Riley’s lesson in fatherhood

Riley couldn’t stand to be alone with me for at least three solid months after we first adopted him. Riley happens to be a dog, by the way. We don’t know exactly why, but we suspect he had some bad experiences with men before he became part of our family.

I remember one morning, I was feeding Riley before work. At the recommendation of a friend, I had been in the habit of feeding Riley from his bowl with my hand. Apparently, that’s a technique used by handlers of military and police dogs (or something like that) that builds trust between the dog and their partner.

This particular morning, Riley was refusing to eat. He wouldn’t eat anything from my palm. I distinctly remember, I was on the linoleum floor in the kitchen of our tiny apartment, literally on my hands and knees, trying to coax Riley to eat. Dude wouldn’t budge.

And so we sat there. 5 minutes went by, then 10, and 15. Maybe even 20 minutes had passed. I was fuming because Riley was refusing to eat and I needed to hop in the shower to avoid being late for work. And yet, nothing. Kid wouldn’t eat, and would just point his snout in the opposite direction, rebuffing my offer of kibble for breakfast. I was losing my mind, and getting progressively angrier.

When I was at my wit’s end, I had this idea. What if I “spoke Riley’s language” and growled and howled at him. I figured that if I showed enough aggression, it might startle him into eating - you know, put him on the defensive.

In retrospect, this was obviously a terrible idea and a horrible approach to even contemplate. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I even tried it, because it’s obviously callous. Unsurprisingly, it had no effect. Riley still wouldn’t eat.

And during this excruciatingly stupid experiment, I had an epiphany. I realized that I couldn’t control Riley. Even though he was a dog, and even though I had pretty much all the real power in our relationship, I literally couldn’t control him - I couldn’t make him eat.

But in addition to not having the ability to control Riley, I realized that I didn’t want to control Riley. Because as I growled and got in Riley’s face on our kitchen floor, I realized that to control Riley, I might have to go the distance. I might have to make him submit to me. I might have to get in his face for weeks. I might have to yank his collar and threaten him or shame him with persistence. Because in Riley’s case, I knew he wouldn’t budge easily; it was clear his issues with men were deep-rooted.

To control him, I realized, I might put myself on a slippery slope that started with a desire for obedience but ended in physical or emotional abuse. Because if Riley kept refusing food, for example, I’d have to increase the intensity of whatever control tactic I was using. And if I had to exert dominance to control him for something like food, some other behavior of obedience was probably next. And then, what would be there to stop me from crossing the line from control to abuse?

The alternative, I decided in that moment, while I was literally hand-feeding Riley on my knees in our apartment, was to treat Riley as an equal. Not equal in the sense that he was a peer - after all, I do have a duty and responsibility to take care of and raise Riley - but as someone worth of equal treatment and respect.

Which is a radically different perspective, especially for a dog. And it looks really different to raise and care for a dog if I’m trying to treat him with equal respect, rather than trying to control him. In practice, it meant that I had to earn his trust to eat from my hand, rather than trying to bully him into it. I had to be incredibly consistent with trying to calm him down on walks in the neighborhood rather than yanking him around on his leash every time he stopped to smell a rock or chase a squirrel.

As is said by Mary Poppins, in the iconic film, I had to be “always firm, but never cross.” And that takes tremendous patience, nudging, trust, and self-control. And honestly, everything takes so much longer when you’re actively trying not to control him. And it took months to even get Riley to show any signs of progress or positive feeling toward me.

And, if I’m being transparent - there have been lots of  times since that morning in the kitchen where I’ve exploded at Riley and regressed into this dynamic where I utilize control tactics instead of tactics governed by the principles of equal treatment and respect. 

And I don’t how it would’ve turned out if I had kept trying to control him, but Riley and I do have a great relationship now - he trusts me and I trust him.  Everyday is still a challenge (especially when the mail carrier shows up in the middle of a Zoom call), but it’s okay that our relationship is still a work in progress.

The lesson from all this has been profound, as I’ve become a father to our sons. I realized the situation with Riley was more generalizable: if I want to control anyone’s behavior - Riley’s, our sons’, my colleagues’, my wife’s or anyone else - it might require me to abuse them at some point. Which leaves me with a choice: try to control someone and risk crossing a line, or, let go of wanting to control them in the first place.

But actively choosing not to control someone is difficult, as any parent would probably attest. When our sons are yelling at me, kicking me, and sometimes literally trying to spit in my face, I want to control them so that they stop. When we’re late to go somewhere, I want to control them so that they pick up the pace. At these high-pressure times It’s really hard to treat them as an equal, because it’s honestly incredibly inconvenient to do so. Having control of them would be so much easier!

And this approach of treating my sons as my equal is incredibly hard, for a few reasons. For one, sometimes my children need me to take control of a difficult situation because they’re too young to assess or handle the consequences of their actions. And controlling a situation and controlling them is a slippery slope in and of itself. But perhaps more so, I feel like I’ve been programmed to control my kids, not treat them as equals. The language and concepts our culture uses around children reinforces obedience and control. We’re expected not to have our kids throw tantrums in public. We use the words “mommy” and “papa” in the third person which reinforces the positional, hierarchical relationship between parent and child, at least somewhat. And in the back of my mind there’s always this simmering pressure of wanting my kids to be “successful” so they can earn a living and be independent someday, yes, but also because I know my children are a reflection on me. So yes, I feel like there are cultural tailwinds that encourage me to “control” our children.

But that experience on the floor trying to growl Riley into eating his breakfast left a lasting impression in my mind. I can’t shake the thought that control over someone else might require abusing them, in some way, eventually. And so I’m trying to imagine, “if I parented our sons not as peers but still as equals, what would that look like?” I’m still trying to figure it out, but it’s involved a lot of “I messages”, candor, patience, and transparency.

And honestly, I’m still really terrible at this approach to parenting. I slip into control-freak mode often with Bo and Myles, especially when we’re around hot frying pans, vehicular traffic, and sharp objects. But I think it’s worth it to keep trying. 

Because what happens when they’re adults if all I’ve done their whole lives is try to control what they do? They’ll eventually have the freedom to make their own choices, would they know how to handle that freedom if I’ve stolen the chance for them to explore it their whole lives? I feel like I owe it to them to try, and fail my way through it. Hopefully, someday I’ll get it right.

Walk beyond me

Myles,

8 days ago, my boy, you took your first steps. It was a Saturday. Your mother and I were in the family room with you on the floor and we were playing with Hot Wheels or magnets I think while your brother napped.

And you were up, holding onto your mother. And then you reached out to me, with your mouth-open smile, balanced, and took four steps toward me.

And we were so proud and happy for you. You are growing, and you are starting to cleave away from us, already, and take your own path in life.

But I want you to know, Myles, that those steps are not for me. You do not need to take steps - literally or figuratively - to please me. I am your father, but your life is not for my pleasure.

And you are our second child, as you know. And as it happens, your brother took his first steps in almost exactly the same place, in our family room. And you, son, need not follow in his footsteps, either. You are your own person, with your own gifts. We already see this. You and your brother are best friends, even now and I am overcome with a deep joy that you will be able to walk together in life. But you are each your own. You are each one of a kind.

It was a very sweet memory for your mother and I to have, to see you and hold you as you took your first steps. But this letter to you, also, is not for my pleasure. I want you to remember, yes, that your steps are not for me and nor do you have to follow the footsteps of your brother. But equally, I write this so you can remember that your steps are not fully yours alone either.

I hope you realize that the steps you take, matter. I hope you realize that you have the capability to carry others forward as you walk. I hope you choose to walk toward goodness and with righteousness with every step you take. I hope you walk with conviction and take steps in a direction that push our community and the human race forward. And I hope you relish the journey of love, honor, and service that is symbolized by the taking of a long walk.

But more than anything, Myles (and I mean this for your older brother too) that one day, you will walk past me. And you must walk past me. It is difficult for me to even acknowledge that one day I will not be able to walk with you. One day, I will be feeble and my footsteps will falter and I will return to our common father.

But know this: I want you to walk beyond the rim of the mountain where my life ends. I will carry you and your brother as far as I can. But as I falter, you must continue. You must walk beyond me. And don’t for a moment believe that I resent that you will reach lands and truths I will not. I will not look upon my departure from discovered to undiscovered country as a sunset of my own life. I will see that moment as the light of morning, where the moon and night ends, yes, but are eclipsed by a greater light.

You have taken your first steps, Myles, and you are well on your way. I will treasure the steps I get to take with you. But one day, when I return to dust, walk beyond me.

Love,

Your Papa

When our kids have hard days

The first words he said to me, as he had the purple towel draped generously over his wet hair and entire frame, were,

“It was a hard day, Papa.”

And then he melted into me, and I, on one knee, wrapped my arms around him and started to rub his back - both to help him dry off and comfort him. And we just stayed there, hugging on the bathroom floor for awhile.

And that’s one of the saddest type of moments I think I’ve had - when you’re kid is just sad. And yes even at three years old and change, he can have hard days and recognize that those days were hard. 

And it wasn’t even that I felt and explosive, caustic sadness, where you feel the sadness growing and pushing out from core to skin. Like a sadness that smolders into my limbs and mind, and makes them feel like burning. 

It was a depleting sadness, where I started to feel my heart shrinking, my bones and muscles hollowing, and my face and skin starting to feel...transparent maybe. It was a sadness that made me feel like I was disappearing.

When your own children - the ones you have a covenant with God and the universe to take care of - are truly sad, it’s a feeling you want to pass as quickly as possible, and never want to have again.

And when I realized that I “never want to feel this way again”, I started to get these two primal-feeling urges.

First I wanted to “fix it”. And “fixing it” has two benefits. First, it just stops this horrible feeling of depleting sadness. Because if I fix it, my son isn’t sad anymore, and therefore I’m not sad anymore.

But also, if I were the one who failed my son somehow and caused him to fall into this genuine sadness, fixing it is my redemption. Fixing the sadness is what helps me to feel like I’m not to blame. Because if I’ve fixed the external problem causing his sadness - the problem wasn’t me, it was that thing. Fixing it gives me the illusion that I’m the hero in this story, not the villain.

But beyond wanting to fix it, there was a more insidious urge, that crept on me slowly, was to believe this falsehood of, “maybe he’s just not ready” or “maybe we need to protect him more”. 

And the fuzzy logic of that urge is this: If my kid is sad, there’s something out there that he can’t handle yet. And if I hold him back from going back out there, he’s less likely to have a hard day. Then he won’t be sad. And then I won’t feel this depleting sadness either.

But the problem with both of these responses is that if I find a way to let myself off the hook, it also deprives him of the opportunity to grow, and muddle his way through his sadness. Our kids will have hard days, and those days will suck. And on those days, we have to bring our best selves as parents. Because that’s when our kids need us to guide them, and love them, and coach them, and encourage them. And, many of those times we won’t be good enough; we will fail as parents and coaches. And they will have to muddle through that sadness for a longer. And we will feel depleted for longer, too.

But, damn. From those hard days, and that sadness, comes strength and confidence for our kids. Once they muddle through sadness, they have one more datapoint to add to their model to remind them that they can do this, they can figure this out, they can be themselves, they can be at peace, and they can rise up and through adversity. 

And even though my instinct is to help my sons avoid sadness, I cannot let that instinct win. Because that instinct is selfish. What that motive truly is, is me wanting to avoid that horrible, depleting sadness that comes when your kids are sad. 

Because these kids will have hard days. They will be sad. And even though my instinct is to make it stop as quickly as possible, and to never let this happen to them ever again, I must resist that selfish urge to fix their problems for them.

What I really need to do is comfort them, encourage them, love them, and coach them, and show them that no matter what happens I will be with them in this foxhole of sadness until they find a way out, no matter what.

And that I will be there, and support them in a way that doesn’t deprive them of the chance to come out of it stronger, kinder, and wiser.

Debrief questions for parents (and coaches)

I have been struggling for a long time thinking about how to teach our sons “character.” They won’t learn it from a book, nor will sending them to Catholic school magically make that happen.

What dawned on me this week, is that I can debrief with them. And really do that intentionally.

I attended a wonderful summer camp in high school, it was “student council camp.” And there were lots of character building-activities, that I still remember and think about often. 

When I become a camp counselor, I had the opportunity to facilitate those character-building activities. And what we always said amongst other counselors is that it’s not the activity that teaches anything, “it’s all about the debrief.”

Debriefing - the process of helping others learn from their own experiences - is a hard-earned skill. It’s not easy. But it’s essentially all about asking the sequence of questions that highlight the salient information which lead to a a novel insight.

During a debrief, the goal isn’t to tell anyone anything, the goal is to nudge them along by bringing relevant facts to the debriefee’s attention which causes them to have an “aha moment”. In those aha moments, so to speak, they learn a lesson on their own. Good debriefers don’t teach, they help others teach themselves.

Cutting to the chase, I started putting a list of questions that could be used to debrief, even with young children. I needed to write them down to debrief myself I suppose. 

I share that list here in case it’s useful to those of us that are parents or coaches. I also share it here in hopes that others share their own debrief questions. If you’re uncomfortable leaving a comment, please do contact me if you have a thought to share, I’d be happy to append it anonymously.

Debrief Questions for Parents and Coaches

• How do you feel right now?

• Are you okay?

• Can you tell me exactly what happened?

• Then what happened?

• What were you thinking right before you did X?

• How do you think this made [Name] feel?

• What can you do to make this right?

• Why didn’t X, Y, or Z happen instead?

• What were you trying to do by doing X?

• What could you have done instead of X?

• Was doing X okay, or not okay? Why?

• What else happened because you did X?

• Do you have any questions for me?

• What are you going to do differently next time?

• What happens next, right now?

I hope our kids are not happy, but rather happy enough

I think there’s a shift happening with Millennials that is still mostly invisible. It’s in how we’re raising our children. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. 

My parents, aunts, and uncles had a similar sentiment  when they described what they wanted for us kids. They wanted us to be happy. Since having our two sons, I’ve come to realize I don’t want that. I don’t want them to be happy. I want them to be happy enough.

Yes, I do want our kids be comfortable, safe, healthy, respected, and be able to enjoy some amount of luxury in their lives. But there was a time in my twenties where I had those things, and not only was I miserable, it was a waste.

Yes, when I was a young adult, I had a well-paid, high-status job. It afforded me a comfortable, secure, lifestyle and a lot of fun nights out at the pub. I exercised a lot. I had time to do whatever I wanted. So I was indeed happy.

But it turned out not to be the life I wanted. Every year since my father passed, my life has become harder. Like, every single year Robyn and I think it can’t get any more intense, and then it does. We’ve come to expect more pain, so to speak, with each passing year.

But even though life is more painful, difficult, demanding, frustrating, exhausting, and less “happy”, it’s somehow better. It’s because we’re having to make sacrifices - for our children, pup, family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and clients. All this suffering brings something, but I wouldn’t call it happiness, and it’s not even always a feeling of joy. It’s something that I prefer to happiness, but I don’t know what the word for it is.

Now of course, this situation would not be possible if we were starving, depressed, ill, wounded, freezing, wet, or alone. So to have a shot at this graceful suffering, we have to avoid the senseless stuff. We have to be comfortable enough. Safe enough, healthy enough, respected enough, content enough. Happy enough. Senseless suffering makes graceful suffering impossible.

Please, God, let our children’s suffering be graceful instead of senseless.

But I see the allure of wishing “happiness” upon our children. Seeing our kids unhappy - sick, despondent, or in unrelenting pain - is torturous to me. Literally, the best way for someone to torture me would be to hurt my children. Honestly, I am on the edge of weeping when one of ours just has “tummy troubles”. And so the sentiment of a person wanting their kids to be happy makes sense to me, because it’s a way to avoid torture.

At the same time, I’ve lived a life of “happiness” and comfort, and I didn’t want it. I don’t think our kids will want that, either. So I pray for them to not be happy, but happy enough. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I think it’s possible that I’m not.

The blessing of lightness

Boys,

For your whole lives, my objective as a father is only one: to help you become good people.

Yes, you will need to learn to clothe and feed yourselves, because if you do not live you cannot become more good, so I will teach you that stuff too. But the full force of my fatherhood, my whole purpose behind being your father is one thing: goodness.

But I can’t force you to take the long, arduous walk of becoming good. You need to want to. Here are a few reasons, in their most concise form:

• To please your parents (to be sure, this is a very bad reason, but it is a reason).

• Because other people will shame you for being bad (this reason works, but it comes with great cost. And I don’t think it’s sustainable or reliable, especially if you keep poor company).

• Achieving Moksha (or reaching heaven, avoiding hell, or achieving enlightenment - insert whatever equivalent concept you want. But this reason is only for the faithful, and therefore inadequate).

• Because it’s very difficult to live in a free society if people are wicked, so we have to do our part (but this reason has such a long payoff, and is so dependent on others it feels futile).

These are all reasons, and as you can see they are all problematic for one reason or another. But there is one more thing to understand on this matter.

Lightness.

I have felt lightness three times, in my entire life. I remember each moment like it happened no more than an hour ago, so deep was the feeling of lightness. It was something that appealed directly to my soul and held it warmly for a fleeting moment.

The first time was when I was little. We were on a trip to Gwalior - where your Dada and Dadi grew up. I was with them and after 2 days of travel, we were finally coming down the street to my Nani’s house. Almost our entire family (on the Bhansali side) was there, waiting for us, to see us because in those days we couldn’t afford to visit except for every few years. They all welcomed us, yelling, singing, all of us crying because the family was together again, finally. It was as if many generations of love were put straight into my heart all at once. And in that moment, I felt lightness.

The second time was on the day your mother and I were married. I was waiting at the altar for your mother to be escorted by your Granddad down the aisle. The organist started playing, and the back doors of the church swung open. And there was your mother in her wedding dress, wearing Grandma Lou’s necklace. And she smiled at me. And it was as if my soul lifted out of my body for a moment to dance with hers, and in that moment I felt lightness.

The third was with you, Bo. It was mid-June of this year. We had been under stay-at-home orders for the Coronavirus Pandemic for several months by this point. We just had a rough few days - you were anxious and I had been losing my temper a lot. But it was a beautiful day and your brother was napping upstairs so we had a few minutes to ourselves. We were listening to The Lion King soundtrack in the backyard, dancing together. And as the Circle of Life started to crescendo, I lifted you up and spun you around. The sky was so blue, the sun was so warm, and we were smiling. And in that moment I felt so completely connected to you it was as if we had all space and time to ourselves for a few seconds. And in that moment I felt lightness.

And Myles, for some reason when I first see you in the morning you light up. As your mother said the other day, it’s like “he’s been waiting his whole life just to see you.” And I don’t know if that feeling you seem to be having is lightness, but it might be. But just the beautiful, precious possibility of being a brief and small part of creating lightness in you is one of my life’s most sacred joys.

And I tell you both this, not because I think the reward of trying to become good is lightness. Lightness is not a reason to be good. It is not a means or an end. I do not think we could conjure it up, even if we tried.

It is a blessing of the long walk, born of the ardor, sacrifice, and suffering that is inevitable if we try to become good. And oh what a blessing it is.

Love,
Your Papa

One less reason, or, People Who Look Like Me (and my sons)

Yesterday, I came across this clip of Chadwick Boseman on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. It moved me to tears.

The scene is staged with a room that contains a framed moved poster for Black Panther. Fans are delivering video messages of appreciation to Boseman. What they do not know, is that the actor is behind the curtain watching them speak in real-time. He then surprisingly pops out to say hello, and the exchanges Boseman and his fans were emotional, funny, and for me transcendent. 

I finally internalized what it meant to have people of color who look like you, who are pathbreaking.

The appropriate context here (especially if it's you Bo and Myles who are reading this many years after 2020), is that I've never had a well-known Indian-American that I've related to AND been inspired by.

There are plenty of Indian-American politicians, but many are so far outside of the mainstream that I don't relate to them. The others seem like they've anglicized themselves to win votes.

The lndian-American cultural figures, like actors, businesses executives, and television personalities, either have played caricatures of Indians or are in fields (e.g., like Dr. Sanjay Gupta or Dr. Atul Gawande) that are already associated with Indian vocations, or, they're not American-born (e.g., like Satya Nadella).

And more than that, I've never seen any Indian-Americans that have had a gravitas, grace, or poise about them that have made them exceptional (at least in a domain that resonates with me).

When I saw the Fallon clip, I realized that Chadwick Boseman wasn't just a good actor that played the Black Panther, Jackie Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall. He had gravitas. He was exceptionally talented. He had grace. He was so profoundly regal when playing king T'Challa that his playing of the role was pathbreaking, especially when so much of what Black Panther was is unique and pathbreaking on its own. He persisted through serious illness, in private, to make a gigantic cultural impact.

I remember the second Halloween we had in our home in Detroit. It was 2018, after Black Panther had come out earlier that year. There were so many young, black, men who dressed as the Black Panther. They wanted to be like Chadwick Boseman / King T'Challa. And truth be told, I want to be like King T'Challa. Boseman's work inspired me, too.

And I think there are a handful of people who were not just good at their jobs, they are pathbreaking for one reason or another. People like President Obama, or Beyonce, or a in-process example might be AOC. Or JK Rowling, or Dolly Parton, or Oprah. Or FDR, Viktor Frankl, or perhaps even Eminem. These people did not just make exceptional contributions, they have compelling character or inspiring personal stories.

A lot of people talk about how it's important to have role models that look like you. The narrative around that idea is often something like, "if they made it, I can make it." But I'd put a different spin on it: if they made it my [South Asian ancestry, but everyone fills in their own blank] is no longer a reason why I can't make the contribution I want to. And honestly, it's no longer an excuse either. And that’s truly liberating.

And why I mention that reframe is because for me (and I think this is true with a lot of minority groups) I have this soundtrack in my head telling me that I shouldn't try to do hard things, because I'm destined to fail. Because I'm Indian, or because I'm short. Or because I didn't go to Harvard. Or because my parents are immigrants and don't have a rolodex full of connections. People like me don’t do stuff like this. People like me can’t make exceptional contributions and have grace and gravitas.

These are all these stories that I know are dumb to believe. But it's so freaking hard not to listen to those stories. Or not feel like you're an impostor that has to compensate for some deficiency. And by the way, I don't think anyone (even white men) is immune to this phenomenon. Everyone needs path breaking role models that are like them.

I didn't know until recently that Sen. Kamala Harris or Ambassador Nikki Haley were half Indian. And I was even more surprised to find out that both of them (in their own ways) haven't turned away from their South Asian heritage. They don't hide it, at least in my opinion.

And I suppose it remains to be seen whether either of them are truly pathbreaking, but I don't see any reason why they can't.

And I feel so relieved. I had been without role models who look like me for so long, I didn't realize how important it was to me personally, and how much having a role model that looked like me changed my perception of my own self.

But I am more relieved for my sons. If either Sen. Harris or Ambassador Haley becomes a President or Vice President (and serves with distinction), they are both very close role models for my mixed race half-Indian sons. And my sons will grow up their whole lives with a path breaking role model that proves to them that their mixed-race ancestry doesn't have stop them from making a generous contribution to their communities.

It is a wonderful gift for me, as their father, to know that even if there are so many other reasons for them to doubt themselves, with people like Senator Harris and Ambassador Haley, they have one less reason.

Joy, Sacrifice, and Cattails

“These are cattails, Papa!”

When we were at the Metropark, I had another one of those moments where I can see the world through our sons’ eyes. “Dang,” I thought, “Bo finds joy, somehow, wherever he is.”

And I began to contemplate, how does he do that? Bo was as happy, peaceful, and silly-seeking as he ever is finding Cattails with Mommy and chasing Dadi around a tree, on this grassy pointe we were on at this lake, on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning. 

And I was nostalgic, perhaps even a bit jealous as I watched him, laughing and enjoying the outside.

What happens to us along the way that makes it so that such little pleasures aren’t enough?

Later that week it hit me, one day our sons will grow out of this mindset too, and it will be my fault. 

As they grow, I will teach them to sacrifice for the future. I will have no choice but to. Trade one cookie now for two cookies later sort of stuff. Or, study now so you can earn a living later. Or, that kid came a long way to play here, want to help him up the slide instead of going yourself?

All the examples, and more, are ones that hold the basic structure of: invest for the future so the future can be better, it will be worth the wait.

And that point of view, will probably lead to him believing that there’s more to life than cattails, so to speak. 

As part of this growing up and learning to sacrifice, he will form beliefs on what “better” and “worth the wait” are. And my big gasp came when I realized that he will learn that from me. 

As he learns to make sacrifice, his perceptions of why we should sacrifice will come from me. Should it be to lift up ourselves, or lift up others? Should we always strive for more? What is valuable, money and status? Character? Nature? Family? Being popular? Faith? 

My example will dramatically influence what our boys will perceive as valuable and therefore what they sacrifice for. 

I hope we can live up to that responsibility. And with any luck, at my age, Bo will still find joy in little things like cattails on a sunny day at the lake. 

Here Comes the Sun

We are a family that sings.

It has always been this way. When we first started dating, your mother and I would sing along to the radio when on car rides. And both of us grew up in households radiating with music, because your grandparents love music.

Even the city where we live, Detroit, has a musical history. Motown Music - which your mother and I adore - was one of the most beloved sub-genres of music in the 20th century, and originated just a few miles from our house.

Your older brother sings to you when you are crying, already, just like your mother and I do.

I love to sing to you. And as it happens, you and your brother love the Beatles. Each of you, from the time you were both a few weeks old, took a liking to a specific Beatles song. In those early newborn days, I would try singing anything to rock you both to sleep and the Beatles are what you both responded to.

The Beatles song that comforts you, Here Comes the Sun, is a lovely tune. And it suits you.

One of the best ways to describe your emerging personality is that it is sunny. Your mother would often say, even at a month or two old, that "Myles is just happy to be here." Your smile and disposition, my son, is warm and calming.

By many accounts, your birth came at a dark time in contemporary human history. Just a few weeks after you were born, the novel coronavirus began spreading rapidly across the world, causing the worst pandemic any living person has ever seen.

The economic fallout of worldwide quarantine was also the most significant economic disruption any living person has probably ever lived through. And just a few weeks ago, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked global protests of police violence and racism, which again, are unprecedented.

You arrived in our arms just in time for a truly exceptional time in history.

On the surface, then, the song that soothes you seems ironically timed. The coming of the springtime sun seems out of tune with the arrival of a global pandemic, depression, and episode of civil unrest. Indeed, when I first realized that Here Comes the Sun helped settle you for sleep, when I sang it to you I thought of it as a prayer. I wanted the long, cold, lonely winter to subside. I hoped for the sun to come, and soon.

But recently I've wondered if the timing of Here Comes the Sun rising to prominence in our lives was not a prayer, but rather a sign that a prayer was being answered.

You're too young to realize this, and I'm only starting to see this too. But there has been something interesting happening during this pandemic. In communities all across the world, including our own, I am seeing courage, compassion, leadership, and kindness to a degree I've never seen it before. People of all ages are making sacrifices. People in my age group, who are sarcastically characterized as being self-absorbed and indulgent, are leading with integrity and making sacrifices, too.

Through all the darkness and malaise of this pandemic I see rays of light. I see the beginnings of a change in mindset. What I pray for and hope for is that this pandemic shines a light on our culture and reminds us that we are capable of making sacrifices to solve difficult, existential problems. That we are capable of rising above adversity and petty differences.

And most of all, I see hope that in the next decades my contemporaries and I will choose to meet difficult, global challenges with courage and confidence instead of running from them.

For us, Myles, you were a prayer answered. And amidst all this struggle, your arrival here reminds me that the sun is, and always was, coming.

A high five and bat signal to my working dad brethren

I was furloughed from my job on Monday, March 30.

As a result my wife upped her hours and I luckily fell into some part-time contract work. In normal circumstances this would be a monumental life change. But alas, in these times it’s only a contextual footnote.

We hit day 100 of staying at home with the kids, all day, this past Tuesday. It has been an awakening, particularly in how I think about being a father. The highlights of this awakening are probably not terribly different for you, if you’re also a young father.

First and foremost, it’s really damn hard to be lead parent, especially because we’re both working. I realized during this quarantine exactly how my wife puts our family on her back and carries us, day after day. It’s nothing short of astounding, and that’s not even emphasizing the economic value of that unpaid care-giving work.

But every day, I find myself thinking of this bizarre situation as a blessing. I get to be a stay-at-home dad. This was the paternity leave I never had the chance to have.

Being a working dad is frustratingly hard, and most days someone in our house has a meltdown, despite my best efforts. But being a full-time dad is the best “job” ever, most of the time. It has far exceeded my already high expectations. I would have never been able to understand what I was losing had this pandemic never happened. To boot, consistently getting the really hard reps of solo-parenting has made me a much better father. It’s embarrassing how clueless I was three months ago. What a blessing this has been.

It’s remarkable that so many dads are experiencing this role-reversal at the exact same time. I think it’s an inflection point because a curious thing seems to be happening culturally.

If you’re a parent to young children, I wonder if you’ve noticed this too: being a “working dad” feels a lot more normal. It’s like being a “working mom” was a thing before and being a working dad is finally a thing now too. By that I mean working dads seem to have become a real constituency with a common set of experiences, preferences, and at least some awareness of its existence as a group.

Before the pandemic that mold we were forced into as working dads - and men generally, to some degree - was much more rigid. To be a working dad was to grind at work, not talk about your kids much unless asked or unless you were complaining a bit. You talked about sports, business, alcohol, or politics with your buddies. You help out your partner but you’re still the primary breadwinner and they’re the primary caregiver, and those roles have specific expectations. And maybe you have one relatively masculine and socially expected hobby like working out, brewing beer, playing fantasy football, trying new restaurants, woodworking, a side hustle, or something like that.

And I could go on describing this persona, and I admit that I’m painting in broad strokes - but if you’re a parent of young children you hopefully intrinsically understand the motif I’m outlining. And candidly, the mold of what I feel like I am supposed to be as a young father is frustrating on a good day and sometimes becomes suffocating.

But something feels different now.

Most nice days over the past three months the boys (Bo, Myles, and our pup Riley) and I would go for a walk in our neighborhood before lunch time. Along the way we met a lot of neighbors. That was fun and expected.

I did not expect to meet a lot of other young fathers who were walking with their kids just like I was. Some were also furloughed, and everyone I met actually talked about it openly. Others were still working but were also splitting parenting duties with their partners. I even saw one of my neighbors outside this past week with his baby daughter on his lap, taking a conference call.

And, these neighborhood dads and I, we actually had conversations about what we’re thinking and feeling about as fathers right now, even if briefly. And these conversations with my neighbors about fatherhood had the same kind of easy, open feel as the conversations I hear my wife having with other moms. These were conversations that rebelled against the rigid, masculine, mold I’ve felt restrained by.

This is the first time I ever felt a culture of working dad-hood growing into my day-to-day life. Prior to this pandemic, I only ever talked openly about being a working dad quietly and with my closest friends. Now it’s something that feels more acceptable, probably because this pandemic has given young fathers a shared and significant life experience.

And now that many of us working dads are starting to go back to work and more “normal” activity is happening, I see this change more clearly. And I think it’s for the better. But my call to you, my working dad brethren, is that we cannot put up with some of this BS around being a parent any longer. We have to be done with this foolishness.

When we go back to work, we can’t put up with:

• Feeling awkward about taking our kids to the doctor or cutting out of work early to care for our families

• Hiding the stresses of being a working dad

• Ridiculous policies that don’t provide men (or women) enough paid leave after birth or adoption

• Poorly managed teams that have meetings that always run over or go back to back. Our time is too valuable to waste on nonsense

• Workforces that don’t have gender diversity, and therefore skew toward a culture of being an old-school boys club

• Working all the time and being expected to work during family and leisure time

• Work cultures that emphasize useless face time at an office. I’m not even convinced that most companies are managed well enough to see a measurable difference between co-located teams and remote teams

There’s so much more we shouldn’t put up with; these are only a handful. Especially now that we understand being working fathers so much more intimately than we did three months ago, we should hold ourselves and our companies to a higher standard.

And the best part is, refusing to tolerate this foolishness is not just the right thing to do or a timely topic, I think it’s very possible that if we hold ourselves and our teams to a higher standard it’ll lead to higher profits, happier customers, and thriving teams.

Working moms have been pushing this agenda for some time, and I think it’s time for us join them in a big way.

Imagining a world with less shouting

Robyn forwarded me a three-day “no-shout challenge” that she heard about through a speaker at conference she attended. I made it two and a half days, and every hour was hard. I didn’t realize how much I shouted at my son until I tried to stop.

The challenge helped me to understand why I shouted and think of an alternative pattern of behavior.

Upon reflection, I realized that I shout because my most foundational belief about parenting is that what I owe my sons - above all else - is to help them become good people. So when my son deliberately screams to wake up his big brother, or bites me, or doesn’t follow what I believe to be a high-standard of conduct, that moves me from zero to ten in a second. That’s my baggage, not his.

I decided that my replacement behavior would be to say, “neither of us are perfect, but we are going to figure this out” when my temper was rising, instead of shouting.

But the point here is not that I am cured of shouting (I’m not even close). The point is to share what happened after I started shouting less.

We have been struggling a lot as a family during this pandemic. In many ways, this period of our lives has been a blessing, but it has been a trying time. Our elder son, now, is very aware of the virus and he misses our family, his friends, and his teachers at school. He’s confused about why he has to give far-away hugs and why he can do certain things but not others.

He’s also a toddler, so we have had power struggles over really small things as is the case with most families.

But when Robyn and I started this challenge and began shouting less, something changed for the better in our house. In a word, everything deescalated.

We still all have tantrums, but they are less intense. We still have power struggles, but we’re able to take a breath more quickly that before. Bo says “excuse me” to get our attention more, instead of screaming indiscriminately. Sometimes, instead of shouting we find a way to talk about his sadness and confusion, even though he barely has grasp of the words and concepts needed to express what he’s feeling.

Again, there is still shouting in our house, and I’m not proud of how I act on many days. But even just shouting less has created more space to listen, love, and resolve the very real problems we have. We have not reached the promised-land of a fully peaceful house, but we are on a different trajectory than we were.

While this was all happening, Robyn and I have been observing, listening, and talking intensely every night about the problems of race in our country. It its something that we are deeply stirred by, personally and professionally.

Because we saw a reduction in shouting bring about real and almost immediate change in our own household, I can’t help but wonder what might happen if we shouted less when trying to resolve community issues.

Say if we all just decided we would stop shouting for a week or a month, what would happen? In my wildest dreams, I wonder if that could be the very humble beginning of a transformation that eventually got us to a moment where we could live in a community where shouting was no longer needed.

The skeptic in me feels that this type of scaling is difficult and perhaps impossible. After all, Robyn happened to attend a conference, where she heard a speaker, who shared a no-shout challenge, and we happened to try it out. Getting to the point of trying to intentionally shout less resulted from a lucky mix of circumstance, humbling work, and serendipity.

In our household - whether it is us as parents or our children - someone had to take the first step. And luckily, it is clear that the first step to a no-shout home was our responsibility as parents.

But with complex disagreements that are compounded by hundreds of years of pain and violence - like race, poverty, and others - it’s less clear whose responsibility it is to take the first step. Moreover, that first step of not shouting takes incredible courage, humility, and grace.

I pray that I can summon that courage, humility, and grace whenever I need to take that first step. Being ready to take that first step is something worth preparing for, even if my number never is called to lead in that way. It is for all of us.

"You should PRAY."

At the end of the pandemic I think we’ll each have two numbers that we each identify with. I’m a one and seventy-three. I know one person who died (thank God it’s not higher) and day 73 is about the time I started cracking.

After being furloughed, intense days with two children under three, snow and heat, intense remote work back with the Police Department (with said children at home), and social isolation - all these things were hard, but they didn’t bother me that much. What finally got me were the faraway hugs.

Our older son, Bo, has been talking about going to his grandparents’ house “after the virus is gone” for weeks. We finally saw my mom a few days ago and Robyn’s parents and brother tonight. And Bo knew that he had to maintain a safe distance, but that it was okay to give “faraway hugs” where he squeezes his arms across his chest, leaning forward and smiling.

Seeing Bo have to give his grandparents hugs from a distance snapped something in me. After 10 weeks of unprecedented struggle, that’s what broke me down.

—

The boys (Bo, Myles, Riley) and I went on a long walk today. And I turned to Bo and told me that I didn’t know what to do - about my job, about my stress, about all this.

“What should I do, bud?”, I said sincerely, urgently.

I didn’t hear what he said the first time. And then he clarified, with emphasis, from his stroller, clutching his water bottle:

“You should PRAY, papa.”

And that’s when I started to feel like I was coming back together again.

Finally made it to the moon

I went to the moon recently and safely returned.

Here is a picture of a moon crater we saw:

We meaning my older son Bo (Myles was asleep at the space station).

I have dreamed, and by that I mean sincerely dreamed, of going to space ever since I can remember. I still do. Space travel is a not entirely secret obsession of mine.

But if the only spacecraft I ever traverse the heavens in is the one in our attic, that would be better than my 6-year old self, dreaming of the moon, ever imagined.

A little, gracious, reminder that life is worth the trouble of eventual death

We are celebrating Bo’s birthday with family tonight, which makes it a special day. I am in our dining room, on a Friday, but I am working from home. Robyn and I are having lunch. Bo is napping, which he especially needs today because he has a tough cold.

Like she had done for our son’s first birthday the year prior, Robyn has affixed some simple decorations. It may even be fair to call them spartan. There is a single “Happy Birthday” hanging banner, recycled from when Robyn’s colleagues decorated her desk. The rest of the decor are only pictures.

They are of the past year. They are individually placed in the panes of our driveway window and the french doors from dining room to foyer. There are some more photos in the doorway to the kitchen and some on our marble fireplace mantle. They are scotched taped, simply, gently. Robyn is as economical as she is thoughtful.

Bo is in all the photos, some are by himself and some are with others. These are pictures of special occasions, yes, but many are just every day life. A snuggle with Riley. Playing in the snow. Christmas day. Afternoons with grandparents. Family vacations. Walks along the river. A first haircut. Football tailgates where we rolled down a golf course hill.

Come to think of it, I misspoke earlier. Not all these photos are holidays or of particularly notable moments, but they are all special occasions.

Looking at these photos I feel many things simultaneously, but mostly two things. I feel love in my whole body, and I feel the passing of time.

These photos are befuddling because they remind me that with each year, with each birthday, my death grows nearer. Eventually Bo will have a birthday where I’m not here, in the flesh. But I still feel an unqualified joy…the purest happiness. Why? I don’t understand.

A moment passes. I take a breath. And I realize why I feel so happy in this moment where death feels especially identified. As much as I feel time passing - sitting here in this one room, in this one house, on this one street, in this one city on this pale blue dot, here in this moment - I realize. Looking at these photos…the opportunity for these photos, it is more than worth dying for. And this makes me feel love in my whole body.

And then I take another breath, deeper this time, and Robyn and I finish our lunch. And more time passes.

You are explorers.

Both of your grandfathers are sailors. It is important for you to know this. This is where you come from, being an explorer is who you are.

It is important for you to know this because you have an itch and you may believe it is there by accident. It is not. To know more, to reach further, to venture into the distance. You explore. You are an explorer, I already see it in you. You will explore, it is in your nature. Your mother and I honestly didn’t put it there, it was there when you were born.

It is not there by accident.

Both your grandfathers, as I said, are sailors. Your Granddad has been sailing since he was a boy. He loves the water. As far as I know, he always has. Everything he does is to learn, to grow, to try the new. His is an exploration of zeal and adventure.

Your Dada was also a sailor. He was an engineer on a ship. He sailed all across the world, fixing the boat’s engine. As a young man, he flew from India to Tehran and took a bus to the coast. From there he traveled the world, port by port. Your Dada was not an explorer because of a sense of adventure. Your Dada was a dreamer. He dreamed of a better life, in a place where the corruption did not cause common people to suffer. He loved the water, no doubt, but his exploration was one of tenacity and sacrifice.

And I, boys, am not a sailor. I have always been partial to mountains. And my appetite for exploration is one service. I need to know the truth, not just because the truth is divine, but in the knowledge is the key to leaving the world better than I found it. Which is what I must do, it is involuntary. My exploration is one of curiosity and vision.

And your stories, my sons, are yet to be written. But that voice inside, it is not a false prophet. You are the grandsons of sailors, and you are explorers.

So when that voice inside whispers to you, listen carefully. To be sure, it will be scary. Exploring is not comfortable. But your father before you, and my fathers before me…we were all explorers. And we, all the men in your ancestry, whether we are on Earth or gone ahead - look to the night sky and you will find us there, watching over you.

You are explorers. I hope this has helped you understand why.

How the iPhone taught me to be a better father to my son

The iPhone won. But that’s okay, because it taught me how to talk to my son.

Bo, our son, is fixated on my iPhone when it is around. My usual tactic was to take it away so that he would do something else instead of stare at a screen. Our parents faced the same problem, except instead of smartphones, they tried to restrict television and video games.

The problem with taking the phone away is that it doesn’t work. Bo does not just forget about it just being in his hands. Trying to force it from him only creates a power struggle between us. And no matter the outcome, it drains both of our energies.

Why does the iPhone win his attention? It’s really well designed.

First, it’s extremely responsive. I don’t think that the problem with screens is that they distract us, but rather that the screen is undistracted for us. The screen is fully focused on Bo. When he picks it up, it is ready for him. When Bo pushes a button, it does something. The iPhone is completely ready to react to Bo and it does so consistently.

It’s also kind and gentle. I’d even call it emotional - because of the colors, the lights, the sounds, and the way the screen seems to effortlessly glide. Even the haptic feedback is subtle and will calibrated. Nothing about the iPhone is jarring. It doesn’t yell at Bo, nor does it shock him. It is calm and predictable.

I don’t think in cliches like this, but I eventually thought something like, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Instead of taking the phone away, I began interacting with Bo, more like the iPhone does. I’ve tried to be more emotive, attentive, and consistent. With more touch and sound, and with more immediate responsiveness. With more peace and patience. More than anything, I try to be undistracted. I actually think it’s working. We both have more energy when we play together.

It is bizarre to think of it this way, but the iPhone taught me, very specifically, to be a better father. It upped my game. This is hyperbolic, I know, but the iPhone can appeal to basically all of the right senses to win my son’s attention.

But it cannot love. And if I do the basics right, like the iPhone taught me, I don’t think it will “win” in the long run.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

I am the last one up tonight

I didn’t need to be, but I am the last one up tonight. Well, Riley and me.

But I am, because I was watching a movie and (not really) working.

You are asleep. Your little Paddington Bear is snuggled up on your chest. My last acts before bed are easy. First, I put a blanket over you so you and Paddington wouldn’t get cold. I will crawl into bed and try to pray a little. Then I will kiss your mother, who is already sleeping, goodnight - as quietly as I can.

It took me awhile to really understand it, truly, but I know that these are the most important jobs I will ever do. No matter how I earn a living. Nothing could be more important than being your mother’s husband and you and your brother’s papa. Nothing.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

The beautiful, boring, lunch with Bo

I had the afternoon with Bo today. We had a late lunch because his nap extended past 1pm. I had an apple for dessert. Which is funny because when you’re above 30, an apple can actually count as dessert.

In any case, I asked Bo if he wanted to have some too. Bo enjoys fruit as much as I do, so he responded with a characteristic “ya.”

I cut a plane of it off the side and made it into small pieces, about the size of corn kernels.

And then about halfway through eating his slice of apple, he gently put a tiny piece between his thumb and forefinger and leaned in my direction, offering it to me. I opened my palm. He placed it inside. I ate it. It was nice, and very nice of him.

This, in our household, was not a special moment. it was business as usual. It’s not uncommon for Bo, or any other child I suppose, to offer a bit of food to his father. It was something so small, and so fast. Nobody would ever instagram a moment like that, and even if I tried I wouldn’t be able to - the moment passed too quickly. I took a breath in, and by the time I let my breath out the moment was over.

But in a given day these are the moments. They are small. They go quickly. They are not notable. By and large, nobody else will ever know about them.

But they are my life. These are the glimmers I will remember when my brain and body start to fail. All these little moments built up, a sinew that binds my mind and spirt together. Probably 98% or more of my life is these moments, that are boring and un-momentus as it were.

But I love them. The memory of how Robyn’s flip flops clap as we walk our boys down the sidewalk of our street on a Sunday morning. The particular way the water tastes from only our tap. The way Robyn squeezes my big toe when I need to move my leg for her to rise from the couch. Riley’s semi-frequent snoring. The very distinctive crackling of mustard or cumin seeds in the pan when my mom makes a vegetable for dinner. When my father would giggle at his own jokes, in the rare instance that he tried really hard to make one.

The extreme-vast-majority of my life are these little moments and idiosyncrasies that come in an out like a beating heart.

Which is perhaps why I have slowly lost interest in living in a way that produces notable moments. Living moment to moment, I’ve found is a distraction from actual life. I do treasure big moments when they come - like marriage, the birth of a child, or an accomplishment I’m proud of at work. But that is not life.

Those are merely milestones. Life is everything in between. I’ve been coming to a conclusion that the measure of my life is how I choose to act during the mundane but supremely special moments of everyday life. What’s difficult is that everyone else (that doesn’t really, really matter) measures my life by the number and magnitude of big moments I have. Because that’s all they can see, they’re not around for the small stuff and therefore can’t measure it.

Letting go of everyone else that doesn’t matter is so hard, because the big moments that those people care about are so much easier to measure. I think the key is listening. Because by listening we can focus on being the best person we can be in the 98% of moments that nobody else will ever remember, singing the songs that are playing deeply within our own hearts, and letting the big moments be a gift and a surprise when they arrive, rather than an aspiration.

I think Sister Mary Clarance and Ferris Bueller both had it right.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

Parenthood has made me less happy, and I’m cool with that

I’ve come to embrace the research which suggests that being a parent is bad for our individual happiness. Parents I now, myself included, have a lot of things that get in the way of being as happy as we were before.

Parents get crummy sleep. We stress about money. We have less free time, because we are tending to a kid. We don’t exercise as much, generally speaking. We don’t get to hang out with friends or go on dates as much as we used to. We also feel terrible pain and anxiety when our kids are going through struggles. We are split between work and home more intensely than our childless peers.

With all that added stress, no wonder parents are less happy, or at least not happier than non-parents.

But, that’s okay. I’m willing to have my happiness decline, because I’ve gained so much - patience, intimacy, love, silliness, peace, and confidence. And probably more. As a parent, I’ve traded happiness for so many other things.

I’ll take it. Happiness is such a temporary state of being anyway.

—

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Jealous of Bo

I am jealous of my son.  

I wish his childhood was mine, or that mine were more like his.  

He is surrounded by family. He has a deeper relationship with his grandparents, and more time with them already, than I did in my whole life. He has met 3 great grandparents.  

He knows his aunts, uncles, aunties, Godparents, and great aunts & uncles. He even knows the family friends of his grandparents.  

He lives in a mixed-race community. His mom is home with him twice during the work week. God willing, he will have a sibling in a few months. He has an older dog-brother.

He has so much that I didn’t.

We spend so much time as men, at least my buddies and I do, thinking about being providers and feeling the pressure of that identity.  

And yet, even though we are MUCH wealthier than my parents were at his age. That has rarely crossed my mind.  

Perhaps jealous is the wrong word. Gratefully envious is perhaps better. But whatever that word is, thank God that I’m it.  

— 

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address or pick up the RSS feed.