Category: Domestic Tranquility

Domestic Tranquility, Kids, Thoughts

Time’s Up

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

I hope many of you can relate to this and that I’m not alone. Scenario – you have to be somewhere in 30 minutes and you are at least 25 minutes away (that NEVER happens in suburbia, right?). As you hear the clock ticking in your head you notice your son is still playing in his underwear since he didn’t listen when you told him to finish getting dressed 20 minutes ago, and your daughter is still eating a snack. As you “politely” ask them to hurry up through clenched teeth, they ask “Why can’t I [play, eat] a few more minutes?”

And that’s when Daddy snaps. “Time’s up!” You highhandedly clothe the one while putting shoes on the other and simultaneously throw some snacks and water bottles in a bag and think to yourself “Why doesn’t their mother have this much trouble with them?” And yet, as soon as she gets back from wherever she is blissfully spending the morning, or as soon as you meet up with her she’s going to ask how it went. The answer, inevitably, is “great! Not a problem.” (mentally – can she see through the facade?)

We’re men. We can handle two small beings with the combined weight of a fully grown foxhound (or conversely 10 chihuahuas). We’ve got two arms and a full understanding of wrestling holds and bars perfected in Middle School. How hard can this be? That time you had to sell ice to people living in Alaska, that was hard. Finding the Titanic, a feat of nature. This is just two small kids. Why should we be afraid.

We neglect that God has already granted us with the perfect torture weapon for our enemies. It’s called the toddler. And I have two of them. I love them to death, every minute I spend with them is awesome. And yet it is draining and challenging at the same time. Somehow the two of them together make more racket than the 10 chihuahuas previously mentioned. While they are not strong enough to knock me over, they are strong enough to push every button that exists, and are at the wrong height so that an frustration push or punch when I’m standing is very unfortunate. As cute and cuddly as they can be when dozing with you in the rocking chair after reading a bedtime book, the switch can get flipped.

And so, we all get to that point. Time’s up! Not for them, but for your sanity. The steps you preach to them to calm down (take deep breaths, count to 10) flies out the window and if you are able to, by some miracle, appear outwardly calm, the swirling storm inside is raging. And of course this exacerbates the situations. Like wild animals, kids can sense tension, fear, and frustration. And they feed off of it. It’s like a box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs spiked with pixie sticks. The situation just went downhill like a roller coaster, only there are no brakes.

And where do you go from there? Do you apologize? Let them know you’re sorry? Or file it away internally and mentally justify your actions because you were going to be late for that very important, non-life or death, meeting. And at the end of it all, let’s make sure our wives know we appreciate EVERYTHING they do.

Cheers,

-SF

0
Domestic Tranquility, Kids, Thoughts

Hostage Negotiation

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

For those who don’t know me, I’m an experienced hostage negotiator. This is a very high stress role where even the slightest mistake can be costly. You can train all you like, build up the rapport with your team, and run through scenarios until you are blue in the face, and none of that guarantees success when you are thrown into a real-world situation. The desires of the person feeling aggrieved could be all over the place and once someone snaps and gets to the point of making extremely irrational decisions you never know what is about to happen. It is my job to step into that chaos, find some form of a common ground, and stop parties on both sides from making any unfortunate decisions. I consider it a win if everyone walks away in one piece. Although some days I’m just happy to walk away without injury.

Last night was rough. There was a knock on the door and I was told I had to take care of a rapidly deteriorating situation (as these jobs normally start – you don’t get to be involved and step in until after everything has gone south). The local authority had exhausted their options, and they needed someone to deal with an individual physically lashing out at the world around them, screaming, and making demands that could not be met. Many people call this their worst nightmare. I call it Tuesday.

The first step is assessing the physical situation. What power does the alleged individual have at their disposal? How much damage can they do? How well contained are they? How many people are in harms way? What dollar figure would it take to replace property damage and how can they be kept away from making a bigger mess?

Once you have the lay of the land, you can move on to the higher level assessments. What are they demanding? Are they responding to logic? How can I establish a rapport with the individual? What demands am I prepared to give in to? What demands am I not authorized to commit to? When will it all end?

With all the assessments complete (and you get about 30 seconds to get a full grasp of what is going on before having to dive in) then you start talking. As long as the individual is talking, keep the lines of communication open. Even if you just repeat the same things over and over, keep them talking. Use physical restraints to keep them from causing damage, but otherwise provide the freedom to move and believe they have control over their world and decisions.

At times, like last night, it can seem like no progress is being made for quite a while. If you show signs of frustration or anger that only exacerbates the situation. You have to stay calm, even when you grow fatigued at doing the same thing over and over while getting yelled at. Give in where you can, but never show a chink in the armor of the untouchable demands.

Last night it took over 30 minutes of talking, guiding, physically getting near, starting to walk away, offer compromises to demands, and listening to yelling while calmly repeating our position before our daughter calmed down. She finally broke her position of Mommy reading her more books (after her bedtime routine was over) and let me help her change pajamas (that she got to pick out) before reading a book and crawling into her “big girl bed”.

For all the parents out there, life can seem insurmountable at times. It can feel like you have no outlet, like the stress won’t end. Believe me when I say there is hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. We went through stages like this with our son when he was 2, and he doesn’t act the same way anymore. You need to know your limits and when to tap out and ask your co-hostage negotiator to take over. Nights like Tuesday happen. But that doesn’t mean your family is falling apart or defunct. It’s kids growing up and not knowing how to handle their development.

Cheers,

-SF

*note, experience does not mean trained, nor employed as.

0
Domestic Tranquility, Kids

Childhood Imagination

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

It never ceases to amaze me what my kids pretend to be. Here are some of my recent favorites:

  • Dinosaur Hunter (using modern weaponry)
  • Explorer in a volcano (like the traditional “the floor is lava” game, but with a lava sucking laser to protect his feet)
  • Batman
  • Spiderman
  • Wolverine (“Dad, next time you guess, can you guess Wolverine since I have stripes on my jacket?”)
  • Wonder Woman
  • Elsa
  • “Bad Guys”
  • “Good Guys”
  • Artist
  • Mommy
  • Koala Bear (while giving hugs)
  • The Flash
  • “The strongest” (ignoring the fact that he is trying to push Daddy over and can’t do it)
  • “The fastest” (ignoring the fact that I beat him in the race)
  • Every Star Wars character
  • Cute and Innocent (as in, got caught red handed – “What are you doing?” “I don’t know Daddy, can I give you a hug?….”)
  • Anyone with a blaster.
  • Soldiers
  • Police officers

Oh to have the mind of a child again. The world is always filled with wonder.

-SF

0
Constitution, Domestic Tranquility, Kids, Thoughts

Childhood Justice

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.     

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The childhood sense of fairness is unparalleled in its ability to create conflict and strife. The height of the Cold War pales in comparison to the scorn felt by a child who has perceived wrong. And the offense doesn’t need to be as trivial as a nuclear arms race. No, these wrongs are felt over real, true matters. Like the amount of goldfish in snack cup (“But he got MORE”), the book selection (“We ALWAYS read her book first”), or the dreaded “turn” (as in “I NEVER get a turn”). All of these are invariably followed up by “It’s not FAIR”. The kids are truly internalizing what Martin Luther King, Jr. said, but focusing it on themselves. Injustice to me is a threat to justice everywhere.

As they progress, the things that are unfair get bigger and bigger. What started as the snack cup selection (and I will promise you they have the exact same number of goldfish) quickly escalates to privileges such as driving, seeing PG-13 movies, dating, and other events in life. Whenever Dad makes an unpopular decision, as determined by a nation wide poll and loudly proclaimed by a teenage daughter at the top of her lungs, it’s NOT FAIR.

But what if fair is NOT in the eye of the beholder. We all perceive injustices against ourselves. But I think in the spirit of Dr. King, we should not focus on the injustice perpetrated against ourselves, but that which is wrought upon those who are less fortunate, those who truly are not getting a fair life. Why is it that some people are born to loving families and others are not? Why is it that some kids are blessed with siblings, while others aren’t? How can it be fair that atrocities such as the Holocaust happened. Is there an objective standard that can be used to measure fairness in this world?

I would argue yes, there is an objective standard. How is it that universally children are ready to go to war over the concept of fairness? How is it that a child fresh from the womb has a concept of wanting something they don’t have? How is it that every society throughout human history has come up with concepts such as justice and fairness? The only rational explanation is that this is grounded in objective truth, that there is a deeper meaning behind these feelings and that if we can focus outside ourselves long enough, we may be able to see the source of the justice or find that which is prompting us.

Whatever the case, as long as we focus on fairness for ourselves, we will be in constant battles with those around us. When we can take a step back and evaluate the situation calmly and rationally, it might just be possible for us to discover true fairness.

Cheers,

-SF

0
Domestic Tranquility, Kids, Thoughts, Why

Why Do Spiders Need to Die?

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

The Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the water spout;

Down came the rain and washed the spider out;

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain;

And the Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the spout again;

-The Itsy Bitsy Spider

A year ago, a spider would have sent my kids running, despite my professions that they are harmless and just eat the bad bugs. Today, a daddy long legs was spotted in the corner of the play room and all of a sudden it turned into DEFCON 3. Not from me. I was calmly sitting, but the kids were grabbing EVERYTHING. Suddenly the tranquil play time turned into shouts of:

  • “This is my blaster”
  • “This is my shooter”
  • [2 year old puts on Wonder Woman costume] “This will help me”
  • “I need this” [grabs random play kitchen pot]

In all the commotion, they don’t notice that the daddy long legs has calmly meandered behind the climbing wall and isn’t in view anymore. This led to an interesting discussion (emphasis added to give an idea on inflection of littler voices):

  • Suburban Father – “Guys, why does the spider need to die?”
  • Daughter – “Because he is EVIL!”
  • SF – “What does that mean?”
  • Son – “He’s here to GET us.”
  • D – “Yeah… he’s here to GET us.”
  • SF – “He’s only here to eat the bad bugs…”
  • S – “No… he’s here to GET us.”

This continued for a few minutes with little change to content. No longer are they afraid of a spider, they have been ingrained with the urge to kill (thankfully the urge and the capability are two different things). It doesn’t matter why, it’s the enemy, the other, the thing that is after us. It awakens their imaginations and they are not in the playroom, they are soldiers on the front lines of a Starship Troopers style invasion. They are breaching the Black Gate into Mordor. No matter what hideous thing comes at them, they are READY.

And aren’t we all this way? Sure, we laugh and watch as our kids get worked up over a spider and have their imaginations run wild. But we do this too. We let our imaginations run wild with our own importance, manufacturing a world around us that is different than reality. It manifests itself differently for different people, but it is all over the suburbs. There’s the guy down the street self-medicating his divorce with shiny toys that make it seem like his life isn’t falling apart. There’s the couple in the cul-de-sac up to their eyeballs in credit card debt trying to maintain a lifestyle they think they have. There’s the boss at work who fancies himself as upper management’s savior and always micro-managing people. There’s the person writing this blog that thinks he’s smarter than the other people in the room, so he started a blog.

What’s the answer? For starters, the spider doesn’t need to die. It eats bugs and helps control them, something we can all appreciate. Second, the answer is also not to lose the imagination. It’s a wonderful tool we were built with to create something out of nothing. With no imagination there would be no art, no new technology, and a lot of bland vanilla.

We need to maintain a healthy view of reality to make good decisions hand in hand with the ability to see the world as a child does: in wonder with excitement and potential around every corner. Be truthful in the things that matter, and fun-loving in the things that are trivial.

Cheers,

-SF

0
Domestic Tranquility, Kids, Thoughts

The Smell of Grass

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; 
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. 

Walt Whitman

Nothing is more suburban than mowing the grass on a Saturday morning. The whir of other lawn mowers fills the air, water flows down the road from someone washing their car up the street, and the smell of freshly cut grass permeates the air. Since God rested in the Garden of Eden, this is the closest to heaven that we can get. It is a ritual not understood by those in the city, and undertaken alone by those in the country.

And then the tranquil bliss is interrupted by the most angelic of beings… your 4 year old walking up wanting to help. How do you explain why the grass needs to be cut, or even what the grass is? How do you explain that the blade on the bottom of the lawn mower can create a BIG problem really quickly without scarring him for life? Or that him “helping” will add 20 minutes to a task that was only going to take 15 minutes in the first place. You can’t. You can only breathe deep and stare in wonder at the world the way a child does, when the days seem to last forever, the sun is always warm, and nothing is better than playing outside with your friends and your imagination.

And then that breathe is interrupted by your 2 year old walking up wiping her mouth with dirt stained hands saying the dirt tastes “yucky” with a horrendous look on her face. As you laugh because you remember doing the same thing when you were a child, you help her wipe her mouth out and ask if she learned something from the experience. And then you take a deep breathe, enjoy the smell of the cut grass, and let time pass slowly for a few minutes, basking in the moment.

Does this sound familiar? Isn’t this all of our experience every weekend? No? Me neither. I wish I could say I took the time to embrace and experience the peace, the Jewish concept of shalom. That slice of perfection this side of heaven that is spending a perfect summer morning cutting the grass and enjoying the weather with your family. But I don’t. Why not? Why do I let the worries of Monday affect my Saturday. Why do I worry about the events planned for the weekend instead of being in the moment? Why do I feel envious because the Joneses seem to be able to relax by their pool while I’m out here?

It’s way too easy for us to get sidetracked from the pictures of perfection, or heaven on Earth, that are put before us. I’m not saying the Suburbs are heaven (although I do enjoy living here). I’m saying the situations we are put in resemble Heaven in those ways. If we can find a way to be content, to live in those moments and cling to them, we’d find that the stress melts away, our families become stronger, and the worries of this world don’t have as much power over us.

Cheers,

-SF

0
Constitution, Domestic Tranquility, Jones

The Joneses

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood


We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

Have you met our neighbor the Joneses? They’ve been living in the Suburbs since before we were. If you peek over the fence into their manicured yard, you’ll see they have the all toys my son would like to have, the pets my daughter would like to have, the clothes my wife would like to have, and the peace and quiet I would like to have. Somehow they have a higher income, while working less hours, and keep everything together. They are truly living the American dream, established by our founding fathers, while our welfare is less, our domestic tranquility is less, and we feel like we are missing the blessings of liberty.

It’s amazing how the suburbs have changed our perspective on life. It’s provided us space to grow, space to call our own, space to create our lives in. And yet our worlds seem so small compared to others. Outside my window a Cherry tree is in full bloom, but I notice the weeds in the grass (or rather the grass growing between the weeds). My focus is drawn to that which is lesser, instead of that which is beautiful and good. Rather than get lost in the blossoms being blown by the wind, I worry that the bushes are an eyesore. Rather than gaze in wonder at the home my income allows us to live in, I see the molding that needs to be re-caulked, and the ceilings that are not the same shade of white. Somehow the suburbs have provided both a freedom and a cage at the same time.

This issue presents a huge challenge to suburban fatherhood. It pushes us to work longer hours, while bemoaning the vacations the Jones family gets. It creates tensions over financial discussions, how much to spend today vs. save for tomorrow. It builds walls between us and the Joneses, rather than letting us live together in harmony. How do we solve this problem?

We have to start with an uncomfortable truth – the American Dream does not mean everyone will be a millionaire, or that everyone will have peace and happiness. It means we have freedom: freedom to live, freedom to love, freedom to pursue our passions. It means the general welfare is held up. That all men (and women) have the same general protections and opportunities (more on this in a bit). It means that we have certain inalienable rights that are true for all citizens. Nowhere in this does it say that I will be as successful as the Joneses. Or that we will have what they have.

Then we have to give ourselves, and the Joneses, grace. Grace that says it’s OK if we don’t make as much, or have as much, or get as much rest. Grace that says we are successful if we provide for our family and teach our kids the right way to live. Grace that does not build up walls and push the Jones family away just because they have been blessed differently than us. Grace to see the cherry tree instead of the weeds.

*Note, while the Constitution was written to ensure all peoples have the same opportunities and protections, I readily recognize it has been a 250 year struggle to have that applied regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status, or other dividing factors.

0