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Last Sunday held a first for me with my time with my son. When I told him it was time to go meet “granddaddy” he told me, “I ont want it granddaddy,” and he became upset. The entire car ride to where we pass him back and forth he was silent (never happens) and when we parked and I sat in the backseat with him while waiting he reiterated his desire to not go. Then when his granddaddy turned into the parking lot we had a blow up over the train I had purchased for him the day before as I took it from him. The blow up was familiar: he is not allowed to take stuff from my house to his because it supposedly interrupts life in tragic ways there. What was unfamiliar was his reaction to going home.
Let me interject immediately that I do not take this as potential that he is being mistreated at home. I am quite certain that he is very well cared for at his other home. It is an indicator, though, of the level of trust I have established with him and how much he enjoys spending time with me. It is ironic, too.
During the divorce, my son’s mother tried to insert a clause into the possession schedule which would deny me possession of my son if he were to indicate, by crying or complaining, at exchange that he did not desire to go with me. The judge would not have gone with such language in any case because it would open up wide avenues for parents to try to turn the child against the other, so that was never seriously considered. My situation is now ironic, though, because I don’t think she ever considered the possibility that my son might prefer to be with me, especially while he is young.
I must say – though I support the current arrangement and know my son is well cared for – that there is a small part of me that high-fived itself when my son indicated he wanted to stay with me. I will not actively encourage a preference for me over his mother and the rest of his family, and I hope they are of a similar mind, but I am indeed proud that against the odds given my being in Iraq for a year, my son being only 2 ½ years old, and having him only a couple of weekends a month I have yet managed to show him that I love him and develop a bond that is uniquely ours.
It’s a great feeling, knowing that he loves me and wants to keep spending time with me. And though I quickly reminded him that the rest of his family loves him and wants to see him, the whole thing made me happy to be his father and optimistic about our relationship in the future. I think we’ll be alright.
In Rad Dad: dispatches from the frontiers of fatherhood Ian MacKaye says in an interview to trust my kid. Iain is two, and already I don’t trust him. I don’t trust him to not scratch the DVDs (just the other night he was pushing the Scrat Pack bonus disc from Ice Age: Dawn of Dinosaurs along the floor like it was a “choo choo chain”). I also don’t trust that he won’t try to stuff two discs into the DVD player. In his toddler state I simply do not trust him to not break or lose things in general.
This reaction seems founded enough: I tell myself I am just helping him explore his world in safety. I say that I can’t afford to buy Toy Story 3 for the third and fourth times. I have a lot of explanations, actually. They’re all bullshit.
Ian also said “with a child is born a parent.” It’s not only Iain who is exploring a new world, taking lessons from his experiences now into his life in the future: I am learning, too. Like him, I am conditioning myself, I am developing patterns. So what will my muscle-memory have me do when my eight-year-old son explores his surroundings, that larger environment which will be available to him on a bike and with friends? What knee-jerk reaction will hurt my relationship with him and his chances to develop when I “protect” him in his 16th year?
In my previous post I talked about how ahimsa does not let us worry because it’s an act of negatively judging our loved ones’ abilities to handle life. What I am talking about now is an extension of that into parenting, though it is a tricky thing to consider. Am I thinking correctly in worrying that Iain will ruin his DVDs? Hell yeah I am! Left to his own devices, the kid will scratch and break every one: he simply does not yet understand the cause and effect concept of scratching dics = no more Buzz, “doggies”, or “di-osaurs”. But do I really have something real to worry about?
You know what happens when I worry? I freak out. When I don’t trust my son I am not his friend or his mentor: I am this crazed loon jabbering on about the cost of material crap, waving my arms and buffooning about as if some plastic circle I spent way too much on at Best Buy is actually worth presenting a message of anger or frustration to my son. It’s ridiculous. Yes the plastic circle cost me a couple bucks, but the kid remembers everything, and it’s not worth me creating so early in our relationship this idea that material crap is worth losing our wits over, and that daddy doesn’t trust Iain, and that it’s OK to fuss and yell and storm about when we are frustrated.
So here’s what I do when I find myself acting silly like this. I play some worst case scenarios. What’s the worst thing that might happen if Iain destroys all of his DVDs? Hell, I might stop letting the TV baby-sit him when I need a couple more minutes of sleep or am too worn out for another round of “giddyup daddy”. Wait, that is best-case scenario. Worst case is that I will go back to Best Buy and spend all of Iain’s college money on more mind-numbing crap. Oh, by the way, Netflix has pretty much everything he likes to watch: I can stream it straight to my TV whenever I want.
Oh, did I mention that I’m the one who has all of the DVDs stacked at toddler level? Who is it that truly can’t be trusted to make sure the DVDs don’t get scratched or jammed into the DVD player?
As an aside, this whole topic teaches me a lot about another of the Yamas: aparigraha or “non-possessiveness. I have a hard time not looking at myself and the way I attach myself to things as I’m trying to explain to Iain that not everything is his. Why should it not be? Why do I have to separate what is mine from what is his? And how am I building the idea of community and sharing when I am always reinforcing the idea of “mine” instead of “ours”? It’s time to pay attention to our lessons we are teaching beyond our words. How much do we share as adults that qualifies us to instruct our young ones what it means to share?
