Tag / Parenting

by Michael

My Boy’s First Failing Grade

The boy isn’t in school.  I’m told that early enrollment doesn’t mean that a ten-month old can buy a laptop and graph paper.  But he has already gotten his first marks.  They weren’t good, if you’re paying attention to the title of the post.

I should say that I think we struck it rich in finding our pediatrician.  In fact, it’s a practice full of good doctors.  We not only get the best pediatrician for the kid, but when we can’t get on her schedule, all of her colleagues are great substitutes. 

Everytime we go, they give us cheat sheets, printed in a color different from the previous visit.  I think we’re starting a file somewhere, tracking these appointments.  They tell their own stories, these cheat sheets, capturing everything from the boy’s weight, height, and head size to all kinds of helpful information, which mysteriously answers all the questions we’ve brought up with the doctor while at that visit.  I get the sense that these good people have had enough Q&As with parents that it’s easier to prepare the standard answers in advance.  To me, it’s great planning, and I’m not really sure why these sheets impress me so much.  Let me get to my real point though.

During the last checkup, the nine-month, we were given a test.  It was a booklet.  I didn’t really listen when Dawn and Doctor talked about the exam.  I needed the basics.  There was a test.  I know what that means.  I’ve taken a few.  The boy has homework.  Sit him at the table with a pencil and follow the instructions.  Don’t help him.  It’s a test. 

But my wife went over the test with Bryce.  The tasks took my back to my first class in psychology and that other one about learning and memory.  I thought about my favorite teacher at Wheaton, Scottie May who knows everything about how children learn.  I saw Bryce’s results on the counter and pinched myself when I saw the answers Dawn (or Bryce through Dawn) had chosen.  I wondered to myself when I saw a few circles how this would shake out.  Dawn mailed it in.

Now, we don’t get calls from the boy’s doctor.  Well, the office calls to remind us about appointments but that’s it.  So, when I came home and heard about the conversation my wife had with Dr. Hong, I was intrigued.  I went straight to the boy and asked him why he didn’t get a better grade.  Why is your doctor calling my house?  I asked it in my I’m-the-concerned-father-of-a-student voice.  Bryce was smiling, no doubt performing his own mental test of me at the moment. 

We talked about him looking for hidden phones, juggling my wallet, his mom’s cell and noisy bus with shapes cut out of the window.  I spoke about him banging something on a table or chair or a floor, about going under the bed for a remote control. 

Finding a hidden toy was one he was graded poorly on.  “He does that,” I told Dawn.  To which she explained that she hadn’t seen it.  In my mind I started thinking that I was  a better test-taker, that I should’ve completed the paperwork, that my son now had a record, of sorts. 

I was worried.  I texted his doctor and said I guess the kid wasn’t enrolling in Harvard anytime soon.  Then I hid the favorite toy.  And me and my wife saw him go after it.  Not to be quickly satisfied, we did it again.  He picked up the pillow and took the toy.  Then, I texted the redemptive message, my way of suggesting–like our pediatrician did when she returned this texted reply–“there’s always northwestern.”

by Michael

Ten Things Different As Compared To This Time Last Year

I don’t know how to interpret the non-response to the book giveaway.  Maybe you’ll tell me.  So, even though I don’t have a winner to announce, I do hope you enjoyed the interview and I do have this post on a view things I’ve noticed from this time last year.

  1. I can tell you the number of times Dawn has sat across the table from me, just us, talking about something other than diapers, feeding schedules, formula, and other random things related mostly to the influence of sleep deprivation.
  2. I am still not a morning person.
  3. A schedule consisting mostly of driving a tender package around and doctor-visiting and note-taking, all while being afraid since nobody else seemed to know the rules of the road.  Actually I was doing this with my pregnant wife a year ago.
  4. The three pictures of me as a newborn, as a one-year old, and as a 7th grader on my refrigerator, placed there by my mother to show the similar features between me and the boy.
  5. My gym membership goes unused much more regularly.
  6. I only carve out one day per week to have evening meetings and my Sundays have become much longer because of it.
  7. I smile at other people’s kids because they make me think of my own.
  8. When I consider doing something I shouldn’t, I think about the boy’s face over my shoulder in the car, his eyes following mine as he peers through the gap in the seat shade, and it makes me remember responsibility again–to both God and the people who matter.
  9. I clean up.  All the time.  Even when other people are doing it too.  It never stops.
  10. People have literally forgotten my name, identity, and use, preferring 1) to label me “Bryce’s father,” 2) to ask me where he is first and where his mother is second, and 3) to compare me and my features to his as if I weren’t here first.
by Michael

Click These Links

  • Read how Tayari Jones talks about prettiness and publishing as she thinks about the upcoming release of Silver Girl.
  • This post is a great reminder from a father for a father and for a mother too about what not to do.
  • My friend and coworker, David Swanson wrote a thoughtful short piece on church segregation and has a piercing question at the end of this post.
  • Zadie Smith tells a lovely, funny story when explaining in an unexpected way how friends are generous.
  • Mario Vargas Llosa’s writing is discussed at the Guardian in ways that put forward some interesting intersections between writing and politics.
by Michael

America’s Next Top Model…For Fatherhood.

I’ve been considering the engaging and insightful responses Dr. Butler gave to my questions.  For days now I’ve been rolling them around in my head.  Thinking about the boy.  Thinking about the way he looks at me when I come home from work.  Thinking about how I want to do this well, fatherhood. 

I’m encouraged by the sharp, intellectually-satisfying, and richly faithful (and faith-filled) responses the professor gave.  I’m not attempting a review of the book, either in this post or in the interview itself.  But I will jump off of a response that Dr. Butler gave in order to make or underline or highlight one point: new fathers need models.

You’re familiar with the phenomenal television show, America’s Next Top Model.  How can you not be?  Tyra Banks created something interesting and all-kinda-thoughts-provoking in that show.  But my goal isn’t to speak about that show.  Well, one thing.  My wife watched, or watches, that show like she needs a conversion and it’s the only religious episode in town.  We have one television.  And I just stopped trying to hold the remote when that thing comes on.  But I digress.

Dr. Butler wrote

A father is not only one who takes responsibility for his actions, he takes responsibility to care for, provide for, nurture, and protect his children.  This deep sense of responsibility is guided by his commitment to being present and fully participate in every aspect of his children’s lives.  Many men understand responsibility to mean that we work hard to be good providers; but responsibility that is guided by relationship means that we work hard to give of ourselves those things that we have worked hard to provide.  It is our presence, participation, and active giving that makes all the difference in the world.

Dr. Butler is lifting up a value, responsibility guided by relationship in order that we might give ourselves.  Not just our things.  Not just money and stuff. 

New fathers need models to do this.  It’s not something we learn in an age when too many sisters are raising children without fathers in particular or without male presence in general.  It’s something we have to pay attention to.  It’s something we might not even know we don’t know. 

Presence.  Being there.  Sticking around.  It’s bodily.  It’s emotional and mental. 

We have to learn how to stay put when we want to leave.  We have to see and copy the hard soul and psychological work of anchoring our heads where our feet are, rather than running away physically or mentally.  We have resist the urge, the inclination, or the habit of walking out, or shutting down, or clamming up.  I didn’t see this everyday growing up.  But I knew that I needed to capture everything I could and still do from my father when we did interact.  I know now that I have to ask him hard questions that may surprise him but probably really won’t.  I know I have to take good notes from the men in my life, the long list of men who’re raising good kids and who are aiding me in my quest to do the same.

When talking about the mentoring relationship where this learning happens, Dr. Butler said

It is the ability to tell and listen to the stories of life’s ups and downs.  Also, finding mentors requires an openness to believe that another as a good word about life to share.  Becoming a good father means that a man is willing to sit down to tell and listen to stories that speak about the everyday up and down experiences of life.

I love this language.  The everyday up and down experiences of life.  Who talks about that?  Who listens to that?  Who wants to?  Really.  It’s boring, we say.  It’s unhelpful, I think.  We could go on and on without heeding this counsel. 

We must find and feed the mentoring relationships that equip us for the good journey of fatherhood and parenthood.  When we believe that another man has a story to share, it removes the notorious lie that burrows into the head of a novice dad, the lie that says you’re in this alone.  It’s never true that we have to parent alone, and mentoring reminds us of that.  The community of others reminds us. 

I’m glad for the answers that are in this interview and for the wisdom in this book.  I’m glad that Dr. Butler is pointing out that there are models, top models, for fatherhood, and not just the ones on television.

by Michael

Interview with Lee Butler, Author of Listen My Son

I am a father.  And since the boy came in March–since we found out we were expecting, really–I’ve been looking for good information to strengthen myself as a parent.  I found one such resource in Listen My Son: Wisdom to Help African American Fathers by Lee H. Butler, Jr.  Dr. Butler is a professor of theology and psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life at the Chicago Theological Seminary. 

I asked Dr. Butler to consider being interviewed for the blog shortly after reading Listen My Son.  I’m pleased to have him answers on the blog.  I hesitate slightly to say so, but this book isn’t just for African Americans or just for men even if the content springs from the work of African American men.  I asked the professor about that, too.  I hope you’re interested enough to search out this resource for your own knowledge and appreciation. 

Questions

1) You and the other contributors are open about personal experiences as sons and as fathers.  What motivated you to write Listen, My Son?

Listen, My Son has been written by special invitation by the publisher, Abingdon Press, the publisher of the United Methodist Church.  I was intrigued by the invitation and motivated to write because African American manhood is an identity in transition.  I wanted to be able to make a contribution by encouraging a much needed discussion that will help us to develop a more positive self-understanding as Black men in America.

2) You worked with three colleagues on this work.  What was the writing process like, and how did you determine what you’d write and what the other contributors would offer?

The project design was mine.  Just as no one person can be all things to all people, I was clear I didn’t have the life experience to write about all topics.  Because I wanted this book to be readable and not a research project, I invited a few friends to join me in the project.  I developed the chapter outline, then I asked the others to write specific chapters that matched their lived experiences, which of course differed from my own.

3) Your contrast of sirehood and fatherhood is compelling and powerful.  Can you summarize the difference between these two marks of manhood and say a word or two about how men can “resist the selfish, immature legacy of sirehood”?

Responsibility and a commitment to relationship are what separate fatherhood and sirehood.  A father is not only one who takes responsibility for his actions, he takes responsibility to care for, provide for, nurture, and protect his children.  This deep sense of responsibility is guided by his commitment to being present and fully participate in every aspect of his children’s lives.  Many men understand responsibility to mean that we work hard to be good providers; but responsibility that is guided by relationship means that we work hard to give of ourselves those things that we have worked hard to provide.  It is our presence, participation, and active giving that makes all the difference in the world.  Fatherhood promotes responsibility and relationship.  Sirehood, on the other hand, is quite selfish and is only concerned about being served.  It is always focused on what the man desires to be given and his own personal satisfaction in being able to say he has children, even if he never does a thing for those children.  Resistance is an important concept for African American men.  We have come to believe that being the sire, “the king in his castle” is how we are to see ourselves.  The most noble of kings, however, is concerned about the well-being of all the people, not about what he can get by exploiting the people.  We have been exploited for so many generations, we must resist the temptation to do to others what has been done to us.  Our children are not to be our servants, they are to live as our sons and daughters who are most loved by us.

4) Parenting is full of surprises, surprises that are hard to prepare for.  How do you talk about mentoring and its impact in parenting?  And where can men find mentors as we seek to become better fathers?

Now there’s a question for everyday!  Each and everyday brings something new.  Children are constantly growing, changing, becoming new right before our eyes.  In this age of information and technology, we are everyday surprised by what our children are exposed to that we must become more aware of.  What I encourage men to see in the book is that none of us can go through life alone.  Mentoring is a good way of understanding that we all need support and must give support.  A mentoring relationship–and relationship is what is emphasized throughout the book–is a learning as we grow relationship.  There is a natural give-and-take that exists in mentoring relationship that allows both persons to give and receive gifts of life.  It is the ability to tell and listen to the stories of life’s ups and downs.  Also, finding mentors requires an openness to believe that another as a good word about life to share.  Becoming a good father means that a man is willing to sit down to tell and listen to stories that speak about the everyday up and down experiences of life.

5) Can you discuss an African American father’s impact upon his daughter’s life, what his role is, and how it is different from raising a son?

Before answering these question directly, I feel it very important to first say that we live in a male-preferred society that encourages men to see our value as men by fathering sons.  So strong is this feeling that many men feel disappointment at the birth of a daughter.  This feeling must be addressed and transformed before any of us can be true fathers to our daughters.  It is the father-daughter relationship that will help the daughter to know she is too important to be abused.  If that relationship is strong and truly loving, when she grows into full womanhood, she will not tolerate anyone treating her with less respect and dignity than her father treated her.  As a result, a father’s role in the life of his daughter is to nurture her to be strong and interdependent so she will know how to stand alone as well as stand in mutual respect and partnership with another.  Raising a son means we must teach him how to respect a girl/woman as another man’s daughter.

6) What would you like readers who are not fathers or who are not African American to take away from Listen, My Son?

To the readers who are not fathers, I have taken the attitude in the book to speak of the importance of every man to adopt a fathering attitude for himself as he relates to every child, to take a mentoring attitude as he relates to every other man.  We all, whether fathers or not, have a responsibility to the larger community.  This means we are mentors and guides for all for the maintenance of community life.  This is no less true for those who are not African American.  On the whole, the book helps men to understand more fully who we are, and it offers insights for women to know why we might think and act as we do. Continue reading →