Category Archives: Parenting and Family

My Grandfather Sold a Fake Book to President Truman

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My grandfather, who passed well before I was born, owned a music store on 48th Street called Banner Music. One day, two well dressed men walked into the store. I’ll let Murray Sunshine tell the rest of the story. Murray, who sat in on drums at my bar mitzvah party (swinging) and once ragged on my wife for ordering pierogi at the Second Avenue Deli, worked with and loved Grandpa Fintz. As much as any one else, knowing him has connected me to the lovely but lost world they once inhabited. Not least of all, because he can tell a story like this.

This was recorded at my grandmother’s 90th birthday party on January 1, 2012. If you don’t know what a fake book is, read this.

Uncomfortable Truths

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The best, most vibrant comedy mines the depth of uncomfortable truths. I first discovered Louis CK’s standup a few years ago, and the bit that got me was about what an asshole his four year-old daughter was.

CK taught me not only that my frustrations with parenting were common, but also that because of the fact that they could be tapped for great art, they were that ambiguous stuff that makes life, you know, life. Any respectable parent feels terrible when negative thoughts cross their mind about their children. But any honest parent will admit having them. That’s why I both cringe and kind of get it when Louis CK quips “I love that kid to pieces. But I wish she was never born.” Of course he doesn’t think that all of the time… but there are moments when thoughts of which we’re not proud creep uncomfortably into our minds. It’s part of the human condition; why not talk about it? Better yet, why not joke about it?

Adam Mansbach’s book “Go the F-ck to Sleep” taps into that same feeling by playfully articulating the redundant, exhausting, and endlessly unproductive processes that parenting requires. Deploying verboten language when discussing something so truly precious as our kids provides necessary release from the quotidian torture all parents endure. Bill Cosby’s bits about parenting, which led to his sitcom in the 1980s, were funny in an observational and performative way. But Cosby’s routines are ultimately less satisfying because they construct family life as chaotic yet still under control, parents as harried but ultimately capable and on top of things even though kids say the darndest things. Now that I’m a seasoned parent, Cosby’s stuff feels less true. Balancing parenting, work, bills, marriage, life, and still maintaining some inner-direction requires persisting and progressing despite constantly not being on top of things. Most of this is because parenting is so demanding. Being able to hold in my head both unconditional love for my children and the honest acceptance that they make my life worse even as they make it better required a maturation process I didn’t realize I’d have to go through when I first held my daughter.

Watching the evolution of CK’s career over the past few years suggests the moment where it’s therapeutic to vulgarly talk about your children is but a stage. As he told Emily Nussbaum of New York Magazine:

The mistake so many parents make, he tells me, is to go into mourning for the life they’ve lost. “All those early bits I did calling my kid an asshole came out of not knowing how to handle it. You distill those feelings in stand-up.” But as his children get older, he says, he’s become more confident about his role—something he wants to incorporate into the show. “They’re amazing now. It’s nice to be with them. It’s delightful. And you know, it also doesn’t last very long.”

I’ve started to see that kind of light in my future with my kids, even though the 2 year-old is a fledgling maniac and the 7 year-old is simply learning to be difficult in new ways. One particularly long trip home from an exhausting birthday party in Brooklyn a couple months ago sticks out. They were both worn down, over-sugared and tired, and either could have lapsed into assholicity quite easily. Our small car could have been turned for 90 minutes into a hurtling torture chamber. But instead the kids were quite pleasant, singing to each other and entertaining us, dozing off sweetly before we got home. The moment was a window into a future where we will be able to spend more time just being people together. We’ll often enjoy each others’ company, and have the ability to occupy ourselves when we don’t.

Of course, when we got home, both kids woke up, and took another hour to get the fuck back to sleep.

What a Difference…

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My little girl finished kindergarten today.

Here she was on her first day:

And here she is today:

The difference in her face is striking to me; it’s like a year of school has swapped out her babyness and replaced it with, I don’t know… wisdom? Knowing? I mean, yes, she’s like 15% older than when we took the first picture… but she looks like she’s aged.

I have a mixture of emotions about her experience and her school and the place we’ve chosen to call home. And she can be incredibly difficult for her mother and myself to deal with to such an extent that I quiver when I think about what awaits us in her teenage years. But I’m unequivocally proud of what a good, eager and curious learner she is, and more than anything in my life I love watching that take shape. The other day she said to her mom, “isn’t it kind of sad when you finish a book?”  I can’t think of another phrase I’d more wish my six year-old to say.

The Scariest Story Ever; or, the Tyranny of Taxomony

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It was night time. I was in bed. I was awakened by a bump. I got out of bed. I looked under my bed. YIKES! I saw a monster. He growled at me. I growled bake. He got agry. I ran away he did to. I ran in my mom’s and dad’s room. The monster ran to the closet. In the morning my mom and dad asked me why I was in ther bed. I told them it all.

- “The Monster,” written precisely as above by a kindergartner I know

My oldest child is completing her first year of public school.  While I was mostly pleased with her experience, there are certain components of it that, projecting forward, make me uneasy. Primary among them is the administrative impulse within public education to categorize children. Her classmates have all been divided into groups, and the groups will be evenly distributed across the various first grade classes next year. Boys and girls are each a group. Special needs children are a group, as are the “troublemakers.” Then there are the average kids, the “brights,” and the few who have horrifyingly been deemed “gifted and talented.” They’ll all be spread across 10 or so classes, with the “gifted and talenteds” collected in one lucky classroom that gets a visit from an outside teacher once a week. Once you’ve entered into the “gifted and talented” group, thanks to your performance on a secret test and assessment formula, you stay there for the duration of elementary school, like some sandbox mafia to which other children are occasionally extended an invitation. There’s also a special arts program, which pulls students out to work on projects with a district art teacher, who handpicked the kids, herself, based on her interactions with them this year.

I understand the need to assess students, to identify those who need extra help and to ensure that all are challenged. I understand that in order to distribute students across classes and distribute resources effectively within a system, divisions and choices must be made. But what I am seeing first-hand, which should come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to public education, is a system that creates giant cracks connected by shoddy netting. Forward, forward, forward the students are marched, their teachers sympathetic drill sergeants who can get them a little help and extra attention within certain confines, but not really much more than that. My state, like many others, doubles down by incentivizing a system that reifies taxonomies that I’ve been shocked out of my naivete to find start immediately. I have these misgivings even though we live in a very good school district and even though our daughter has done very well.

I’m familiar with but not expert in theories of elementary education, and there is much I don’t know. What I do know is that I wish we could send our child to a school where she was marched on the path projected forward by the thinking in the story above, not by a system that sorted her by its expectations of what she should be able to do when. There’s a creativity and focus in “The Monster” which I fear will only be tapped and harnessed incidentally given the current trajectory of public schooling, whether she’s in a “gifted and talented” program or not. I want her to get help at school nurturing that ability, mining it and turning it into the base from which she can develop the literacy required to be a well-rounded adult. But the hegemony of quantitative assessment and the taxonomies that it leaves in its wake make me worry that such creativity will be given space to flourish less regularly than it should.

Approaches like what I want exist, to be sure, but we can’t afford to have our kids attend the nearest Montessori, and home schooling isn’t practical given our situation (and sense of what we’re capable of doing). We also care deeply about public education, and would rather contribute to its richness and successes through the unique perspectives we know our children will bring than to remove ourselves from it all together.

Ultimately, we’ll plan to supplement and support our children’s pursuit of their passions, and while we’re confident they’ll come out the other side whole, talented, adjusted young adults, we’re also increasingly resigned to the fact that no matter where we are it will take a certain amount of navigation, and that we’ll see things along they way that don’t sit well with us. In fact, that’s already begun.

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Creative Commons License photo credit: minowa*naitoh

8:30 pm

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One of my favorite times of day is 8:30 pm. That’s usually when I scoop up my 10 month-old son and we say good night to his didi and mommy and go upstairs to start our little ritual.

First, we read a short book, like Peekaboo Puppy, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Goodnight Gorilla.

Second, we turn off the lights and turn on the Twilight Constellation Night Light.

Then, we put on a song and have a cuddle. We tried the cry it out thing, and after a couple rough nights, it worked ok. But then teething, ear infections, and general lack of parental constitution landed us at this new process, and it’s worked pretty well (at least for our first shot at getting him asleep at night). I know that without a doubt we’ll have a drag it out sleep war in our future, but I’m not much for grand parental theories about getting them to sleep. Both my wife and are I pragmatists, for better or worse. We’ll try to be systematic and think about the consequences of the decisions… but we’re not much for short term sacrifice when we don’t have much faith (no matter what other parents say about sleep training) in the long term returns. Besides, this process is the opposite of onerous.

Usually, my boy’s asleep before the end of a couple songs. Often, he gets real drowsy, and I put him down and rub his back until he falls asleep. The whole time he’s chilled out and adorable, and I absolutely love this time we spend together. Sometimes, when the music turns off, I use a glowing seahorse (that plays Handel’s Messiah) to transition him.

When my 6 year-old daughter was his age, before she developed stronger opinions than Robert Hughes, we were able to choose the music that she listened to, and used it as an opportunity to expose her to sounds we really liked. We’re trying that again with our second. He doesn’t need any particular song, so I’m fortunate to be able to try different tunes out.

Below is a playlist of songs that have recently been in the 8:30 pm rotation at our house. Maybe they’ll bring some smiles and peaceful zzz’s to yours. Hope you enjoy.