A thought struck me this morning while I was washing dishes, a thought that at the time seemed rather banal but which, in little time, seemed to have a kernel of truth.
As a parent, I'm not so new to the game. Yet, having been a parent for close to 4 years, not once have I felt that I know what I'm doing. Maybe like many, I feel like I could use a coaching course, some guidance, a wise mentor to guide me and make sure my kids turn out right.
That, then, is the reason I decided to start this blog, to remind myself that I'm not that bad at what I do. I recall having felt cocky in an earlier stage of my life. Single, I had told my sister - now a child psychologist - that parenting would be easy. "Aren't you afraid?" she asked me then. "How are you so sure?!" Even to this day, I don't really have an answer. That conversation with my sister took place at least 15 years ago, when I was far from being married, let alone considering marrying in the near future. Talya, the sister I mentioned, likely doesn't remember that conversation, yet it certainly left an imprint on my mind. Because, to this day, I still wonder what Talya was talking about.
I see, perhaps mistakenly, the rite of parenting, similar to that of teaching. My students are stuck with me, as are my kids. It's all they've got. Teary now, I can't help but think about a brilliant Calvin & Hobbes script where Calvin gives his father a report card, grading him on all of the facets of parenting. Obviously, Calvin's father - at least in Calvin's book - failed, across the board!
I don't wonder if my daughters will deem me a failed parent one day, and yet, perhaps to Talya's stupefaction, I still feel that being a parent is easy. Being married is a different story! Your spouse can see right through you, and really does know about all your foibles, gaffes, flaws and weaknesses. Yet, for me, at least with my kids still young, they think that I know everything, that I'm the arbiter of right and wrong, and even when I mess up - bad - they still love me and forget about how I wronged them in no time. Our oldest, Yocheved, having taken the liberty of using her marker set to decorate the walls of her bedroom, our guest room, the new dress my mother got her, and her younger sister's face, inveterately showed off her pink marker last night. I had already confiscated all of the markers a few hours earlier and to my disgust, here she was - after innumerable attempts to put her to sleep - flashing the marker before my eyes. I said "Give it to me." She said, "No."
"I'm counting to three," I said. She looked at me, mockingly, with pleasurable delight. I didn't wait to three; not saying a word, I took the marker, snapped it into two, tossed it into the trash bin, and left Yocheved to cry on the floor. And did she cry! Because I had done an injustice - and I had - something I don't deny. But then, again, I'm a parent, and all is forgiven, by both my children and other parents alike. Perhaps it's just a cliche - like to know God is to be Him - to get a parent is to be one. Intuitively, at that moment, when I snapped the marker into two, I did it with utter calm. I had never, to that moment, purposefully destroyed any possession of either of my daughters. (I do chuck a lot of trash, random toys I deem useless, puzzle pieces whose last time being together was in the box. In fact, whenever my wife goes out, I try to find something else, a place mat my daughter made in nursery (one of 15!), a children's book whose cover has long been ripped off, miscreant Lego sets - half the pieces missing - that a kind-hearted neighbor bestowed on us.)
Last night, though, it was for real. And I felt glee as I snapped that marker into two. Yocheved bawled for 15 minutes thereafter, my wife, presciently and wisely taking my side - I say that not because I was right but because it was important for me to be able to take the ethical high ground. Yocheved, some two hours later fell asleep slayed out on the tiled floor, and here I am now, my wife and kids still sleeping, left to reflect a little about what transpired. And this is the thought, cogent or not, that struck me this morning.
...I'll take another second, even though our youngest is stirring in her crib.
For children, the world is not ethereal. Like the traveler in "To Build a Fire," they don't understand the deeper meaning of things. And God forbid if they would. Postman, the renowned sociologist writes about the "Disappearance of Childhood." Childhood, he writes is something sacrosanct that should not be perverted by introducing children too early to the mores of adulthood, its worries. I can't help kid myself when, in disgust, after Yocheved has drawn what looks like graffiti all over the walls of our bedrooms, the only persuasive contention I can make as to why she shouldn't do that is that, "it costs money to fix."
"Do you know," I ask her, "that we'll have to paint the whole wall?" For her, painting is fun! "Why," I once asked her - this precocious, adorable, blonde-haired girl, not yet four - "does Abba have to work"?
"For money for borekas," she answered; then, thinking for a second, she added, "and for of (the Hebrew word for chicken." Those, presumably, are the two things most redolent in her mind, of and borekas. Borekas she gets once a week at the nearby bakery, when I'm in a rush and don't have time to give her breakfast - or when she wakes up really tired after my wife and I were out with the kids really late, at a function, or in town.
Of and Borekas ... and I expect my daughter to get why it's wrong to color all over the walls. For her, white is bland and boring. The same way at nursery the ganenet lays out white pieces of paper for her to color on, the walls of our apartment - and the whole world for that matter, are her canvas. She'll dabble, spray, blot, leaving us to foot the bill, but presumably and hopefully, come out a finer human being because of it, experimenting, finding herself, preserving and cultivating a joie de vivre that will more than anything she'll learn in formal education, shape who she wants to be.
As for of and borekas, chicken has never been absent from our table - except for when we had over vegans, and believe it or not, she's stopped liking borekas, so I guess with Abba and Imma - mom and dad - now having half the expenses, she probably figured we could afford the clean-up job on a little wall painting.
As a parent, I'm not so new to the game. Yet, having been a parent for close to 4 years, not once have I felt that I know what I'm doing. Maybe like many, I feel like I could use a coaching course, some guidance, a wise mentor to guide me and make sure my kids turn out right.
That, then, is the reason I decided to start this blog, to remind myself that I'm not that bad at what I do. I recall having felt cocky in an earlier stage of my life. Single, I had told my sister - now a child psychologist - that parenting would be easy. "Aren't you afraid?" she asked me then. "How are you so sure?!" Even to this day, I don't really have an answer. That conversation with my sister took place at least 15 years ago, when I was far from being married, let alone considering marrying in the near future. Talya, the sister I mentioned, likely doesn't remember that conversation, yet it certainly left an imprint on my mind. Because, to this day, I still wonder what Talya was talking about.
I see, perhaps mistakenly, the rite of parenting, similar to that of teaching. My students are stuck with me, as are my kids. It's all they've got. Teary now, I can't help but think about a brilliant Calvin & Hobbes script where Calvin gives his father a report card, grading him on all of the facets of parenting. Obviously, Calvin's father - at least in Calvin's book - failed, across the board!
I don't wonder if my daughters will deem me a failed parent one day, and yet, perhaps to Talya's stupefaction, I still feel that being a parent is easy. Being married is a different story! Your spouse can see right through you, and really does know about all your foibles, gaffes, flaws and weaknesses. Yet, for me, at least with my kids still young, they think that I know everything, that I'm the arbiter of right and wrong, and even when I mess up - bad - they still love me and forget about how I wronged them in no time. Our oldest, Yocheved, having taken the liberty of using her marker set to decorate the walls of her bedroom, our guest room, the new dress my mother got her, and her younger sister's face, inveterately showed off her pink marker last night. I had already confiscated all of the markers a few hours earlier and to my disgust, here she was - after innumerable attempts to put her to sleep - flashing the marker before my eyes. I said "Give it to me." She said, "No."
"I'm counting to three," I said. She looked at me, mockingly, with pleasurable delight. I didn't wait to three; not saying a word, I took the marker, snapped it into two, tossed it into the trash bin, and left Yocheved to cry on the floor. And did she cry! Because I had done an injustice - and I had - something I don't deny. But then, again, I'm a parent, and all is forgiven, by both my children and other parents alike. Perhaps it's just a cliche - like to know God is to be Him - to get a parent is to be one. Intuitively, at that moment, when I snapped the marker into two, I did it with utter calm. I had never, to that moment, purposefully destroyed any possession of either of my daughters. (I do chuck a lot of trash, random toys I deem useless, puzzle pieces whose last time being together was in the box. In fact, whenever my wife goes out, I try to find something else, a place mat my daughter made in nursery (one of 15!), a children's book whose cover has long been ripped off, miscreant Lego sets - half the pieces missing - that a kind-hearted neighbor bestowed on us.)
Last night, though, it was for real. And I felt glee as I snapped that marker into two. Yocheved bawled for 15 minutes thereafter, my wife, presciently and wisely taking my side - I say that not because I was right but because it was important for me to be able to take the ethical high ground. Yocheved, some two hours later fell asleep slayed out on the tiled floor, and here I am now, my wife and kids still sleeping, left to reflect a little about what transpired. And this is the thought, cogent or not, that struck me this morning.
...I'll take another second, even though our youngest is stirring in her crib.
For children, the world is not ethereal. Like the traveler in "To Build a Fire," they don't understand the deeper meaning of things. And God forbid if they would. Postman, the renowned sociologist writes about the "Disappearance of Childhood." Childhood, he writes is something sacrosanct that should not be perverted by introducing children too early to the mores of adulthood, its worries. I can't help kid myself when, in disgust, after Yocheved has drawn what looks like graffiti all over the walls of our bedrooms, the only persuasive contention I can make as to why she shouldn't do that is that, "it costs money to fix."
"Do you know," I ask her, "that we'll have to paint the whole wall?" For her, painting is fun! "Why," I once asked her - this precocious, adorable, blonde-haired girl, not yet four - "does Abba have to work"?
"For money for borekas," she answered; then, thinking for a second, she added, "and for of (the Hebrew word for chicken." Those, presumably, are the two things most redolent in her mind, of and borekas. Borekas she gets once a week at the nearby bakery, when I'm in a rush and don't have time to give her breakfast - or when she wakes up really tired after my wife and I were out with the kids really late, at a function, or in town.
Of and Borekas ... and I expect my daughter to get why it's wrong to color all over the walls. For her, white is bland and boring. The same way at nursery the ganenet lays out white pieces of paper for her to color on, the walls of our apartment - and the whole world for that matter, are her canvas. She'll dabble, spray, blot, leaving us to foot the bill, but presumably and hopefully, come out a finer human being because of it, experimenting, finding herself, preserving and cultivating a joie de vivre that will more than anything she'll learn in formal education, shape who she wants to be.
As for of and borekas, chicken has never been absent from our table - except for when we had over vegans, and believe it or not, she's stopped liking borekas, so I guess with Abba and Imma - mom and dad - now having half the expenses, she probably figured we could afford the clean-up job on a little wall painting.
