Twelve Years of Christmas
Twelve years to the night of our first hookup — to be more but not too precise, no penetration occurred in Apartment 16A in Hermosa Beach, Calif., but there were other acts of physical intimacy between strangers yet to build an emotional bond so we clearly have a visceral attraction embedded in the foundation of our relationship — the wife and I got in a heated fight. We always find it peculiar to picture us back then, interacting at the SANTA Monica Pub Crawl not knowing this would be the person we marry. How interesting it would be if some narrator from the future paused the music and small talk at Barney’s Beanery in 2012, “How I Met Your Mother” style, and told us in exactly 12 years we would be arguing over our children.
Our fights are never mean or ugly and sometimes even marginally productive. The thing is I will always instinctively rationalize my behavior and words, but it doesn’t make me right. That might be my most mature statement ever. I’m a man, I’m 40!
In our root cause analysis of this one, we agreed we shouldn’t overlook both of us being really effing tired, the type of tired that compounds over days and weeks. We were so close to getting the kids to bed on a Saturday night. Any delay would be met with an incommensurate amount of irritation.
The 5-year-old in an abrupt fit chucked a square Magna-Tile at my wife, hitting her on the shoulder with a good amount of force. We were both shocked but not entirely out of our state of fatigue. She reacted sharply to him and said something like, “And what are you going to say?” In my haze I thought she was talking to the person who threw it. She repeated and when I realized she was talking to me, the Magna-Tile continued its trajectory and struck my nerve with a corner.
I was furious. However mad she was at me, I raised on a poker hand neither of us might have cared to play had we been well-rested. I couldn’t find the clip, but my wife once showed me Michelle Obama speaking a truth about how as parents you can’t get mad at the children so you get mad at each other. We were both mostly mad at our son acting out and channeled it toward the only eligible recipient.
That said, we do have tension between differing parenting philosophies on a low simmer at all times. She’s a former Montessori teacher who knows all the progressive techniques. I am not tied to any principles and will try anything to see what works.
I think in terms of direct outcomes, enticement and enforcement, liberal use of carrot and stick to build muscle memory. She thinks in terms of big picture, how to help developing brains and identities and set them up for success. It’s a bit of a role reversal; in all other facets of life, I’m the one willing to put in work or tolerate discomfort in the short term for a bigger payoff in the future.
With kids though, I am OK with picking battles and often take the path of least resistance. Then I will backfill the teachings when they’re older. For example, I bribe my children with dessert every day to get them to eat protein and vegetables. Something feels intuitively wrong about this method, but I am confident they can adopt a better way as adults. I ate fast food and pre-RFK Jr. school lunches every day growing up, and now we chop our vegetables on my abs.
We don’t even use a knife; we press the vegetable against the edges of my obliques.
My wife conceded on the dessert bribery. Apparently there is a school of thought that suggests you place dessert on the same plate as the rest of dinner, so the child doesn’t attach any significance to it. I thought this was a joke the first time my wife mentioned it. Our kids wouldn’t even need to sit down before inhaling the cookie and leaving.
I suppose the same-plate menu could work for some kids, just not mine. I also think my sons need some of the stick to supplement the carrot. Don’t worry, it was brought to my attention spanking is no longer in fashion and I will comply. But I believe if they do something bad, there can be punishment. And more important, that punishment will be a deterrent so good behavior is practiced even if they don’t understand the reasons or have the right motivations just yet.
Of course the ideal would be to meet every transgression with a patient explanation of patience, or kindness, empathy, stoicism, self-esteem, fairness, respect, the golden rule, property rights, cause and effect. According to my wife, a punishment such as taking away TV or sending them to their room isn’t productive because the consequence doesn’t relate to the behavior. Yelling or scolding only serves to make them feel unsafe and cause issues down the road.
I conceded on this and follow my wife’s lead on discipline, if that’s what you call it. Her approach makes sense on a conceptual high level, but on a pragmatic day-to-day level, our sons need some pushback and confrontation mixed in there.
Without challenging them at least occasionally with more intensity, they simply go too far too often, and both parents end up snapping anyway. A little fear of consequence shouldn’t damage them in the long run, right? It’s also a lesson in how the outside world works.
Getting called out after the Magna-Tile projectile pissed me off because I felt my wife was trying to have her cake and eat it too. We can be soft on them and deal with their propensity to be a-holes, or we can instill discipline and expect a better standard of behavior. We chose the former, and I bite my tongue all the time.
The times I don’t, I see immediate results and don’t believe this compromises their ability to learn the important values when older. Plus I still put in the effort to explain why a choice is good or bad, so if they happen to be smarter than they act, they can get ahead of the curve.
I don’t want to be made to feel inadequate as a father. That basically takes over as the No. 1 insecurity the instant the giant slimy head pops out. Arguably the most important responsibility of a father to son is to show and tell him how not to be an a-hole.
And I can’t do it the way I want. To receive her anger while I’m deferring and doing it her way made me angry. An hour later, in an attempt to let some air out, I sat down with the 5-year-old and gently explained although we knew he didn’t mean harm, throwing an object with a hard edge is dangerous and he should go hug his mom.
Frankly it seemed to resolve the issue well and likely had a better effect than going ballistic or grounding him. So yeah, my way would have been wrong in this case. We’ll see how it goes with two teenage boys in another 12 years of change as dramatic as it’s sneaky.
