Category: Thoughts

Thoughts

Priorities

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” 

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It’s astonishing how quickly the time goes right out the window (throw back for any who know the reference). One minute it’s morning, your feet are hitting the floor. You blink through groggy eyelids at the world around you and squint when the light turns on. The next minute you’re wrapping up for the day, getting ready for bed, and trying to remember all that had been packed into the day. Perhaps you measure your days in minutes behind a cash register, or maybe it’s in emails in your inbox/outbox. For others you measure life not in the breathes you take, but in the moments that take your breath away (for those who have the time).

And crammed into that space of a day you have your priorities. The things you must do, or want to do, or think you should do, or would love to start doing, or consider a hobby (although it’s been stuck on a shelf since the day you bought it). We set our priorities differently, but our calendar really tells us what the priorities were for the day. Was it your family? Did you really need to get in three more emails? Did you leave work at the time you promised you would? Did you stay as late as you were supposed to (because it IS a two way street)? How was the world different today because you were in it?

In my own life I seem to never find space for the things I want to do in the midst of the things I find myself doing. I’ve got half started projects, great ideas, fun hobbies, and passions strewn about in the wreckage of my calendar. Between the server mounted to my wall (which hasn’t been turned on in weeks) and the frisbees (which haven’t been thrown in months) sits the filing cabinet that needs to be shredded of old content and the tread mill I keep saying I should start using. There’s the website I said I would help build for my son’s preschool and the blog I told my wife anyone could do. Plus my kids and wife deserve some time.

How do we… how do I figure out how to balance it all? How do I cut things out? Will I ever want to just lie in a hammock again and read a book? Or am I on to new and better things. Ways to learn about work, kids to play with, etc? How would I fill a week off of work? These are the thoughts running through my head as I drive home from work. I’m a man who loves tinkering with various technologies, but only gets a weekend to focus on one before a new project rears it’s ugly head (like getting grass to grow in the front yard).

Anyone have some ideas on how to figure this out?

Cheers,

-SF

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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

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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.

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Kids, Thoughts

“I Don’t Feel Well…”

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

No parent likes hearing the words “I don’t feel well” from their child. Sometimes you hear it when picking them up early from school, other times you hear it in the middle of the night. The words by themselves don’t tell you as much as the rest of the context: how they are walking, what their voice sounds like, the color of their skin, what their immediate next words are, etc.

This morning we heard it at 6:30 am when our son walked into the room. He sounded normal and his next words were, “I think I need to lie on the couch and watch shows all day.” Parental suspicion immediately kicked in and special detectives Mommy and Daddy started asking questions. “What do you mean?” “Where does it hurt?” “Can we get you some water?” Each answer was scrutinized to determine our response and the level of care that may be needed.

In this specific example, the questions continued to revolve around watching shows on the TV. Turns out he wanted everything he gets when he is well, plus the ability to lie on the couch and watch TV. Any ill effects were likely do to blooming plants and flowers triggering some allergies. No fever was detected and only a mild irritability had taken hold. We still treated him with some of the same basic rules for someone who is sick, but didn’t need to create a large plan for patient care and nurturing.

Had the answers been different we would have set him up with a nice comfy spot, given plenty of water, and provided a calm place to rest. In his mind, he was sick to the point of needing to be immobilized. In reality he is slightly under the weather, but will be fine by the end of the day.

I can definitely relate to him. I remember as a child feeling a tickle in the back of the throat that became a “sore throat” to stay home from school, which was followed up by playing games most of the day. Or suddenly “feeling better” when friends were home from school when I was really sick so I could get to play outside.

In our heads we morph reality to fit what we want it to look like. This manifests itself differently for everyone. Some of us like to pretend we are sick (or healthy) in order to get what we want. Others like to make up rules that only apply to themselves (“I have to live my life like this, while everyone else is held to a lower standard”). Still others (especially in the professional world) create a skewed world that views them as much more accomplished than they really are.

The worst part about these skewed realities, is when they come shattering down. When you find out you’re really not sick enough to spend the day on the couch like you hoped. When you find out that no matter how much you try to follow the rules for yourself, you never quite make it to the level of the people with lower standards. Or when you get your performance review and find out that management doesn’t view you the way that you view yourself. These days hurt, they feel like you have been wronged. Yet we neglect that the only reason we felt that way was because we skewed our reality in the first place. Let’s try to take a healthy view of ourselves and our surroundings.

Cheers,

-SF

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Kids, Thoughts

First Things First

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

One of the awesome things about kids is watching them grow up, become more and more independent, and ultimately, gain enough knowledge and skills to take care of you in your old age. This post is dedicated to a lot of the unique firsts you get as a parent.

  1. First time driving them home
  2. First steps
  3. First words
  4. First time operating technology
  5. First time having a conversation with Alexa
  6. First time saying a word in public that you don’t want people knowing you taught them
  7. First time hearing “I love you”
  8. First time hearing “I hate you”
  9. First time having food thrown in your face
  10. First time falling asleep with them on your chest
  11. First time playing video games with them
  12. First time chasing them down as they try to run away outside
  13. First time hearing they root for the other team
  14. First time sharing ice cream on a hot summer day
  15. First time watching the sun set

Cheers,

SF

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Kids, Thoughts

11 Things That Make Kids Awesome!

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

Over the past five years, here are some things I have discovered are AWESOME about having kids!

  1. The sense of wonder with which they experience the world.
  2. The look of surprise when you get an Amazon box in the mail.
  3. How they turn the empty Amazon box (that only had household goods in it) into a boat, then a car, then an artist’s studio.
  4. How everything for my son becomes a weapon so he can fight off the bad guys.
  5. How everything for my daughter becomes sweet and gentle.
  6. Rocking while reading books as they fall asleep.
  7. When they try to be helpful (and actually are!).
  8. How they can go from fighting to friends so quickly.
  9. The things they learn and figure out on a daily basis.
  10. Their capacity for forgiveness.
  11. And finally, the way they yell for joy when you get home, like a pair of hyper active puppies.
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Kids, memories, Thoughts

10 Things I No Longer Think are Cool

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

Growing up was a lot of fun. When you are younger you could do so many cool things, run across the water (it seemed like I could at least), and you always swore you would never turn into your parents. Well, I’m here today to chronicle 10 things that I no longer think are “cool”. And now I get to explain to a child why the same things I used to think are cool are in fact, decidedly uncool.

  1. Waking up Dad with a wet washcloth.
  2. Jumping on Dad while he is lying down.
  3. Yelling loudly in the back of the car for no reason.
  4. Hitting myself in the face.
  5. Lying really still and pretending not to hear people talking to me.
  6. Throwing things near expensive electronics.
  7. Asking to read the same book over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
  8. Grandparents who load up their grand kids on sugar before sending them home.
  9. Singing the same song over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and OVER again.
  10. Asking to tell someone a secret… then yelling in their ear.

To my parents -> I’m sorry! (Although part of me suspects they are putting the kids up to this.)

Cheers,

-SF

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memories, Thoughts

Goodbyes

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

Goodbyes are hard. We all deal with them differently. Some of us like to down play them, some like to ignore them, some like to lament them long before they ever happen. Over the next 5 months I’ve got two big good byes coming up. I’m not sure if knowing they are coming makes them easier or harder. Combined they represent 36 years of relationships spanning both my personal life and my professional life.

The milestone coming up in September will undoubtedly be the easier goodbye. It’s only a 4 year relationship ending. I’m not sure when I’ll get to say goodbye face to face, hopefully this summer, but we both know the end is coming. Thankfully there’s little chance of running into each other after it’s over. But that doesn’t remove the fact that since inception I have been involved nurturing, growing, leading, and sustaining over the past 4 years. Saying good bye now is turning over control to someone else to make the decisions they see fit and to admit I’m no longer in a driver’s seat. I’ve been visiting less and less over the past year, but it still feels raw. Hopefully I’ll get to say goodbye face to face over this summer.

The harder goodbye still has an unknown timeline but is expected in the next 2 to 5 months. How do you say good bye to memories that span as long as you can remember, all the major milestones of your life and your kids’ lives,? How can that be easy? Where do you start? It will be all the harder given the fact that this is just minutes away from where I live, not in a different state. Reminders are everywhere.

Now before someone cries foul, let me explain a little bit more about each of these good byes. The first is a computer system (large Windows domain with associated components and peripherals) I designed, procured, built, and configured. It was many long hours getting it ready to be deployed, while working in varying environments to get it done. The system was shipped out in a blizzard. There are many unique aspects to the whole thing that make the good bye harder. The support is transitioning over to the system owner, a required next step. Yet that doesn’t make it feel easier. I’m trying to arrange an onsite visit/inspection to be with it one more time.

(Anyone currently judging me for a personal attachment to electronics a) don’t know me very well; and b) don’t pour their heart and soul into the projects they work on).

The second good bye is to my childhood home. My parents are moving out into a retirement community and will need to sell it. It’s been great to live near where both myself and my wife grew up. My kids have climbed the same trees I climbed as a child. We have celebrated Christmas in the same place I used to. The memories have been passed on. And yet it’s not easy to say good bye to a place with that many memories.

How will I handle these good byes? I can’t say for certain until the time comes. I try not to get caught up on the future. The work one will likely come and go, ultimately lost in the shuffle of continuing projects. It is inevitable for someone with a career as varied as mine to have to leave behind a project in order to tackle the next one. I’ll try to organize a celebration to recognize the past 4 years of hard work, and then turn around and do something new.

Saying good bye to my childhood home is likely hard because it feels like saying good bye to my childhood, to the memories I harbor, to what it is that makes up who I am. What’s likely to happen is I take some time to walk around the place and remember. Then take those memories and treasure them up in my heart. I need to remind myself I’ve already said good bye to my childhood in one sense (I’m an adult with kids), but in another sense it will never leave me (it helped make me who I am today and my wife reminds me I’m a 12 year old who shaves many times.).

In both cases I’ll raise a glass to freedom, memories, successful projects, and continued life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Raise one with me.

Cheers,

-SF

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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

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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

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