This Week in Normality — Parents and Children

The original, defacto, theme was “Father’s and Son’s” for reasons I won’t go into now.  Suffice it to say, I felt a more inclusive theme was fitting.

For the last week or so I’ve been picking my way through Manhood for Amateurs (Michael Chabon’s first work of non-fiction). Even though the HarperCollins website claims that the essays are “slyly interlinked” I’ve always enjoyed reading collected essays out of order. Perhaps I’m borderline ADD, but I’ve always held to the belief that reading such a work out of order leads me to discoveries I would have missed had my path been more linear.

Just today I stumbled across what will undoubtedly be my favorite passage from the entire book:

This may be the fundamental truth of parenthood: No matter how enlightened or well prepared you are by theory, principle, and the imperative not to repeat the mistakes of your own parents, you are no better a father or mother than the set of your own limitations permits you to be. And that set is your heritage, the pinched and helpless legacy of all the limited mothers and fathers whose fumblings, evasions, and shortcomings led, by some dubious accidental magic, to the production of you.”

It comes from an essay in which Chabon witnesses, in a real world exchange, the actualization of his eldest daughter’s burgeoning sexuality, and then must come to terms with his subsequent knee jerk reaction, even against the logical, objective view he holds of “sexuality” in his own mind.

It is cliched, or course, for a father to want to, as Chabon puts it, hit some boys in the face with “a mallet” for simply staring at his daughter. And while my own daughter isn’t even in kindergarten, I have a deepening sense that my own experience will turn out very much like Chabon’s.

Another cliche, though, is in telling someone “unless you have kids, you don’t understand.” More than once, someone has said to me “I can’t believe you have a kid” or, more recently, “I can’t believe you have two kids.” I’ve also been asked “what is it like to be a parent?” Or, “what advice can you give me for when I have kids?” My responses to questions like this are usually along the lines of…

• Weird, huh
• Yeah,
• (Shrug)
• Don’t forget your baby in the car when you go to the store.

In case you couldn’t tell, I have very little of use to say in regards to what it is like being a parent or what is required to be a “good” parent.  When it comes to all things parent, “unless you have kids, you wouldn’t understand” which also means, if you already have kids, you don’t need it explained. Sort of a catch 22, really, but it is true.

One thing can convey, something I’ve slowly come to realize over the last 3 1/2 years (and has been reinforced in last year that I’ve had two kids) is that parents are just making it up as they go along. I might not know, precisely, what a good parent should do, but I can fake it well enough to fool a couple of toddlers. The other day my daughter asked mommy for something, mommy replied that said “thing” was broken and that daddy would have to fix it when they got home. My daughter, I’m told, said “daddy can fix anything.” That statement is heartbreaking for two reasons:

1. It shows how much unconditional love she has for me
2. It also betrays the fact that, someday (much too soon), my daughter will come to find out that, in fact, I’ve faked my way through parenthood

I’m not saying that I feel as if I’m a terrible father.  While I can’t say for certain, my guess is most people who make an honest attempt at raising their children (read: don’t want their children to have the same fucking problems as themselves) are really just trying to find their way through a dark hallway without a flashlight.  On some level, what counts most is the effort.  At the end of the day, I will inevitably fuck up my kids in ways I had never intended, or could have foreseen, but hopefully they understand that I tried my best.

Until then, though, I get to read stories to my kids every night before they go to bed.

Finally, for your edification this time around, D. Composition brings us the Top 10 Most Awesome Parents in Film…enjoy.

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