Changes part 3

She is an angel, she is in him
She's got my big toe, and her mother's lips
She gives fishy kisses, and great big bear hugs
42 pounds of pure love
Then one day she'll be 17, feelin' too big for her home
Seems she was just only 3, oh how our children they grow
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go

Watch Them Grow Zach Gill

There are some things in life you cannot understand until you experience them. Marriage would be one. Parenting another. You are welcome to read all the books you want, but it will not help (yes, this even applies to the What to Expect series). Until you have kids you have no idea what you are in for.

I am a big fan of having multiple children, though I prefer to have them one at a time. Why? Well, the tax write-off is not a bad thing, but really it has to do with practice. See, the first go-round you have no clue what the hell is going on. Everything is a mystery, from diapers to teething to school to soccer to dating to going off to college to... You make mistakes. Child number two comes along and you have a vague idea of what you are doing. Only, this child is different from the first and it takes you a while to figure this fact out. So you make more mistakes, though they are different than with your firstborn. Here is why number three is crucial. With your third child you get a chance to put your all-pro parenting skills on display. The five-second rule, which showed way too much paranoia on your part, matures into the if-nothing-is-on-it-go-ahead-and-stick-it-in-your-mouth rule. By child number three even that is really more of a guideline than a rule. You panic less, take fewer pictures, stop putting every finger painting on the fridge door, and accept that your children will eventually understand that ranch dressing is a condiment not a food group.

There is, however, always lurking in the back of your mind the knowledge that at some point in time you will run out of children. If you do your job right your kids will grow up into adults. And this, dear reader, makes me feel very uncomfortable. I love my kids. I love who they are and where they are right now. I have one going into high school. We go to the movies together and share our love of Green Day and Monty Python. My son is old enough to have his own interests but still wants to hang around with me. I can not tell you how much I treasure that. My youngest is not a baby anymore, but still of an age where she gets into things for free (and remember, free is our friend.) She likes it when I read to her, though she is learning to read on her own. I am at a perfect place. It's like a parenting buffet. I don't want it to change.

So, of course, it is changing. There is a part of me that can't wait to do adult things with my adult children (my oldest and I already have a date at a pub on her 21st birthday.) Yet, most of me does not want to lose what I have right now. I guess I could try and freeze my relationships with my children, always treating them like I do right now, but I doubt that it would work out well and the therapist bills would bankrupt us all.

As I ponder (read obsess) what to do I think about my relationship with God. God has watched children grow up billions of times, so there must be some great wisdom and insight I can glean (of course, God gets to keep making new children, which does not seem entirely fair, but who am I to complain?) What I keep coming back to is that I do not need to fear losing my children. They were of God before they were a gift to my wife and myself. They are God's children created in God's image and that will never change. I also don't need to be afraid of growing old myself, for I too will always be a child of God. Finally, it is okay to miss holding my kids hands when we walk across the street, but there will be other hands to hold. Perhaps my own grandchildren. If not, then the hand of another child who needs someone to care and love for them. There are a million different ways that I can interact with children each and every day and participate in the joy and wonder of their lives.

The fact that my children are growing up has helped open me up to God's call to live beyond myself. Instead of lamenting what I sense I am losing, I can reach out and share my love for children in new and exciting ways. Of course, I they are not "my" kids then I will lose the tax break. I will need to find a way around that little problem...legally, of course.

The Greeting Card Mafia

Mid-June. An interesting time for the Greeting Card Mafia to place Father's Day. Being a big fan of conspiracies (especially the ones I originate) I think the location of Father's Day on the holiday calendar has everything to do with cornering the market. Think about it. Mother's Day comes when almost all school districts are still in session. In elementary schools across the nation children work on cute crafts and handmade cards for dear ol' Mom. This has to cut into the bottom line of the Mafia. Yet Father's Day comes when the vast majority of school-aged kids are home on summer break. Do we, the Dad's of America, get the paper mache crafts? The cards with our kids hand prints on them? Do our children come home singing little ditties about Daddy that they learned in music class? No! So off to the store our families go to buy cards with fishing pools or Golden Retrievers on the cover. For those of us that don't fish or have dogs, tough luck. The Mafia is in control here. Oh, please don't get me started on the whole tie thing. Really, you don't want to go there!
I guess my beef with the Mafia is that it has failed to grasp that a) a card seldom if ever conveys love and b) that the nature of Fatherhood has changed. Ward Clever is dead (sorry Beaver!). Being a Dad in 21st century America is no longer about pipes or grilling in the backyard or "babysitting" our children. It is about negotiating a million changing expectations and desires.
Let me give you a quick example of what I mean. When I came kicking and screaming into this world my Father was not present. The hospital would not allow him to be in the room even if he wanted to be. His task in the whole birthing process was to wait. A pass out the cigars. Fast forward a generation. Today, not only are Dad's allowed in the delivery room, we are expected to be there. Unless we are in the operating room donating a kidney for our wife, in which case we might, might get a pass. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to be there when my kids were born. Yet it is a sign of how the rules have changed.
Fatherhood today is a full-contact sport. We are expected to be present in our kids lives in ways our Dad's and Grandfathers never dreamed of. Again, I think this is a good thing. I love being a Father (except for the whole diaper thing...and cleaning up puke...and toilet training...come to think of it I really don't like any of the bodily functions aspects of parenting). I have a bond with my kids that I would not trade for anything in the world. And it has opened up a new understanding of God for me. If God really is our "Father" then I think it is on this intimate level that I get to experience with my children (though I wonder how God feels about puke. God created it after all).
So, let this be a warning to the Greeting Card Mafia. You better catch up. Father's Day may be stuck in June, but we don't have to settle for the 1950s era cards. We are a new breed of Dad. And we know all about YouTube!

My son spent the last two days trying out for a select soccer team. We won't know for several days if he made the team, but the whole process was a bit unsettling for me. I sat there both days (in the shade, I should note, while the poor lad was out in the sun and 85 degree heat) afraid. Of what? That he might fail. He is a decent soccer player, though I am not planning on him earning a living at the sport (which is too bad, because as a professional athlete he could provide me with a standard of living that I would not have a problem getting used to.) As he was running through his drills I wondered why I was so nervous, so protective, so afraid. So what if he didn't make the team? In the grand scheme of things would it really matter? Did the fate of the universe hing on his playing U9 select soccer?
Then I thought, does God feel the same way about me? Afraid that I might fail? I tried to image God sitting on the sidelines of my life anxious that I would not be good enough. Perhaps that is what God does, but I doubt it. See, God is all about redemption. There is nothing I can do that God cannot redeem. Yes, there are consequences for my actions but even if I fail at something God is able to take that situation and make new possibilities and opportunities. So what is there for God to be nervous about? And if God is not afraid for me, why do I need to be afraid for my son? Who knew you could learn so much about parenting from soccer tryouts!