I figure it is a good time, here at the beginning of the year, to try something new and a little difficult for me. I have, for a long time, counted the “Adult Children of Alcoholics” fellowship as a major element in maintaining my sanity. Now, living in Germany, I no longer have access to the meetings that were biweekly, cheaper-and-better-than-therapy ways to find and maintain my center. But, I still have all the accumulated ######## of those years growing up among crazy people and there is nothing that brings that to the surface like facing fatherhood. This is one of the things I joined DadBloggers to discuss, so here it goes.

I come from a broken home. It was broken long before the divorce, which finally happened when I was 25. I know I didn’t break it and credit good old Miss Harbison for making sure that I knew it wasn’t my fault. She made sure that in the substance abuse unit of Health Class, we all came away understanding that if a parent or loved one had a problem that it wasn’t our fault. I doubt she or other teachers at that stage would have suspected that I was one of those kids who was growing up too fast and needed this meassage. As things progressed, the issues at home became more obvious to those outside the home and we were expected to hide the truth we lived with daily. When the divorce finally happened, my father was surprised when he was confronted by people who knew what had been going on during those years. All I could do was stare in disbelief that he didn’t know the extent to which others were aware of our family shame. Many also came to me to discuss matters and often apologized that they hadn’t tried to intervene. Many others, I know, intervened for my benefit without ever actually discussing the problem. All those more educated and better able than my parents who helped me with school stuff and offered me moments of shelter from the storm at home, I thank. I wish that I could thank them personally, but so many were and are still friends and I feel we have a certain unspoken agreement to let things lie. These were good people who know they did a good deed and didn’t expect a whole lot in return. As an aside, I want to say plainly, that we should all appreciate how much a compliment, a little help or encouragment from someone else’s mom or dad can mean to a kid who is living in a tough situation.

But, for all of the little bits of help and shelter, the major fallout of that upbringing is mine and mine alone to deal with. No one else can do any of the heavy lifting.  My anger and anxiety problems and fears over just being a father are all part of this bigger puzzle. So far I have succeeded in many ways but in others I fail often. While I have avoided many of the pitfalls of anxious new parents worrying over their new baby, my temper gets the better of me and I expend tremendous time and energy being anxious. Time that I should be spending with my son.

A popular slogan around the ACOA program is “do the next right thing”. We invoke it to remind ourselves that we can’t live our lives regretting the past and that it is a series of days that makes a life. Each day is our opportunity to do the next right thing for the sake of our children, families, country and planet. Any energy expended on regretting the past is a debt against today and the future. This is the slogan for my new year. 

The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.

        Henry David Thoreau

One stereotype of men is that we often exile ourselves from the connection and benefit of community.  Unfortunately, there is some truth to the stereotype.  My father was a prime example.  During his life, he rarely had deep relationships with those outside his family.  To some extent, he rarely had deep relationships with those inside his family.  From what I understand, his father was also like that. 

While I can’t change the past, I do have the ability to impact the future.  As the father of three boys, I recognize the need to make community a greater part of my life as a way to lead my children into a connection with community.  While I also have a daughter, she’s a natural at forming social relationships.  My focus on this post is on my sons.

I suppose sociologists can debate whether this phenomenon is nature or nurture.  My answer to this question is “Yes”.  I have no proof, but I imagine it’s a combination of biology and cultural socialization.  Regardless, I know in my heart that it’s important to be connected to community.  Of course, making that a reality is much more difficult.  In ways both conscious and not, we tend to follow the momentum we’re taught as children.  That was bad for me but has the potential to be good for my sons. 

Naturally, the best way for my sons to learn this is if I lead the way in my own life.  When I live an authentic life with my children, one based on transparency, my sons can learn that it’s good and beneficial to have open and honest relationships.  For everything there is a season.  We can rejoice when there’s cause to rejoice.  We can share sorrow when there’s reason for sorrow.  My hope is that my sons will avoid lives of quiet desperation and embrace a life of caring, connection and community.

Well I feel really good ringing in the New Year. I feel a lot better now than the past week or two. The entire time my kids were on Christmas break they were feeling sick. Fortunately neither my wife nor I got sick but all 4 of the kids took turns vomiting.

My youngest daughter was born on Christmas Day in 2004, and so we spent the day by ourselves. Family was cautioned to stay away in fear of catching something nasty. So we spent Christmas and up through the New Year keeping to ourselves.

My wife’s brother came home from the Army and hadn’t seen us in 6 months so for him not to be able to come and visit was hard on us all. I did get to sneak out a couple times in the evening and watch a movie and eat dinner at a restaurant with him.

But overall, the holidays were tough keeping the kids cleaned up from being sick on themselves and comforting them when they weren’t feeling well. Movies and movies and more movies. I got to see my fair share of them. So when I say I am getting over the “Holiday Blahs”, I mean that exactly. As soon as my brother inlaw left to go back to the Army and school started up again everybody was back to normal. It was a good way to start off 2007 with a healthy crew and going full speed ahead.

I have only a few weeks left before the baby arrives. In a way I feel fortunate that we were sick now and not right after the new baby arrived. There are all kinds of things we still need to do to get ready. Some of you may know but we have a tradition in our family where we have all of our kids born at home. I just recently posted more on having our kids at home and some of the things I have been doing to get ready. Go ahead and check it out.

Did you happen to make it through the holidays sick free? I know a few other people who spent Christmas sacked out on the couch while they fought the flue. Either way hope you all had a good holiday season and Happy New Year! May 2007 be a good one.

So, if you read my last post here, you know that I was recently in a play.  The show ended this past weekend and was a success.  It was a blast to be on stage again.  I had such a great time.  However, as you know, going into it I was worried about how it would affect my family.  All my worries were unnecessary. 

There were some unexpected benefits from doing the show as well.  My daughters had never before seen me on stage.  Both of them loved it.  All my kids did.  My 3-year-old had the show memorized, including songs and choreography, after seeing it only a few times.  She loves to quote the lines and reenact the scenes.  Everyone in the show got a kick watching here dance in the aisles as they danced.  Several of them commented on how she was born to be on stage.  Maybe.  But to see how she and all my kids reacted to the show was one of the things that told me I made the right decision to do the show in the first place.

After seeing the show for the first time, my kids told me how much they liked it and how funny they thought I was.  My wife then looked at me and commented, “Makes it all worth it, huh?” Yes, it did.  Even if no one else enjoyed the show, the knowledge that my kids loved it did make it worth it, because doing it cost me time with them and to see that they got some joy out of the final product was awesome.

That sort of puts things in perspective.  I have never really done theatre for the accolades or the applause and I sure don’t do it for the money.  It’s simply something that is incredibly fun to do and something that I have been blessed to be able to participate in.  In short, I do it because it’s fun.  But seeing how much my kids liked watching me perform was by far the best reward that doing theatre has ever given me.

Yes, seeing my kids laugh and having them tell me I’m funny makes everything worth it.

My wife and I have done something crazy.  That is, in addition to having a kid. 

See, in December, we sold our house in the suburbs of South Austin and moved into a smaller and less expensive condo on the other side of the city.  We gave up about 800 square feet of space, plus a two-car garage and a yard.  We sold off and gave away several truckloads of excess furniture and possessions, things that frankly we weren’t using and didn’t need.  Now instead of opening the backdoor to let the dog out, somebody has to put his leash on him and take him for a walk.  Instead of going out to the garage to do the laundry, we use a community facility.  Instead of just chucking all our extra stuff into the garage or the attic until one day when we just might need it, we have to evaluate every possession and determine if we need it or want it bad enough to make room for it.  Otherwise, out it goes.

In short, we downsized. 

Why in the name of all that is holy and unholy would two reasonably sane people do this to themselves?  This is America, you’re supposed to move the other direction.  Everybody knows that.

Well I’ll tell you, this massive life change was sparked by another big change that happened to me a while back: I figured out what I want to be when I grow up.  Throughout my life, I’ve always wanted to devote myself to doing something meaningful, something that could be of benefit to my fellow human beings.  I’ve just never really had a good handle on what that something was until recently when I felt a very strong pull, or hey let’s not mince words, a calling to go into the counseling profession.  I hesitate to use that word, but hey, it is what it is.  And in order to make that move, I have a few years of school in front of me.

So this basically meant my wife and I had to reevaluate some things, revisit our goals, our values, what we consider to be most important in life, not to mention the kind of example that we want to set for our son and the kind of life that we want to give him and any other kids we may have.  We had to ask some tough questions.  Should we put our baby in daycare for my wife to go back to work?  Should I forget about going back to school and just try to be happy in my current line of work?  Should I wait a few years and see how things go?  Or should we take the plunge and just go for it?  Honestly, if it were just me, I’d probably be too chicken to go in the risky direction, but my wife’s support and courage convinced me, and we decided that the house was the thing to go.  So we’re moved, and this spring I take on the challenge of working full time and going to school.  I’m going to be one busy guy. 

I won’t lie, I have some anxieties about what this change means for my son.  There are the obvious things, like there being less space, plus no yard of his own to play in when he gets older.  We’ll have to *gasp* go play at the park down the street.  Then of course there are the demands on my time.  Between work and classes and studying, I’m going to have to make an extra effort to make time to be a husband and a dad.  Just as we had to jettison possessions for which there was no space, I’ll have to cut out activities for which there isn’t time. 

But then I think about what it means for my son and my wife and me if I don’t do it.  It means my son has a dad who’s in a job that, while it pays the bills, isn’t particularly inspiring to him.  It means my son’s primary male role model is a man who lets fear of risk get in the way of doing something he feels called to.  It means my son and my wife have to live with a man filled with resentment and regret for not having tried to do something that he had a passion for.  And ultimately, I think those things are far worse than living in a smaller place. 

So 2007 ushers in something of a new era for my family.  All we can do is smile and welcome it and hope we’re not doing something too profoundly insane.