tone in the essay.

I'll probably never read the book (unless somebody wants me to review it, or gives me a copy when I'm caught up on all the other stuff I want to read or...who am I kidding?--I'll never read it), but I'll take her at her word that the voice of her essay represented her earlier, more confident attitude about her draconian parenting style, before her younger daughter's rebellion caused her to lighten up a bit. She also explains in the essay and elsewhere that she uses the phrase "Chinese Parent" as shorthand for the tough-as-nails mentality any number of immigrants adopt as they strive to prove their mettle in their new country.

By the time Chua has responded to her critics, it seems that her argument is less that oppressive, coercive, "Chinese"-style parenting produces exceptional adults, and more that high expectations and an unrelenting work ethic of the kind embraced by immigrant populations, when built on a foundation of love and understanding, may contribute to success for some children. But that kind of talk isn't going to sell many books, is it?

Even before hearing Chua qualify her claims and soften her tone, however, I wasn't outraged by her essay.

My wife, whose family immigrated from Vietnam when she was a toddler, grew up in a household that was in many ways similar to Chua's, the major exception being that my wife's family arrived empty-handed, with no idea of how to navigate the labyrinth that led to success in the U.S. Her father worked nonstop, and her mother didn't speak enough English or have enough education to help the kids with their schoolwork or music practice the way Chua's parents (and of course Chua herself) did. My wife went to kindergarten knowing only the English she had picked up from Sesame Street.

But her parents' demands were much the same as Chua's: excellence in school, success in every endeavor, and unquestioning obedience. And the prohibitions on sleepovers, playdates, inessential extracurricular activities, dating while in high school (and in my wife's case, in college* and med school as well) were in place too. The language of shame was also deployed with gusto whenever any minor transgressions occurred, and they peppered their admonitions with hyperbolic threats (e.g. "I'll beat you until you die") that, although my wife and her five younger siblings never really felt that they were in harm's way, certainly added emphasis.

While my wife wishes she had been allowed to do a lot of things her peers were when she was a kid (attend sex ed, for instance), she doesn't seem to resent her parents any more than the average person does. In fact, we often lament the abolition of shame as a guiding principle in our society as we gripe about my entitled students and her entitled teenage patients who snap their gum and shrug when she asks how they expect to support their babies.

Our kids, we say, will never be like that.

***

The three principle differences between "Chinese" and "Western" parenting, as laid out by Chua, seem as fair as such broad generalizations can be, despite some overstatement and anecdotes of borderline child abuse as illustrations. First, Chua claims, Western parents don't push their children hard enough because they worry about their self-esteem; whereas Chinese parents "assume strength rather than frailty," and parent accordingly. Second, Chinese parents operate from the assumption that "children owe the parents everything," while the opposite is the case for Western parents. Finally, according to Chua, whereas Western parents indulge their children and give them the freedom to make stupid decisions, Chinese parents "believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences."

My wife and I agree that Chua is largely correct in this assessment of cultural differences in a very general way, and that children and society in general may well benefit more from the "Chinese" way than the "Western" way. In theory.

But as tough as we talk about what's wrong with kids these days, and how most people could use a good dose of shame, I just can't see us as anything close to "Tiger Parents." It will take all the willpower we can muster, in fact, to be anything tougher than "Free To Be You And Me" parents. Like many Westerners, we're enchanted by our babies, and can't stomach the idea of withholding affection from them, even if it was in their best interest. Chua might say that this attitude is indulgent, not only of the children, but of the parents. That a parent who cares about the long-term happiness of their child would sacrifice the pleasure of a comfortable relationship during childhood in the interest of shaping a confident and productive adult. I hope we will be able to teach our kids responsibility, humility, and respect without having to resort to threats. But I think that empathy and compassion are equally important traits in successful adults, and I don't know of any other way to teach that except by example.



*Where we met and were Just Good Friends


Please come visit me at my personal blog, Beta Dad, where I post funnier stuff than this, as well as hella-cute pictures and videos, and sometimes epic DIY projects.

I also write for the group blogs DadCentric and Aiming Low.

Daughters and Sons; Sons and Daughters

Pip and Polly are the proud inheritors of Ava’s childhood collection of 1980s Cabbage Patch dolls, and last week they decided to take each doll in for a visit to the doctor. They do these visits periodically, designating one of the tables in our living room as an exam table and pulling out various utensils from the kitchen to serve as a stethoscope, an x-ray machine, etc. Pip usually takes the lead in this process, handing out roles to Polly and me and telling us what we should say at various points throughout the examination.

This time, Pip told me that I was to act as each doll’s parent and that I should bring them into the examination room and explain to them what will happen during their visit with the doctor. He then handed me the first doll – a girl with stringy blond hair who we’ve named Olivia – and led us into the living room. As I walked in and sat down on the couch with Olivia on my knee, I was thinking ahead to naptime and how I needed to get a lasagna made for dinner, put a load of laundry in the wash, clean up the dishes from breakfast and lunch, and do some writing for the week’s blog post during that time. After waiting in silence for a few seconds, Pip impatiently prompted me to start explaining to Olivia what he and Polly were going to do. Stuttering a bit to get my words out, I quickly said, “Um, Olivia, this is, um, Dr. Pip and Nurse Polly…”

Then I stopped, remembering as soon as the words had come out of my mouth that thirty-some years of enculturation create habits which are annoyingly hard to break.

Polly and Pip looked over at me in confusion. I took a breath, paused for a moment, and then made a correction: “I’m sorry Olivia, this is Dr. Pip and Dr. Polly.”

*****

Taking care of Polly has brought me into direct and immediate contact with the mysterious world of women. While I thought I was ready for this, it turns out that, much like in rock climbing, there is a distinct difference between visualizing a route and executing the climb. From the ground it can be relatively easy to pick out the series of points one wants to hit, but up on the cliff, getting through those points is never that simple. With each move upward, new details emerge and new options appear, creating questions that challenge and complicate the previously established choices.

With Polly many of the daily questions are sartorial in nature. Dressing Pip each morning is relatively simple: I pull out of his drawer some variation of the same button-up shirt and khakis that I wear most days, throw on some athletic socks and tennis shoes, and run a brush through his hair. Polly’s wardrobe choices require a whole other set of considerations: Is today a dress day or a pants day? Do I put bloomers on if she’s wearing tights? Which pair of shoes is supposed to go with this outfit? How do I get these hair clips and hair bands in without her screaming in pain?

The questions take a more serious turn as intimations of sexuality appear: How short a dress am I willing to put on her? How low a top? Do I really want decals or words on the seat of her pants? What if they’re just flowers? And why do some people insist on putting halter tops on two-year-olds? Do girls become sex objects the moment they can stand on their own two feet?

Even more seriously, Polly’s presence in my life has made me hyper-aware of how many historical inequalities of power between men and women are still present in our lives. For example,

- In 2007, women in the United States earned an income that was only 80% of that received by men.¹

- In 2008, only 35% of science and engineering positions in business or industry were held by women and only 15% of top-level managers were women.²

- Of the 535 seats in the 112th edition of the United States Congress, only 93 (17%) are held by women. ³

- 1 in 4 women will become a victim of intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. ⁴

Every day I think about these statistics and contemplate what they mean for Polly’s future. I wonder how I might prepare her to face these realities and what I might do to help her overcome some of the obstacles that create them.

My first instinct in this regard was to avoid making her excessively feminine. Driven by the idea that being “too girly” leads people to dismiss a woman or treat her as weak and incapable, I hypothesized that by keeping the pink to a minimum, avoiding the plague of Disney princesses and fairies, and cultivating interests in trucks, sports, construction equipment, LEGOs, electronics, and other ‘boy’ topics, I could somehow make Polly immune to all the statistics. I imagined that as she grew up people would recognize that she was different, that she was better than all the other girls, and consequently they would not subject her to the same indignities that all the rest wind up suffering.

This hypothesis, of course, is ridiculous. Trying to essentially raise Polly as a boy is not the answer. For one thing, intentionally creating significant discord between what Polly understands about herself and what things are socially and culturally expected of her as a woman is unfair to her. This discord would only make things more difficult for Polly as she navigates through the world outside our door. For another achieving equality among men and women cannot be accomplished through the creation of sameness. Such attempts only instigate further oppressions by limiting everyone’s life to the simplest and most linear of existences.

In the face of this false choice between Polly being too girly and not being girly enough, I have come to two conclusions. The first is that the best thing we can do right now for Polly is to create within our household small interventions in the dominant patterns of the world beyond. My hope is that through these interventions she will eventually become aware that the inequalities of power between women and men in our society are not natural and unalterable properties and that this awareness will allow her to negotiate the inequalities she encounters with some sense of ironic separation between herself and her cultural position as a woman. As such, I don’t want to, for example, regularize the doctor = male, nurse = female equation in Pip and Polly’s role playing. This equation reproduces a relationship in which the highly paid man holds final decision-making power and the lesser paid woman is responsible for following his directions. I’d rather have them enact the other possible combinations: Pip and Polly as doctors, Pip as nurse and Polly as doctor, Pip and Polly as nurses. She will see plenty of the first combination during her real visits to the doctor.

The other conclusion I have come to is that such interventions may not be as important for Polly as they are for Pip. As Ava has brought to my attention repeatedly, it’s easy to think that addressing the patterns of gender inequality means altering how women operate in the world. But the reality is that the practices and habits of men drive the reproduction of these patterns. As beneficiaries of these inequalities, men bear greater power and responsibility for acknowledging and changing these patterns than is often recognized. For me living up to this responsibility means creating our interventions with Pip in mind as much as Polly. If Pip grows up sensitive to the historical practices of exclusion and obstruction that determine the unequal nature of the opportunities with which he and Polly are respectively presented in life, then perhaps he can further contribute to the type of cumulative cultural adjustment necessary to eliminate from our world the specter of the false choice and all the associated injustices that still haunt women today.

*****

After my slip that morning, I spent the next hour or so making a point of talking to Dr. Pip and Dr. Polly as I brought each of the dolls out for their turn in the examining room. Much to my relief, Pip eventually began parroting this manner of address as well. In some respects it seems like such a little thing, but at the moment these little things are what we can do. One day Ava and I will be able to have those conversations with Polly and Pip where we will talk about history and statistics and the reproduction of inequalities. For now, though, we have to try and show them what could be possible and hope that through this showing they learn to imagine and work for what the world should be instead of accepting as good enough what the world has already been.

¹ See this report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
² See this report from the National Science Foundation.
³ For the current list of women in the US Congress, look here.
⁴ See the Department of Justice’s webpage for the National Institute of Justice

****************************************************************
Interested in stories about our family or just some thoughts about being a parent in this day and age?

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Adopting Mei Mei: or, Waiting for Junior's Little Sister

Our family is about to expand. We are expecting a daughter, sometime in the middle of 2011. We can't provide a due date, because she is already alive, and when she was born, we were unaware of the event. But already, multiple lines of fate are converging across continents and oceans, the result of decisions made by dozens of people, many of whom we don't know. As a result, our family of three, and one orphaned Chinese girl, are falling like small steel bearings through a vertical maze, channeled through the chutes and tunnels of international bureaucracies, until we will come to rest this summer, blinking in silence and side by side, in a single room somewhere in China.

Whether it speaks to the strength or poverty of my imagination that I can envision the event as if it has already happened, I can't say. A fictional version of the first encounter plays itself automatically, over and over, on some inner screen of my thoughts. There were no such trailers running before my wedding, or even Junior's first day in the world. But these coming events I see quite concretely: There is banter in Mandarin between my Chinese father in law and the orphanage attendant. Junior's aunt, who is a physician, holds the little girl's medical paperwork in her lap, and silently observes the conditions of the facility. Junior, who will by then be half-way between 4 and 5, is hiding behind mama's leg, because he is shy, because he is tired from trans-Pacific travel, and perhaps because he is overwhelmed to be surrounded by people who look more like mama than daddy, and who talk like Grandpa talks, but all the time.

A little girl is brought in, around two years old, abandoned somewhere in the province by parents we will never meet. Their lives are blank spaces that will be filled with every newspaper story we will ever read about the rural upheaval, economic struggle, and domestic drama of modern China. Junior will sense how quickly and completely the adults have turned their attention toward this little girl, and will emerge from behind mama's leg. After fifteen or twenty minutes, he will attempt to communicate, maybe tease or jest with a smile. He'll speak in English at first -- although he can speak Mandarin -- because he thinks of himself as "an English person." He will see that this very important person, his mei mei, makes no response. The curious second language that lies scattered inside his head as casually as the troupe of stuffed animals that live among his blankets, will suddenly become instrumental and self-conscious as the most important bridge to his sister. And he will display all the shades of generous openness and shy retreat that we have seen with his friends, the same demanding claims on mama's attention, and the same mimicry of daddy's own first gestures of welcome and care for this new family member.

This is the point at which the film begins to stutter, and I am momentarily blinded by the whiteness of a blank screen, as the movie reel flaps in a slowing tempo of completion in the projection room. Antique metaphors for an antique man, whose imagination is here outstripped, and left flapping on its own spool.

Who will this child be? With what disposition will she greet the world? What will be the genetic projection of all the untold accidents and couplings of her anonymous pedigree? What will develop between this child and her new mother, who longs for a daughter with an intensity that still partially bewilders me? And what is in store for this father, who has grown into fatherhood with the comfortable familiarity of a man who can find the time of his own lost boyhood by watching Junior discover his own? How will being the father of a girl change the way he thinks of himself as a dad, and as a man? The cast of characters is about to expand, the narrative is set to grow in dynamism and complexity, and my skills as the chronicler of it all will need to be significantly upgraded, from the level of a neighborhood gossip columnist, to that of a Jane Austen or a Russian novelist, or perhaps the two of them combined.

Homeschooling? For my kids?

Last month I concluded my post on why my kids don’t go to preschool by writing,

“I have five brief years to spend with Pip and Polly before I have to release them into the wilds of institutionalized education. That time is precious to me. I don’t want to waste it on preschool.”

Several of the commentators on this post subsequently pointed out that this idea of a fast approaching limit to my time with Pip and Polly overlooked an obvious possibility. By undertaking their formal education at home, i.e. homeschooling, I could push back that limit and gain more of the time with them that I consider so precious.

After reading these comments, I opened up the comment window to write a reply. “Yes, I know,” I started. Then as I further parsed my thoughts, I realized that I had more to say about this than was reasonable for a comment posting. I closed the comment window and started jotting down some notes instead. The process of articulating my reasons for assuming that I would send my kids off “into the wilds of institutionalized education” had created a cascade of thoughts that merited their own posting.

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There are at least three significant reasons why I have always assumed that my children will not be homeschooled. The first is that when Pip was born I viewed the moved to stay home with him as a hiatus. I was taking leave of my own individually defined life for a while in favor of a hybrid collectivity wherein the interests of my children would take full precedence over my own. This sublimation of myself had a definite endpoint: the entrance of out last child into kindergarten. Once all the kids were handed off to the formal education system, I figured I would get back to my life and reclaim something of an identity apart from my children.

The second reason I have always assumed my children would become denizens of institutionalized education is a financial one. When Pip was born, the decision for one of us to become a full-time parent had a financial component. The cost of quality childcare is very high. As neither Ava nor I were headed towards a huge salary in the near term, we concluded that any second line of income would, after taxes, essentially go directly from our pockets to the childcare provider. In our minds, this made the decision to stay home and avoid the cost of childcare a financially acceptable choice.

Once both kids reach kindergarten age, the financial logic changes. If the kids can go to school for free, then other long-term financial questions come to the fore. For example, how do we save enough money to send the kids to college and subsequently retire in the way that we want to? This seems almost impossible for us to do with only one income. Of equal concern is what happens if Ava loses her job or is no longer able to work for some reason? Accidents happen and we no longer live in an economic environment where one can take their job for granted. A second income stream gives us a buffer if some unexpected were ever to happen.

The third reason my kids’ going to school is seemingly a fait accompli is that this is the pattern of life that I know. I grew up in a small town in southern Virginia. My mother was a public school teacher and just about everyone I knew there went through elementary, middle, and high school together. Even the nearest private school was a half-hour drive away so I rarely had contact with anyone who did not attend public school, much less anyone who did not attend school at all. It is difficult for me to imagine that the upper middle class, white, Methodists and Presbyterians who constituted my family’s social community ever discussed or seriously considered homeschooling their children.

Plus, the school system, with its regular events, performances, and athletic competitions, was a central organizing force for much of the town. To homeschool one’s kids and essentially reject the school system was to reject the community itself. It didn’t matter how uneven the educational quality was, such radicalism was not a comfortable proposition.

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In many respects all three of these reasons are really symptoms of a general middle class ethos that continues to be a part of my cultural identity. I was not raised to become a full-time father. My role models, both male and female, were upwardly mobile people who went to work each day as businesspeople, teachers, lawyers, doctors, and engineers. They did much of their parenting outside of regular work hours and on the weekends. Even after the birth of Pip, I expected to eventually do the same.

I feel like this expectation was true for most of my peers as well. We came of age in an era where most kids from middle class families anticipated building their lives according to an established checklist: finish high school, finish college, get a job, start a family. The implications of this list, with ‘starting a career’ coming temporally before ‘starting a family,’ certainly were not clear to me when I started down that track, and I think – as evidenced by such things as the “opt out phenomenon” – many others have found it to be a less than perfect ideal as well. All the same, the dictates and assumptions embedded in this list about how one chooses to manage life and work and family are an engrained part of the default knowledge I hold about my world.

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In The Agony and The Ecstasy, his novelization of the life of the Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti, Irving Stone describes the work of a sculptor in terms that for me captures something essential about how these questions fit into my ongoing experience as a full-time father. Picturing Michelangelo in his workshop, Stone imagines him approaching a rough hewn block of marble with an idea, an image in his head of what he wants the block to become. Stone then describes him picking up his tools and carefully chipping away at the rock, exploring what it can do and discovering what it is incapable of. With each bit of stone that falls away into dust, Michelangelo must subtly adjust the image in his head to fit what he has learned. In the process, his work becomes a conversation, a series of questions and answers in which the block of marble is an equal, and sometimes the dominant, contributor.

The moment I become a full-time father, I shaved off a piece of the marble that is my life in such a way that the sculpture I am carving no longer cohered with the image that exists in my head. With that chip, some of the fundamental assumptions I held about who I was and who I was going to be became suddenly not quite true. This has left me somewhat in limbo, scraping away at the block and trying to get a handle on what is there, what is possible, exactly where the image I carry of myself meets the evolving trend of choices I make, and how those two entities can become conversant again. It is a frightening and exhilarating position in which to be.

The question of homeschooling brings this sense of limbo between artist and art, identity and practice, right to the fore. Given the sensibility that I laid out in my November post, it seems like I should engage wholeheartedly with the idea of homeschooling. I should test it out and see what it would mean for me and my family. But I’m not there and I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. It’s a direction and course of life that leads me radically away from what I ever envisioned my final sculpture would be. Before I can even get around to the technical questions of how or why, I have to address this issue of identity. Am I a person who would homeschool his children? I don’t know. I guess I am just going to have to keep chipping to find out.

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The Death of Naptime: Competing Models

A month or so ago, Junior's naptime died.

It has been replaced by daddy's naptime. I don't call it "daddy's naptime," and it only lasts thirty minutes on the outside, but it is still a nap, it is me who is taking it, so this represents a sort of revolution. For Junior, the new regime is called "quiet time." It may one day provide Junior with his first retrospective inkling of his father's gradual descent into dotage. What quiet time means, from Junior's point of view, is that there is a temporal zone in the early afternoon when, for the sake of daddy's nap, or for the sake of daddy's sanity, life deliberately slows down, and pandemonium is prohibited. Things that make noise are discouraged, excessive motion is frowned upon, and an atmosphere of meditative silence, if not overall sleepiness, is cultivated.

There are days when Junior, perhaps nostalgic for the fading Golden Age of his toddler-dom, does indeed crash as he used to, which is to say with bravado and wherever he happens to find himself. But more often, he complies with the new regime and its exhortations to quietness rather than somnolence. He draws in his coloring books, erects fantastic structures with blocks and train tracks, or arranges all the objects of his life into mysterious Joseph Cornell-type compartments. It is during quiet time that Junior assembles his collection of tiny plastic beads, which no one remembers acquiring and which have since been eaten by the dog, into the shovel of his plastic bulldozer, or the tilting container of his toy boxcar.

I will find that our horde of buckeyes, harvested last September and stored in a dedicated bowl of natural curiosities, has now been dispersed among the bookshelves of our home, positioned to the left in each case, perhaps a marker indicating how one should scan the titles on each shelf from left to right, or perhaps placed there according to some inscrutable principle of feng shui. Coming upon Junior during his quiet time activity is like stumbling upon a lone prairie dog, a sentinel: he pops up as from out of a hole, his long torso still and fully extended, sniffing the air for my intentions and scanning my body for the slightest movement. Is quiet time over? What is the afternoon fate of our domestic ecosystem? If I continue on my way with wooden face and no eye contact, he drops back into his burrow and returns to his Joseph Cornell projects. If I show the slightest sign of empathy or affection, then the spell of quiet time is irremediably broken, and our noisy, kinetic life resumes.

Modeling the Nap Function
x = time, y = need for nap
A = Daddy, B= Junior
q area = daddy's productivity
r area = daddy's dotage
s = nap equilibrium

What I haven't yet explained is why the death of Junior's naptime coincided so neatly with the birth of my own. Neutral observers might reasonably infer the presence of some kind of causal relationship, and indeed, they would probably be right. But a causal relationship of what kind? There are two competing models used to explain the data plotted on the graph above. Fortunately, I am confident in dismissing the most obvious explanation, that of the Dotage Theory. The Dotage Theory posits an inverse relationship between Junior's mounting stamina and my own declining energy level. It is a conceptually simple, intuitively appealing, and straightforward explanation for daddy and junior's changing nap needs.

Plotted on Cartesian coordinates we see -- in greatly simplified outline, of course -- how daddy's need for a nap presents the concave up-sweeping parabola A. Over time, daddy's nap need is increasing, though it is not clear how this curve may taper off or plateau. Conversely, Junior's decreasing nap need plots the concave down-sweeping parabola B. At t = 0 (the year 2007) the point in time when these curves were farthest apart, the area q (or daddy's productivity) was at its greatest extent; it has steadily decreased since then, passing through a point of nap parity s, and has now entered a stage described by area r, which may be understood as an overall daddy productivity deficit.

I contend that the Dotage Theory, though perhaps valid when extended into the later decades of adult life, does not adequately capture the complexity of the system in which I find myself. My new naptime habit, I argue, is a result of the displacement of a portion of my daily sleep requirement from evening to afternoon. According to this more sophisticated Sleep Displacement Theory, my total sleep need has remained constant; what has changed is the scheduling of that portion of the day during which I harvest a certain portion of sleep, together with undisturbed Me Time.

In this view, the reason daddy now needs these afternoon naps is that he is staying up later. Now that Junior no longer naps as long as he once did -- for one, two, or even three hours in the afternoon -- late evenings are the only time daddy can carve out some solitude, find a little peace of mind, or a moment in which to read a book. Glorious, egotistical, voluptuous satisfaction of daddy's greatest middle-aged desire: not to have sex, but to read a book. And so it is: next morn, like an adolescent lover, I am groggy and grumpy, punching in at my job and giving it my caffeine-fueled best for the next 8 hours, until I can return to whatever it was I had been reading before I fell asleep the previous night.

But, long before a verdict is returned from the tribunes of science, and usually at around 2PM, despite all self-stimulating efforts to the contrary, I am hit by a collapsing wall of fatigue. I can see it coming from far off, an oncoming wave moving in from the horizon. It is usually clear that there is no escape, that there is no safe or higher ground. I simply have to ride it out, which I do. On the couch.