Parenting

A Father’s Burden

February 3, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

It is a sunny day in Los Angeles. Endless blue skies and snow covered mountaintops fight for your attention. The streets are filled with the usual assortment of cars, convertibles, SUVs, Hondas and assorted others jockey for the right to be the lead car on a street that won’t allow for speeds exceeding 35 MPH.

The boys and I are seated outside, cups of coffee in hand, sunglasses protecting our eyes from the glare. It is late morning and we have gathered to engage in our unofficial support group. Because you know that as men none of us want to admit that we need help. We don’t ask for directions and we don’t ask for a shoulder to cry on, even though we all want it. So we amuse ourselves with this clever fairytale that it is just friends getting together to talk.

That is a bit of an exaggeration. We are all forty somethings now. Every last one of us a father. Twenty years ago the conversations were different. They may have borne some resemblance to the current ones, in which we talk about women, but they were different.

Back then there wasn’t any talk about divorce. No comments about custody or concerns about dating as a single parent. No worries about how to pay for private school or rants about having to pay for summer camp during winter time.

And there most certainly weren’t comments about how bad the economy is or how we have become casualties of a situation that we can’t control.

No one talked about how to tell their children that mommy and daddy can’t afford to pay the mortgage anymore. No one had any thoughts or concerns that they might have to move back in with their parents. There wasn’t any thought that after having been a productive member of society for years they would fear having nothing to show for it.

Back then no one had the burden of supporting a family. It was only us and no one cared if your apartment was a dump and your furniture was worn out.

The sunglasses help to maintain the poker face that we wear. It is part of our suit of armor. A useful tool those sunglasses. Back in the day they helped provide cover to check out the pretty girl. Now they help to hide the look of fear and exhaustion that I see in the back of our eyes.

I throw out the idea of the new business and talk about taking control of our destiny. I say that now is the perfect time to take a stand and make something because no one else is going to help us. We don’t trust the government or expect our parents to save us.

We throw out movie quotes and laugh. More stories and ideas are shared. One confesses that he and his soon to be ex wife are sleeping together again. They have no intention of getting back together, but it is easier because they don’t have to worry about when to introduce the new person to the kids.

He laughs and says that his wife stopped giving head 13 years ago, right after their eldest child was born.Â But now that they are friends with benefits it is a regular course on the menu. No one tells him that no one liked her or that we expected that one day they would split.

I thank him for giving me nightmares and he says I should talk. I ask him what he is referring to and he tells me that he walked in on me in college. I give him a puzzled look and he tells me about some party he remembers from 1987. I still don’t know what he is talking about and ask him if he is certain it was me.

From across the table there are a couple of loud guffaws and our buddy says that if I can’t remember she certainly won’t. I smile and tell him that I am sure that he is right. Thank G-d that I have kids to prove my manhood. I must have figured out how to do it right a few times.

For a moment there is silence. It is sort of a melancholy silence. Good memories intermixed with painful realities. More stories are exchanged and suggestions offered. I tell them about the things that I find most challenging and give an outline for my plan.

I am optimistic, but a bit frustrated. I feel like I am in a tunnel.I can see daylight, but can’t quite get there. There are no road maps. It feels a bit like Let’s Make a Deal. I know what I have in hand. It might do what I need it to. It might be possible to make it all happen.

But the possibility of what could lie behind door number one nag at me. Little whispers suggest that it is time toÂ make a bigger move and to take a risk. But I am not certain yet and there is no Monty Hall to push me to choose now.

So I shrug my shoulders and decide to walk a bit further down this road and see what happens. The party is breaking up. It is time for us to get back to reality. There is work to be done and projects to attend to. We stand up, shake hands and walk to our cars.

The warmth of the sun on my back makes me smile. It has restorative powers. Hard to believe that somewhere across the country people are trudging through snow. Harder yet to believe that the pot of gold we seek isn’t located somewhere beneath these endless blue skies. All we have to do is find it.

How Do You Become a Father?

December 16, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

How do you become a father? It sounds like a ridiculous question. Way back in prehistoric times when Jack was a wee lad the question was asked by the older brother of a friend. He answered with a cackle, “stick it in and bounce up and down.”

I think I was about seven or eight. Can’t say that I remember for certain. But I know that I didn’t have a clue what to stick where or how you were supposed to bounce while doing that. I didn’t ask either. Funny to think of it, but by then I already knew that sometimes you nodded your head and pretended that you understood whatever was being discussed.

Flash forward a few decades. I am 30 years old and in the process of trying to get the wife pregnant. For years this has been verboten. Much effort has been expended in trying to practice the bouncing up and down and a few prayers have been uttered in the hope that the miracle of life doesn’t happen this time.

It is a strange feeling, this trying to get pregnant thing. I have heard stories from friends who are unable to get to pregnant that I need to relax. One of them tells me that he hates having sex. I look at him with wide eyes and ask why. He tells me that they have been trying forever and the wife is losing her mind.

She has implemented a regimented schedule for sex and is having trouble sleeping because that thing that we didn’t want to happen in college won’t happen now. I look at him and ask if he is serious. He tells me that when they first started trying it was like manna from heaven. He couldn’t provide enough servicing and that somehow heaven has turned into hell.

I hear other stories that are similar and a bunch in which I am told that all he had to do was look at her and nine months later a baby would pop out.

It is all a bit disconcerting, but I am excited about it. I figure that everyone is different and I will just have to see what happens. As it works out it doesn’t take all that long. In fact, we get the news one day before we leave on a trip.

The airport makes me think that I am starring in a movie. Kids are screaming and parents are scrambling. Wives are yelling at their husbands to help or get something out some bag. I am not scared. Grew up in a house full of kids with parents who seemed to know what they were doing.

Still, I am wound up. I know that this time I have jumped off the cliff for real and am trying to learn how to fly before I hit the bottom.

Days later I am standing in the middle of Manhattan holding my oldest nephew. He is little, just an infant. I hold him in front of me and stare at him. He stares back.I ask him to tell me a story and he burps. I ask him if that is the best that he’s got and he gurgles.

I put him in his stroller and we cross the street. A car comes perilously close and I yell at the driver. My sister screams at me about being in New York and that people are crazy. I stare at her and ask when L.A. turned into podunk.

I am streetwise. I am 5’10 two hundred something pounds and I will not let anyone hurt my nephew. At that moment it occurs to me that if I feel this strongly about protecting my nephew it is only going to get more interesting when my kid arrives.

On a side note I look at my sister and tell her to push the damn stroller. They don’t build them with men in mind, at least not normal sized men. Later on I find out that my friend who is 6’2 has an extension put on his stroller so that it is more comfortable to push around.

Flash forward a bit and my son has arrived. He is small enough to fit in my arms like a football. The two of us are alone in the condo we live in. I am telling him stories about anything and everything. I ask him how long I have to wait for him to talk so that I understand what he wants, tell him that it is true that the world can be his.

He takes a nap in my arms and I think about how crazy this is. Not so long before one of his great grandfathers tells me that you never stop worrying about your children. I say something like “really” and he starts laughing, tells me that even though my father is in his fifties he worries about him.

My son and I sit on the couch, or should I say that I sit on the couch and listen to him snore in my ear. I stare off into space and wonder what the future is going to be like. Who will he grow up to be and how will I help him get there.

It feels like a lifetime since those days and yet he is still young and there is so much left to do and to learn. And that is the underlying lesson and message of this post, I am a father. I am a good father, but I am still learning how to do it.

The Pressures of Parenthood

November 19, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Something is off and I can’t quite figure out what it is. Must be my Mojo. That crazy broad the Shmata Queen must have run off with it or hidden it. I hate when that happens.

Fortunately I have a spare. Actually I have more than a few that I keep secured in a secret vault that she doesn’t have access to. I don’t mind mentioning this because she is on a secret mission and is not currently reading this. And even if she comes back early from her hiatus it won’t matter because by that point I’ll have reacquired my mojo.

That mojo thing is important. It is part of what keeps me going. It is part of how I deal with the pressures of parenthood. It helps keep me balanced.

When my oldest was born I kept looking for the manual that comes with babies. It is not like I was going to read it. I am a man. We don’t ask for directions, we just find our way.

I suppose that there might be a nugget or two of useful information in that manual. Maybe there is a section that provides instruction for how to deal with trying to launch a new business during hard economic times. Or a section that tells you what to do when dealing with a crazy woman.

Actually there is a big yellow book at Borders, called “Women for Dummies” but why would I bother with that. In case you haven’t noticed, when I find myself in a hole I just keep digging. If I stick at it I’ll eventually find myself in China at which point I’ll set up a new import/export business.

Hey, speaking of China do you think that Marco Polo had any idea that one day he’d be turned into a game we play in swimming pools.

I am rambling. I do it often and I do it well. I do it when I am happy and when I am stressed out. And now I am stressed out.

The new business is in the very early stages. It is like a little fetus except a fetus has more protection than this does. Every day I look in the mirror and ask myself if now is the right time to do this. Two kids in private school and a mortgage suggest that it is absolutely the worst time.

Then again the economy is terrible. Every day businesses are going under, people are losing their homes and things are generally less stable than they could be. And that tells me that now is a good time to try.

Why? Because I like going against the grain. I like swimming upstream. Some people do it the easy way and then there is Jack, he does it the hard way. Did I mention that I have a second business I want to try and launch now.

************

Last night I sat and watched the dark haired beauty sleep. Long black curls strewn across a pixie doll face that was the picture of innocence. I sat and thought about her and wondered what sort of woman she is going to become. She tells me that when I am really old I am going to come live with her so that she can take care of me.

The thought made me smile. She doesn’t realize that when she was born I promised to take care of her for her entire life. And if nothing else I have another couple of decades before she’ll be old enough to handle herself.

I made my way over to her check on her brother and marveled over the sleeping giant. He is huge now. Ok, he is normal size for his age, but he looks huge to me. He is big enough to make wrestling more challenging. It used to be effortless, now, I need to pay a little attention to it.

He asked me if I would ever have a job where we could work together. I shrugged and told him that it might happen one day. Haven’t a clue if the businesses I am working on now will be of any interest to him. Right now I just hope that they’ll be successful us to merit the opportunity.

I can’t help but wonder if it is a mistake going this route. I can’t help but wonder if I should focus on the corporate world. Work for a company that is stable, offers a strong compensation package that includes benefits. Would it provide more security. Would it be better for my family. Am I am taking on unnecessary risk by doing this now.

In theory this is something that I should have tried before the kids came along. Would have been a hell of Â a lot easier. But I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have the skill set that I have now and more importantly I didn’t have the mental toughness.

I am comfortable and confident saying that. It is true. So in some ways now really is the right time to try, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a bit nervous.

The one thing that I know for certain is that a year from now life is going to be different, I just don’t know exactly how different it will be.

The Bicycle

March 29, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

To me the most challenging part of blogging is the aggravation I feel when the words don’t flow from my fingertips. That is because writing is something that is easy for me. It usually doesn’t require much effort for me to construct these posts. I just sit down and start typing.

And while I have often wished that I was a better writer I rarely find myself comparing my ability to another. I do what I do and most of the time that suffices. Parenting is a different story altogether.

I think that I am a good father. My children are happy and well adjusted, but it is hard not to second guess decisions. It is hard not to wonder about some things. It is hard not to look at my own childhood and feel badly that my children don’t have everything that I had.

Let me clarify what I mean by that. From a number of perspectives they have far more than my siblings and I ever did. They have plenty of toys and have had many experiences that I didn’t get to participate in. But there are some significant things that they don’t have.

I grew up in a world in which we played outside without supervision. I grew up in a world in which we rode our bikes anywhere and everywhere. I have memories of our mothers coming outside to call us in for dinner. If I close my eyes I can hear their voices and hear us yelling back that we’d come home soon.

My kids don’t have that. We live in a safe neighborhood but it is a time when parents don’t parent the way ours did. It is a time of fear and uncertainty. You just don’t see elementary school age children walking to school, not the way that we did. And that makes me sad.

When they get a bit older they’ll be able to do it. When they get a bit older it will be easier to let them go do some of these things on their own. So it is not as if it won’t ever happen, it is just going to take a bit longer for them to do this than it did for us.

So while the world may have progressed well beyond where it was when I was a child this is one area that it has not and that really is too bad. It is a big loss. And that is part of why I sometimes find myself thinking hard about moving to a place where they can have that, but where that is I am not really sure.

A Good Father

January 28, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

The beauty of attending a reunion like I did is that it forces you to look at your life and think about what it is that you are doing. Because when you run around a room telling people from your past about your present you have your nose pushed right into a pile of life.

I spent a chunk of time Saturday night listening to people spin tales about who they are and what they do. I am not trying to say that people were lying or embellishing the truth, but in many cases that is exactly what they did.

Some of the people that we thought of as being goofballs or least likely to succeed are incredibly successful now. And some of those we expected to be a huge succeess were not. It is not easy to look some of them in the eye and tell a story about a life that hasn’t lived up to what you wanted. It is even harder when you listen to someone shout with such exuberance about how things are better than they ever could have imagined.

Now it is no secret that the last four years have been harder for me than I would have ever expected. I have faced some challenges that I couldn’t have foreseen. I have dealt with unfair situations and circumstances and done the best that I could. Sometimes I fell down. Sometimes I simply failed.

But there were other moments when I didn’t. There were moments when I succeeded in spite of the stumbling blocks that were set before me. I’d like to say that there were more succcesses than failures, but I am not completely sure that it is so.

What I can say is that these experiences have provided a sort of hard scrabble education. I have learned things about myself that will inevitably help me. I have stood in the fire and watched the flames burn me. I know, it is bit melodramatic but it is how I feel.

It has also helped to clarify not just what I want, but what I need. And that is something that some people never quiet figure out. I can tell you what I want with a lot of detail and know that it is accurate. I can also tell you that I am working to achieve those goals and that I am doing my best to do it without wreaking havoc everywhere.

If you want to know how this applies to being a good father, well I can give you a number of explanations. I am a good father. I work hard for my family and do a lot to give the children a great life. But I can do better. I am falling short in some areas. There are some things that I can improve at and I am working on it.

I can tell you that I believe that my children are going to be able to look at my life and learn a lot from it. They’ll be able to see that I have made a lot of mistakes but that I have also made a lot of smart moves.

If all goes as I hope it will those lessons will serve them well. One of the most important lessons is how to keep going when it feels like the world is collapsing. It is something that I saw with my parents and something that I hope that I can pass along.

When it is all said and done I think that the most important part of being a good father is giving your children the tools to live a good life. If I can do that then I am fairly confident that they’ll make good choices, at least I hope so.

I won’t be defined solely by the deeds and actions of my children, but I do hope that when I am gone they have nothing but fond memories of me as having been a good father.

How To Deal With Failure

April 10, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Rocky Balboa: I’d hold you up to say to your mother, “this kid’s gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid’s gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew.” And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching you, every day was like a privilege.

Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow.

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.

You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!

Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody!
Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!
(You can see the clip here.)

Some of you may roll your eyes, but as my friend RWAC will tell you that scene is a great teaching tool. Life is hard. Life can be very good, but it can also be exceptionally rough. As a father one of the most important jobs I have is to teach my children how to deal with failure and how to overcome adversity.

*Unless you are the lead dog the scenery never changes*

Part of me hates that line and part of me hates me for hating it, more on that a different day. The real comment here is that our society expends copious amounts of energy lauding winners. Coaches tell their players that second place is for losers. Commentators made up of former athletes talk about how they managed to overcome adversity to win the championship, gold medal whatever.

Next to no time is spent on those who didn’t win. I am a realist. My kids are not always going to be the best, sometimes they are going to lose. So my job is to help them learn from those experiences, teach them how to use that in a positive fashion and not allow them to be overwhelmed by negative energy.

As their daddy I have very clear goals for them. The number one goal is for them to be happy and well adjusted. In my mind that means that they need to learn how to live with themselves so that when the lights go out and they are alone with their thoughts they can close their eyes and feel good about who they are.

Coping with failure doesn’t mean that you don’t try hard or do your best. If you want to feel good about yourself than it is a moral imperative to go out and try. If you do your best and you fail, well that may not be a great feeling but you know that you put the effort in.

I don’t have any illusions that sometimes this philosophy of mine is going to fall short. I have written about my own frustrations with not being good enough. It hurts to come so close and to still fall short. There may be a door or two that needed patching, but I’ll never say for certain.

So the trick here is to try and teach them the balance. I want them to go for it. I want them to try hard. I don’t want them to just settle, not unless they absolutely have to.

Settling- that is a conversation that the boys and I seem to have a lot lately. What are you willing to do to ensure your happiness. What compromises are you willing to make. What role do your children play. How long do you subjugate your wishes and your desires for them. But again, that is a different post.

My son loves to wrestle with me. We go at it every day. And every day I win. But I am careful about how I win. When he was a little bit younger it used to kill him to lose. He hated it, but over time he has learned the difference between losing a battle and winning the war.

When we finish I often ask him for his thoughts. Tonight he told me that he thinks that eventually he is going to win because I get tired more easily. I was very proud of him. Not only did he not care that I won, but he has begun to notice my weaknesses. It may sound silly, but I love it.

It shows that he is thinking and that is what I want him to do. I want him to focus on the bigger picture and not get caught up in narishkeit. Now he understands why it is important to practice. Now he sees that if he works at it he will succeed.

Of course once I stopped huffing and puffing I went and banged out several sets of push ups. With any luck I should be able to maintain my dominance until I am 50 something. You know us men, the fragile male ego is not nearly ready to lose to my little boy.

Anyway, let’s get back to the topic of failure or perhaps we should just call it dealing with adversity. The bottom line here is simple. If the adults in his life don’t teach him what do when things get rough, then it is we who have failed and that sort of failure is the kind that I just cannot accept.
(TherapyDoc can take responsibility inspiring this post. Go take a look at her blog and tell her I say hi.)