Category / Family

by Michael

2 More Things I’ve Learned as a New Dad

I posted two earlier lessons I’ve learned from my first days of parenthood.  Here are two more things I’ve learned.

3) Life is complex.  Much more complex than counting bowel movements and tracking feeding schedules.  Who knew that brushing teeth could be a luxury or that reading for pleasure could be pleasing?  Yet there are so many people for whom life’s joys are, in fact, gifts.  Men we know, women whose faces come to mind immediately, don’t just talk about living life.  They live.  They live despite complexity and stuff and importances.  And they do so with a grace and simplicity.  They live regarding basic things as beautiful things.  Small accomplishments replace big ones on center stage.  Do you know anyone like this?  Someone who lives NOW and who regards life with wisdom and ease, whose practical matters enliven and don’t restrain them? 

4) Some days I’m better at living by faith.  See, the faith I live, fight, and teach says that it’s important to do things you don’t want to do.  The world revolves around someone or someone else’s agenda.  I hate this far down inside.  Really.  It tears at me and feels like the pain of pulling, yanking even, at a scab that’s not old enough to be dry.  I love it when things go my way.  When life isn’t filled with dirty dishes and messy laundry.  But life fills quicker with junk than it does anything else.  I’m told that muscle is heavier than fat and that if you build muscle, it’ll stay longer than fat.  To me, though, fat never goes quickly.  Chaos and its cousins wear out their welcome, bringing bags and dragging them in our heads–without the decency of leaving when we ask them to.

As much as I love my son–and I tell people we’re still deciding whether we like each other–he’s teaching me things.  Some of these things I’d rather go without learning.  But I look at him and remind myself (or my wife reminds me) that he’s not going anywhere.  He’s going to grow and continue being a good teacher to his father.

by Michael

2 Things I Learned in the First Weeks of Fatherhood

When I asked a friend about ideas for blogging, he told me, fatherhood will be enough.  I grinned when I read those words because I doubted that I could mine the days and nights of this new life for some things funny or interesting or engaging. 

The truth is, I am a new dad, but my weeks have been filled with soiled diapers, extreme amounts of crying, rocking and walking and strolling in Hyde Park, and a growing appreciation for my parents and committed parents everywhere.

But Marcus was right.  I have got two things that this new experience has left me with after the first month.  I’ll post two more tomorrow.

1) A person breathes differently when he’s upset.  Our almost silent puffs and pulls of the unseen stuff take shorter form when we’re agitated or angry.  Of course, I knew this already, but I’ve noticed with the kid.  The spaces between his breaths sharpen like sticks or pins or spikes.  Something inside him seems to tighten as if from fear or dread.  Suspicion takes us despite our best efforts and our trades with oxygen and the other gas deepen but less out of respect for life than frustration.  If you listen, you’ll notice the subtle change.  Relaxation steps off to the side, punting and reliquishing its place to anxiety.  We’re angry or upset.  And our breath is one of the first things to change.

2) Newness doesn’t bring much change but it will showcase the roots of your plants.  My mother-in-law visited to provide respite when our little one came home.  The third or fourth thing I noticed was that the thick roots of one plant were bulging with a set of questions about water.  Mother-in-law held our son; my wife napped, and I grabbed the pitcher.  A friend once told me that children highlight what’s happening in a relationship.  They don’t change it as much as they showcase it.  In our case, the plant wasn’t watered.  It was a tiny reminder that we had and have a tension to live in: we have a life outside of this important child.  That life must be honored and respected and lived even if it takes more work and effort to live it while being a good parent.  We miss things when we’re busy, when new situations come.

by Michael

Money Matters

When I first learned about taxes, I was in high school.  My girlfriend’s mother was a tax preparer and I happened upon her home during tax season.  Mother was busy working on a client’s return.  I remember walking through the doorway and seeing her table covered with receipts, slips of paper, and government forms.  I hurried by so I wouldn’t get too nosey.

I don’t remember when I started filing tax returns.  I was in college.  I can tell you that I’ve faithfully paid taxes since my first job in Simeon’s driver ed center.  But since I started with those forms, I’ve had the same feelings each time: a strange mix of anticipation, anxiety and dread. 

Preparing to file is the best and worst time of the year.  I get to rehearse all my expenses and contributions.  My wife asks me questions about things we discussed months prior.  I get to check a hundred boxes on our preparer’s useful handout.  We revisit goals.  We wonder why our assessments are high.  We celebrate that we’ve been sustained by God, by good people, and by good work.  We remember when it wasn’t the way it is.

In my own mind, at and around the time I send that package back to our tax guy, another feeling creeps into my room and asks for my company.  It’s anxiety but it’s not an anxiety from the large monster which is the Internal Revenue Service.  It’s a truth that money and marriage are often as amenable to one another as oil and water. 

I’ve read many smart people talk about marriage.  Dr. Cordova’s classes college.  Research projects.  Graduate studies in pastoral counseling.  Most of it has been consistent.  Nothing kills marriage quicker than money.

Infidelity does it too.  Unresolved anger can destroy a relationship.  Boredom and lust are on the list as well.  But somewhere near the top of that long list is finance.  More marriages break, splinter, and stop because of something related to money.

These three things aren’t exhaustive at all but I’ve noticed them in my marriage and the marriages of people I know in relation to finances.

1. People don’t talk about money.

2. People don’t learn about money.

3. People don’t agree about money.

Some of you aren’t married.  I’d love to hear how you come at the issue of finances in your dating relationships.  Either way, what would you add to this short list about money and relationships?  What should we do differently when it comes to finances?