This weekend, Kelly and I met some friends at Liluma, our favorite restaurant. The food is wonderful, but one of the reasons we keep returning is the friendliness of the staff, especially toward Ian. We’re always made to feel welcome, and I’ve yet to see anyone roll their eyes when Ian walks through the door.
We arrived fairly early, and had some time to kill while waiting for our friends. We spent a few minutes talking with our waiter, Ian doing his best to join the conversation.
‘What’s your name?’
‘My name? My name’s Gus. What’s your name?’
‘I’m Ian!’
‘Pleased to meet you, Ian.’ Gus shook Ian’s hand.
Ian’s face lit up, and he patted the table in front of one of the empty chairs. ‘You join us? Sit down?’
I was floored. There’s a saddening lack of courtesy in this country, especially toward anyone having anything to do with service industries, and here was my son—a three-year-old boy—offering our waiter a seat. And I’ve no idea where he learned this. We do our best to stress polite behavior, but we’ve yet to reach the ‘invite friends to join you’ stage of Ian’s finishing.
I’ll admit it, I’m darned proud. I don’t like to tout the wonders of Ian the Great, but we do have a very intelligent son, especially when it comes to social interaction. He knows how to relate to people, and make them feel comfortable. He can sense the underlying currents of a situation, and is generally pretty quick to figure out what’s wrong, and why.
Kelly and I talked about this afterward, on the way to the car. I couldn’t see why I should be so proud of our son’s behavior; it certainly wasn’t a feeling of pride in my parenting skills or table manners. She suggested that I’m proud because, when it comes to social skills, Ian is everything I’m not. Or, at least, everything I perceive myself not to be.
One of my greatest frustrations is my social awkwardness. I’m a rabid introvert, and lean strongly toward ‘flight’ when faced with strangers, a dinner party, or small talk. Kelly disagrees, but I feel as though I’m terrible at relating to people; since high school, I’ve felt stunted when it comes to dealing with others. Frankly, this short-coming has become a little painful.
Ian doesn’t have that problem. I don’t think it’s important for anyone to be well-liked, but I so want my son to be comfortable with himself, and confident in who he is.
Now we just need to teach him boundaries. And personal space. Many lessons on personal space.
The other night, as I left for a city council meeting, Ian stopped me at the door. He reached his hand toward me, offering a black-and-white hacky-sack.
‘Wait! Maybe the ball you need?’ (Yoda would be proud.)
‘Hmm. You think I might need that ball?’
He tiled his head and nodded, a concerned look on his face. ‘Yeah. You need it. For the meeting!’
‘Ooookay. Thanks!’ We hugged, and I walked to City Hall, playing catch with myself.
I don’t like meetings. Jared and meetings…kinda clash. Too much time is spent saying too little, and I’d rather make a decision and get on with my life. But that leads to poor decisions, so I sit, and I discuss.
About halfway through the meeting, I started squeezing the ball. Then rolling it around the desk. Then tossing it into the air. I was listening intently to the meeting, but the three-year-old within me—feet tapping, legs twitching, butt squirming to leave his seat—was completely and happily distracted by that stupid, little ball.
That ball is now in a drawer, next to my notebook, and will be coming to every meeting.
Kelly told me that, after I’d left that night, Ian came and told her what’d happened. ‘Daddy took the ball.’
‘…the real child does not confuse fact and fiction. He simply likes fiction. He acts it, because he cannot as yet write it or even read it; but he never allows his moral sanity to be clouded by it.’
According to a study at Princeton University, becoming a father may stimulate brain development:
‘In both first-time and experienced [marmoset] fathers with dependent offspring, the team found structural changes in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain important for planning and memory. In these areas the neurons showed signs of enhancement, with a greater number of connections. They also had more receptor sites for the hormone vasopressin.’
Alas, the some of the benefits seem to be temporary, and return to normal as infants mature toward independence. I certainly remember rolling my eyes at my father more and more as I got older.
High from the earth I heard a bird;
He trod upon the trees
As he esteemed them trifles,
And then he spied a breeze,
And situated softly
Upon a pile of wind
Which in a perturbation
Nature had left behind.
A joyous-going fellow
I gathered from his talk,
Which both of benediction
And badinage partook,
Without apparent burden,
I learned, in leafy wood
He was the faithful father
Of a dependent brood;
And this untoward transport
His remedy for care,—
A contrast to our respites.
How different we are!
Last night our church choir held a little gathering at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Boxed lunches, lawn chairs, live music, kids running through fountains. Apart from the triple-digit heat, it promised to be a fine evening.
Ian was a little cautious about abandoning himself to the lure of freely accessible, gushing water, but caught the mood once I swung him through the spouts. The handful of other kids, running pell-mell through the spray didn’t hurt, either. The pain of hitting concrete with your face is inversely proportional to the size of the puddle which caused the fall.
As we ate our chicken sandwiches and talked with friends, we all noticed the encroaching darkness from the west. Our only response to the sudden, cool breezes was a collective sigh of relief. And when an annoucement was made about the concert being postponed for a few minutes, while the ‘quick’ and ‘narrow’ front moved throgh, we all nodded and smiled, wanting it to be true. During St. Louis summers, rain is a myth, and always happens to someone else.
Had we been cattle, we would’ve run for the hills. Or the barn. Or wherever cows go when they don’t want to fly.
We reconsidered our optimism with the first gust. The second gust was accompanied by a loud crack, and we watched in shock as a limb fell from a towering sycamore and into a cluster of chairs below. We’d forgotten one of the cardinal rules of life in the Midwest: run for it. This works equally well for thunderstorms, July 4th celebrations, and cow-tipping.
When I saw the first limb fall, I ran to see what help me and my flip-flops could provide; I turned around when other limbs followed suit. When I got back to our chairs, I found Ian huddled in Kelly’s lap. She looked up at me and said, very calmly, ‘We have a scared little boy, here.’ I lifted Ian, and he—rather tightly—wrapped his arms around my neck. I walked to the nearest shelter; quickly, because of the storm and risk of asphyxiation.
As I walked, Ian talked. ‘That was quick! It’s just a storm. I like thunder. We’re safe; God made the storm.’ Kelly and Ian had prayed while I had helped with the first limb. Despite his reassurance and matter-of-fact expression, Ian was trembling. We blew into the gift shop, leaves in our hair and bark in our eyes. Everyone was laughing nervously, hair like windblown Albert Einsteins.
Inisde the gift shop, Ian was suave, debonaire; Hugh Hefner minus the hedonism and smoking jacket. If I moved closer to the windows—whipping trees, sheets of rain, jagged streaks of lightning—he would plant his feet and take my hand. ‘Not outside. Here, you need to sit here.’ Which wasn’t bad advice. People who live in glass houses should leave during a storm.
Apart from a little clutching and a little whimpering, Ian was calm, cool, and collected. Considering the ferocity of the storm—80mph winds, and the most damage our electric company has seen in 100 years—I was impressed. He did briefly lose his composure when the power went out while he was using the bathroom, but wouldn’t we all? He also refused to walk while we toured the atrium (after the storm had lessened), but, again, his instincts were good.
I think he’s used to it; this always seems to happen to our family. Two years ago we were caught in a gale on the Florida coast. Ian wailed as he watched his favorite water raft being torn from Mommy’s hands, and Daddy take a nosedive into the sand. The same thing happened on vacation earlier this year.
A federal judge has dismissed ‘Roe vs. Wade…for Men’, which was filed by the National Center for Men on behalf of Matt Dubay. The judge ruled the lawsuit frivolous, and Dubay was ordered to pay attourney fees to the state.
There’s been no statement yet from either the NCM or Dubay. Even if this case ends here, it won’t be the last. As long as our legal system continues to send the message that a father’s role is limited to his wallet, men will only be encouraged to neglect their responsibilities.
‘”This feels like the judge just slammed the door in Matt’s face,” said Mel Feit, director of the National Center for Men, …. “The case wasn’t litigated. Shame on him for doing that. That showed bias against Matt.’
The Seattle Times recently published an article about the fathers of Generation X, and the differences between their Baby-Boomer counterparts.
‘When Reach Advisors surveyed 3,000 parents, Gen X dads spent twice as much time with children as baby-boomer dads, Chung said. ….
Even so, younger dads are still frustrated with that amount, wishing they could be around more. “The concept of ‘quality time’ has disappeared with Generation X,” Chung noted. “It’s not what they can do for kids, but what they can do with them.”‘
Pretty accurate. The article also highlights trends already familiar to Blogfathers, and young new fathers in general: family as a priority, more personal involvement, the dearth of fatherhood resources, and frustration with popular stereotypes of dads. We’re not alone, guys. Does this sound familiar:
‘”When I take Ethan to the park or go grocery shopping, I see dads with kids all over the place,” [Chris] Yeargin said. “But when I get to the checkout stand, I still get the ‘Oh, you’re baby-sitting today’ comments. No, I’m not baby-sitting, and neither are all of these other dads.”‘
Lately it seems that these issues are popping up everywhere, more and more often. Last month, Jeremy was featured on CNN’s Digital Life podcast for this very topic (MP3).
Which raises the question, yet again: when are we starting a fatherhood magazine?
