Are all toddlers engineers?

My dad is an electrical engineer by training. He has spent much of his adult life taking things apart and putting them back together. He’s a tinkerer.
I’m not an engineer, and while I know my dad is deeply proud of me and the man I’ve become, I think he probably wishes sometimes that I’d become an engineer. I had the aptitude for it, as I always did well in math and enjoyed making things, but the pull of languages was stronger.

Now that I’m a father, I’m beginning to think my daughter may fulfill that engineering destiny and make her Grandpa proud, though I honestly can’t decide if I’m just witnessing toddler-hood.

My daughter is an ever-present example of entropy at work. There is no button she will not press, no tissue she will not remove from its box, no book she will not take off a shelf, and no puzzle she will not disassemble. If my wife and I didn’t clean up after her every night, there would be no livable space left in our house. I’m not even sure the house would still be standing, if it were up to my daughter.

Here’s the thing, though. It sounds like an incredible amount of wreckage, if I’m just describing the spaces left in my daughter’s destructive wake. My 13-month-old isn’t just destroying everything in her path, though it feels that way sometimes. There’s something else going here, something constructive, something mysterious.

To incorrectly paraphrase Tom Waits, I ask, “What’s she building in there?”

The mental connections for Eleanor are coming fast and furious these days. I point to a picture of shoes in a book, and she grabs her feet. I ask her what sound the elephant makes, and she purses her lips like a trumpet player (though she can’t quite get the sound right). I set her down on the floor and she starts walking. She uses sign language to tell me when she wants milk, or even when she sees someone else drinking it. I ask her if she wants cereal, and she says, “No!”

I’m having a hard time catching all these connections in her brain, all these constructions she’s building and adapting as she processes more, newer information at an ever-faster pace. In education circles, they’d describe her evolving frames of reference as schema. She’s building physical and communication skills constantly, and they seem to be coming faster and building on top of each other faster than I can track. It’s impressive and it’s an amazing thing to experience firsthand. It’s not dissimilar to being a teacher and seeing the proverbial light bulb go on for a student, but the process is so much more powerful because it’s happening faster and it’s happening to your child.

Do all those engineers out there know something the rest of us adults don’t? That the secret to understanding the world is tearing it apart? That creation comes from destruction? I don’t have a lot of experience being around toddlers, so I suspect that much of what I am seeing is developmental, but I think we can learn something from these engineers, be they electrical or of the two and a half foot tall variety. Don’t be afraid to take things apart and put them back together. You might learn something.

Last week, my daughter started building things you can see. We have this old-fashioned wooden cylinder puzzle that she has been ripping apart for six months. For a while, she had this habit of meticulously removing each piece, one at a time. Then about four months ago, she started knocking it over and pulling out the puzzle base, spilling all the pieces at once. She seemed to figure out the fastest process for deconstructing the puzzle and then got bored with it for a few months. A couple of weeks ago, something strange happened. She started taking the pieces off one at a time again. And then she tried (for a few days) to put a piece back on the base. She kept failing, because she was only using one hand and she kept misjudging the distance between her and the puzzle base. But she kept trying, eventually with both hands holding the piece.

And then she got it, that first piece finally sliding into place. And then she put all the pieces back on. And then she started stacking other things on top of the puzzle, like books, or pieces from other puzzles.

Whatever she becomes when she grows up, I know one thing about my daughter right now.

She is an engineer.

Whatever she’s building in there, it must be pretty cool.

The fallacy of hipster parenting

I have spent my fair share of time making entirely unfair and unfounded judgment calls about all sorts of people that I see around town, and that hasn’t changed too much since I’ve become a parent.

But it’s starting to make me uncomfortable.

Honestly, it’s hard not to grumble about people who appear to have such carefully crafted public images that conform to pop culture stereotypes, the same people who (we’re told) move through life with ironic detachment as their default emotional state -- people who (we’re told) don’t care about anything.

Effing hipsters.

How many times have you said that, or at least thought it? How many lumberjack-shirted, skinny-jean dudes, with their handlebar mustaches waxed to curled sharps, riding their fixed gear bicycles, have you muttered that comment about?

Heck, let’s put this in a parental context. See that woman over there in the lululemon yoga pants pushing her Duallie Bob Revolution stroller? She must be a Highland mommy who believes in attachment parenting and breastfeeds her five-year-old. She’s such a cliche, and you know she has money, and her tyrannical kids must be absolute terrors in daycare.

How about that thirty-something guy right there, overstuffed diaper bag slung over one shoulder, bucket carseat dragging in the crook of his arm, carrying a wailing eight-month-old baby with her pants on backward and cereal in her hair? This befuddled daddy must be “babysitting” today. He sure doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing. Where’s his wife? He really looks like he needs some help.

We spend so much time placing people in categories and making snap judgments, but I have a question for you: How many of your friends are hipsters? Do you really know any hipsters? You know who I mean -- the people for whom the image they project is more important than anything else. And for that matter, how many of you actually know a mother who fits that Denver stereotype? Or a father?

Me? I don’t know any hipsters. Sure, I see them all the time, but I guess they’re someone else’s friends. When I look around town, seems like there sure are a lot of them...but none of my friends are hipsters. How could they be? I mean, my friends care about me, they like a lot of the same stuff I do, they’re generous, they help me take care of my daughter, etc.

Taking care of someone else voids your hipster cred, which probably means that no one is really a hipster, except of course the people who are, the people we don’t like, the people who aren’t like us. Those people are all hipsters.

I’ve been called a hipster, back when I was a indie-music loving teacher wearing my flannel shirt, goatee and horn-rimmed glasses. Now that I’m a parent, I’ve also born the brunt of the befuddled dad stereotype, too. Being on the receiving end of both judgments in recent years has got me thinking about why people are quick to attack hipsters or parents who they believe fit a particular stereotype.

That brings me to tonight’s subject: hipster parenting.

There’s been a lot of talk about trends in parenting, lately, from the rise of stay-at-home dads to what we stupid Americans can learn from middle class French parents to “elimination communication.”

As a parent of a kid who, let’s be honest, poops a lot, that last one seems so ridiculous that I have a really hard time not judging the parents who promote this method.

Effing hipsters.

And don’t get me started on those guys who run Kindling Quarterly. They have the gall to grow beards and live in Brooklyn and care about being good fathers and creating a space for men to talk intelligently and in-depth about modern fatherhood. They also seem to want to promote cool, expensive clothes made by their friends. This last point, along with the hipster beards, apparently invalidates the space they’re creating, according to a vocal group of haters trolling the comment sections of many an article about the magazine.

The magazine itself, and the responses to it, are chock-full of ideas to analyze, reflect on, engage with, etc. I could write a post here just comparing the comments section of a Canadian news article about the magazine to that of an American site’s feature. Both articles deal with similar themes, but the comments are fascinatingly different.

I bought the second issue of this magazine, and while it was really uneven, I am so excited for its potential. A thoughtful engagement with fatherhood as a concept, with essays written by thoughtful fathers, is an unfortunately rare find among major publications in this country.

Let me be clear about what I think: there’s no such thing as a hipster parent. There are a lot of bad parents out there, who don’t provide for their kids, neglect them, abuse them or just don’t care enough to love them deeply. But if you have even the slightest engagement in parenting your child, there's no way to be ironic and detached about that. So if you want to judge people and call them hipsters because they want to try something stupid or faddish or buy expensive stuff like their friends, you should realize that the vast majority of all parents are just doing the best they can to be parents. The job is too hard to do it filled with irony.

Unless you're just an awful person. And that doesn't make you a hipster.

Because it illustrates what parenting is really all about, and because it features Carrie Brownstein (I'm such a hipster!), I love this Portlandia skit about baby books: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw3bG8SrCM4

People try really hard to be good parents, to be the right kind of parents. They’ll do whatever it takes, even if it seems stupid to other people. Me? I made my daughter cry it out at night and then spent six months having her take her naps in my arms or in her car seat. In the end, whatever the trendy parenting thing is and whatever group you think we belong to, we all just give in and find something that works and meets the needs of our kids. And that’s what counts.

On Fatherhood: Turning the Tide

Lately, I’ve been delving into fatherhood as an intellectual concept. Maybe it’s because my daughter just had her first birthday, maybe it’s because of the incident I described in my last post, or maybe it’s because it’s summer, and I’m used to thinking about this particular time of year, after the school year is over, as a time of reflection.

As we’ve passed the year mark, I’ve realized that I have no intention, at least for another year, to re-enter the traditional workforce. Though I still struggle with anxiety and insomnia at times, I am happier, more focused and more relaxed than I have been in a long time. Being at home with my daughter is fun and incredibly challenging, and I have been able to find the spaces in the schedule that allow me some necessary alone time. I plan to continue writing, for which I hope to occasionally get paid, but other than that, I’m not looking for a job. Doing what I’m doing feels right for me and my family.

With that realization comes a renewed focus on the apparent untraditional nature of what I do. I am a stay-at-home dad. My wife is the breadwinner for our household, making each of us part of growing minorities, according to Census data and a recent Pew study.

I’ve never been considered a “manly” man and I’ve never felt like that’s an image that I need to live up to. I’m quite comfortable with my role. I’m happy being who I am and doing what I do. I don’t feel like I need to be more of a man, but I find myself bristling when I get the impression that people think I can’t do what I do because I’m a man. If a man or woman thinks I'm weak because I stay home, it doesn’t really bother me. But I do care if people think I can’t do my job well because I am a man.

I’ve written before about how I sometimes get irritated at the assumptions people make when I am in public with my daughter. Now that I am committing to this role for at least another year, I’m feeling the need to be even more vocal, and essentially political, about pushing against the stereotypes.

My best friend sent me a link to a write-up in the New York Times about Kindling Quarterly, a new magazine about fatherhood that started in January. I read the article, bought issue #2, and I read the magazine cover to cover (more on this, and the fallacy of hipster parenting, in another post). I’ve since been sucked into the rabbit hole of online articles about modern fatherhood, feminism and what it means for me to be inhabit the role that I do.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve read so many articles about what it means to be a “dad” that my head is swimming. I’ve also been fascinated by how gendered they are. Though nearly all of the articles have been very thoughtful, they embody their authors’ assumptions about masculinity and fatherhood, whether they’re feminists from Brooklyn or guys who don’t know how to fold laundry writing for the Esquire.

Here’s my takeaway -- the conversation is changing, and for the better. There are more men (and women) talking about how more men are becoming more involved parents and that sharing parenting roles isn’t some kind of emasculation for men. The notion of dad as an occasional befuddled caregiver filling in for mom is being challenged at the same time that women like Sheryl Sandberg are creating the space for successful, assertive professional moms who have caring partners who share parenting duties.

The most visible evidence that the conversation is changing, of course, comes from commercials. Stewing about insensitive, sexist comments I read at the bottom of many an article about fatherhood and feeling the frustration of a hard day with my daughter, I was watching TV during her nap. I was amazed by the following commercial:

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/tide-wows-commercial-treats-dad-normal-human-147970

It’s sad that this isn’t the norm, but it really does mean the conversation is changing; this is a competent dad, who clearly spends a lot of quality time with his daughter. This is such an unassuming ad that you might miss just how important it is. And if you don’t think ads are an indicator of where we are as a nation, or that they have no power to drive conversation about social norms, watch this and read news articles about the ensuing controversy.

The conversation needs to continue. That’s why I will be taking on a new role in addition to this blog as a curator of articles about fatherhood. You’ll see more posts from me on Facebook and Twitter. I hope to amplify the current conversation and add my own voice where I see the need and the space for doing so.

So much of what I do now feels like I’m doing it for my daughter. I want her to know that what her mom does is normal and strong and amazing, and I want her to know that a man can be sensitive and caring and a feminist who’s engaged in his family. I don’t know how long I’ll be a stay-at-home dad, but I do know that me being one is important for my family.

Cutting corners

About three weeks ago, I completed my first half-marathon. I remember the moment I signed up for the Colfax race. It was in October, and I had been suffering from crippling insomnia for a couple of weeks. I was sitting in a bar on a Monday night (my night off from stay-at-home parenting), and I decided that I needed a goal to get back into exercising regularly. It worked, and though I still struggle with the anxiety and insomnia (on occasion), working toward that goal had a huge impact on me getting my life under control.

I loved running that race, and it went even better than I expected -- I finished in less than two hours, a result that I’m pretty proud of. The accomplishment has even led me to consider running a full marathon -- I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it. While I am proud of the work I put into training for the half, I still feel like I cut some corners. In terms of diet and exercise, I feel like I did the minimum I could do to still be successful with my goal. If I train for a full marathon, I’m thinking I won’t be able to cut so many corners -- there’s too much work involved.

Becoming a father has led me to question my predilection for cutting corners, because I’ve realized that it’s really hard to do that as a parent. You are responsible for the health, safety and happiness of another human being. If you really accept the weight of that responsibility, then you tend to go overboard. You feel both more anxious and more happy. You keep the house cleaner. You try to eat better. You drink less alcohol. You get less vocal with your road rage. You reflect on everything that has made you who you are up until that moment that you held your baby for the first time.

Well, at least you try. And sometimes, because of the stress of parenting and, really, the stress of life, you become the worst version of yourself.

I was in Target with my wife and daughter last week. We were all exhausted. None of us had been sleeping well, Eleanor was cutting her first two teeth, and I hate shopping in grocery stores. We had finished with our list, and I was pushing the cart while Katie carried Eleanor. Some dude was walking into the store as I was heading to the cash register. He was staring at his phone, walking slow, so I decided to push my cart quickly in front of him and get through the line and out of the store.

This inconsiderate man decided to pause his phone staring to say to me, “Excuse you,” as if we were in elementary school. I threw an expletive at him over my shoulder as I kept moving, because his passive aggressive comment made me so angry that I responded instead of just walking away. He decided to follow my family to the register and to confront me. I’m not sure what he had in mind, or what he expected to accomplish, but my wife disarmed him with some sort of diplomatic comment and he walked away.

Katie was terrified, and I felt horrible. I wasn’t acting like a Christian with my behavior, and my actions could have put my family in danger.

When you are a parent, and -- I’ll say it -- when you are a father, these stupid alpha male mistakes have horrific potential consequences. My temper endangered my family. That’s an awful mistake to make, and it left me with an indescribable, sobering realization about just how important my actions are now that I am a father. I’ll never forget the confused, quiet look on Eleanor’s face as she tried to process the interaction her father had with some stranger. It still haunts me several days later.

Being a father has led me to try to be the best version of myself, but the process isn’t complete -- it never will be. In another post, I’ll revisit how parenthood led me back to the church and my renewed quest to understand Christianity and to be a good Christian. In the meantime, I’d like to explain how this journey reminds me of John Wesley’s concept of Christian Perfection. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this. Christian perfection, which is really about the process of becoming a better Christian -- not a perfect one -- is a lot like being a parent. It’s about striving to make the purity of your intention match your actions. You’re constantly trying to get better at it, but you’re a fallible human so you make a lot of mistakes on the way.

I am really fortunate that my mistakes so far haven’t done permanent damage. And here’s hoping that I learn from my mistakes and I strive toward being a perfect parent, even though I’ll never get there. I can’t cut corners on my path to becoming the best father I can be for my daughter.

Who are these routines for, anyhow?

I hate the process of getting my daughter to take naps. I enjoy the naps, but the Twister-style contortions we have to go through to convince her to take them in the first place are beyond frustrating.

For those who don't read this blog all the time, here's a recap: I use a yoga exercise ball to bounce my daughter into submission for her first nap, usually at around 9am. She then sleeps in my arms for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. This makes it hard to do anything but sit in my rocking chair and watch subtitled movies at a really low volume. Granted, I really like my Criterion-watching time, and I love holding my daughter in my arms while she sleeps so peacefully.

This nap experience has been so significant that I have even considered writing a book about it, a parenting memoir crossed with film criticism. I may be the only target market in existence for such a book, but writing it has crossed my mind :)

But this napping situation is not sustainable, and it’s been going on for too long (she’s almost a year old, for crying out loud).

The morning nap process, while frustrating, is much less annoying than the afternoon process. This consists of, after meeting my wife for lunch (and a nursing session for Eleanor), driving around Denver for a very long time, waiting for Eleanor to go to sleep so I can transport her entire carseat into her room without waking her. Granted, she likes to sleep in her carseat, and she sleeps well, but I am tired of driving all around town in the hopes that she will fall asleep.

This afternoon, after a 1-hour sleep session in my arms this morning, Eleanor didn’t want to take a nap in her carseat after we met Katie for lunch. That made sense, as it hadn’t even been three hours since she woke up from her last nap.

But this was the way we did naps, so I was determined to just keep driving until she fell asleep.

Then I started thinking. Who does this routine serve? I wanted Eleanor to go to sleep on my terms so I could take a break from parenting for an hour or so. I wasn’t driving around town for her; I was doing it for myself. As that realization sunk in, with the air conditioning cranked up and the radio silent (both environmental conditions designed to encourage baby sleep), I made a decision:

Eleanor’s naps aren’t about me and my needs; they’re about hers. I caught myself not treating my daughter as a human being but as a thing that needed managing. That’s not a flattering place to find one’s self. I was miserable driving around town with no purpose other than making my daughter sleep. My daughter was miserable because she was sitting in the back of the car with nothing to do but stare out the window and talk to herself.

For the first time in a while, I made the decision to just go home. I unbuckled my daughter, and we played in the living room for while until she started to get quiet and (maybe?) sleepy. Then, I dragged the yoga ball, a couple books, and my daughter into her room. We read a couple of stories, I bounced her on the yoga ball until she fell asleep, and then I put her in her crib (a much more obvious place for naps, don’t you think?). She woke up during the transfer, but by now I was already committed. I said, “It’s naptime. I love you,” and I closed the door to her room. She talked to herself and cried for 15 minutes. But she finally fell asleep. For 35 minutes!

She usually takes 90-minute naps in the afternoon, but I’ll take this as a victory. A victory over my selfish needs and a victory for my daughter’s resilience and maturity.

***

Part 2

(As often happens, I wrote the above half of this post earlier in the week. The situation has changed.)

Well, we’re almost a week into the new nap scenario. After the short but successful nap that Monday afternoon, I decided to bite the bullet and plunge full into crib naps. It hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t been as hard as I expected. Eleanor hasn’t cried for more than 20 minutes for any of her naps, and by Thursday, she was taking two naps a day, of normal length, and she seemed as cheery as ever when awake.

I’ve realized that Eleanor will never remember our naps in the easy chair and the Criterion movies. After a few more days, she probably won’t even remember the carseat naps either. I will remember all of it, though, and I feel a sense of loss for the intimacy of these naps. My daughter will never again be small enough to fall asleep in my arms. I haven’t been able to watch any movies during her new morning crib naps -- it feels like we something we did together. The Daily Show and Colbert Report are my morning nap break TV shows, now.

I do hope, however, that maybe my love of movies has passed down to her through the osmosis of these naps. Maybe she’ll even read these words, someday, and then she’ll decide to watch some obscure Japanese movie from the 1960s, just out of sheer curiosity.

And hopefully she’ll love it.

Mother's Day?

What do you do when there are two mothers in the house on Mother’s Day?  Who gets breakfast in bed?  Who gets treated like a queen?  More accurately – unless your child or children are swept away by a grandparent, who gets a break?

Well, not us.  We exchanged sweet cards and our son brought home flowers in a pot he painted a school, but after church it was still “all about the kid” even though it was Mother’s Day.  I kept telling our son, “Every day we do what you want to do and dote on you.  One day a year, it’s time to do what mommies want to do and for you to dote on us.”  He just didn’t get it.  Frankly, I was bitter although my partner handled it better.

Isn’t Mother’s Day supposed to be wonderful, perfect, delightful, amazing?  Well, much like other holidays and parenthood in general – it’s busy and messy and not the ideal you see or read about.  The sooner we admit this to ourselves and accept it, the better we’ll be and the happier our families will be.

My day on Saturday, which was my birthday, and Sunday, which was Mother’s Day, reminds me of Jesus on the boat.  After taking care of people’s needs, he withdrew by boat to a secluded place.  Clearly, he needed some “me time.”  However, the crowds heard where he was headed and met him there.  Jesus had compassion for them and healed their sick and then fed the 5,000.

Now, I don’t heal the sick or feed 5,000, but like Jesus being a Mom means I’m never “off duty.”  Our son is very blessed to have two moms who are overachievers.  So when I need to take a nap or my partner needs a break, we get those.  It’s just not for long.  It’s not for long, because our little guy needs us and wants to be with us.  He wants us to play basketball with him and ride bikes with him and play Candyland with him.

We are wanted and needed.  It is a wonderful thing.  As parents, we can look to Jesus who did much more than ride a bike with a child and know that parenthood is a gift.  It is a gift to be wanted and needed.  Even when it’s Mother’s Day or Father’s Day and we would like a break, we are still wanted and needed.

So, happy parenthood to you all.

Lauren Boyd 
Director of Programming and Membership at PHUMC
Partner to Candi and Mother to Miller who is 5 1/2

An open letter to the love of my life and the mother of my child

Dear Katie,

I find it difficult to convey how impressive you are. You are an incredible person, in so many ways and at such a magnitude that I am in awe of you. There is no fanfare for your greatness, which is why I feel like I need to write this and put it on the blog.

You are the Chief Curriculum Officer for a network of seven schools. You breastfeed our daughter four times a day and pump four ounces of milk every day so I can mix it into Eleanor’s cereal. Sometimes, you pump at 11pm, after a long day of endless meetings. You clear your schedule for about 45 minutes to an hour every day so we can have lunch as a family. This is something we wanted to do anyway, but it became a necessity when our daughter began refusing a bottle at four months. You still cook most of the meals in our house (you are a MUCH better cook than I am). And you help me keep the house in order despite the fact that our daughter’s favorite pastime is ripping dvds off a shelf and not putting them back (the nerve of an 11-month-old!).

You maintain a work/life balance that I can’t possibly imagine having to negotiate. You are highly respected within a work culture that values long hours and hard work, yet you advocate for a sustainable workplace and people listen to you. And you work so hard so I can stay home and take care of our amazing daughter, who’s a gift to us both in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

You are an incredible mother. You always have energy, love, and attention for Eleanor in ways that I envy. I love the way you sing to her. I love how you comfort her when she’s upset. I love how you encourage her to try new foods and to get up when she falls.

You also lead a small group Bible study every Sunday -- sometimes, you even provide the snacks, whether it’s baking cookies or making a run to Target for a veggie tray. And did I mention you’re training for a 10K, too? After Eleanor heads to bed, you steal into the guest room for a run on the treadmill, getting ready for the Bolder Boulder.

You are an incredible wife. We have been married almost 10 years (in July), been together for 14 years, and you are my rock. When I started having issues with anxiety/insomnia, after Eleanor was born, you encouraged me to get help. You make a commitment to come home a little early when I have appointments with my therapist. And you let me sleep in a little in the mornings while you get ready to go to work, especially if I’ve had trouble sleeping the night before. You take care of me, when I need it. And you do all of this with a uncommon grace that makes me fall in love with you again and again.

I am so excited that I get to celebrate this Mother’s Day with you, and I feel so fortunate that I have the opportunity to share this life journey with you. We have traveled a long path to parenthood, and I don’t think we would have made it this far without your strength. You deserve every accolade and every kind word thrown your way.

There is no drama in your greatness, which is what makes you great. I wish I had better words. I wish I could really make the world know just how amazing you are, even though those who know you (and many of this blog’s readers do) don’t even need me to tell them.

Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.

--Steve