The more time I spend as a parent, the more respect I have for my own, and for all. As I sat on the edge of the tub last night, one arm around her and the other holding a tissue to her pinched nose, I closed my eyes and wished that the sheer force of my will could make the bleeding stop. That's as close as I come to prayer. I was perhaps a little more panicked than one reasonably should be over something so simple as a nosebleed, and I could not help but think of my own parents, and of my siblings as parents, and wonder how often they've experienced such acute pangs of "Oh fuck. No. No. NO NO NO." My parents raised four. Sometimes I feel like it's a struggle for us to handle one, despite the fact that she's a pretty well-behaved and altogether adorable child.
And I remembered an unfinished thought, and an unusual feeling, from a conversation I had back in December at the company Christmas party. I've been meaning to write about it ever since but just never seemed to get around to it. Today, reflecting on my mother, planning a visit to my father, and writing as I often do each March 2nd, parenting seems an appropriate topic.
The Christmas Party
When it comes to me and memory space, my brain works in a weird way. Facts, numbers, trivia, formulas and such stick with me; events slip away. What I do remember of events is often not so much what occurred as much as how I felt about it. Last December, at the company's annual Christmas party, I met a co-worker's new girlfriend. And while the two of us sat chatting at one point (my coworker had gone to fetch us drinks, and Liza-Ann had gone home early), the conversation went in a direction that a decade earlier I'd never have foreseen. We had been talking about the things that make or break relationships. Jess's relationship with my coworker, Justin, was relatively new. She has no children of her own, but Justin has a young son, Nathaniel, just a little younger than Olivia. And so she found herself in much the same situation as I was some six years ago when I first started seeing Liza-Ann. I asked her if she liked and/or wanted children, and her honest-but-awkward response - "I don't know" - made me laugh. It had been my own response years early, the very first time I met Liza-Ann's mother, Winnie, only a few weeks into our relationship. ("Pat, Winnie. Winnie, Pat." "Do you like children, Pat?" Wow.) I found myself then assuring her that she was certainly not alone, and describing to her some of the personal journey into parenting (and self-discovery) that the past six years have brought me. We were cut short by Justin's return before I had my chance to finish expressing a new-found insight I'd had fairly recently about priorities: the number one thing you should strive to provide for a child. And in those moments just before he arrived with the drinks, I had a feeling that I think now I'd been waiting years to have. It was warm and wonderful. It comes and goes regularly now. I look forward to the day it's a more permanent fixture in my heart.
Unlicensed Technician
On Valentine's day this year I received some very nice gifts and cards from Liza-Ann and Olivia, but I don't think anything could have topped the simple fact that the card Olivia left on my nightstand was addressed to "Dad", complete with letters of mismatched sizes. I always used to think that the stereotypical way in which they always depict a child's writing in movies and on television - the backward 'R's and such - was hyperbolic, but no, at a certain age children really do print that way. She'd asked Liza-Ann cautiously the night before if it would be "ok" to address it as such. It was certainly very welcome.
Over the past few years, Olivia has cautiously substituted the word "Dad" here and there, as if trying it on for size. I, too, have been acutely aware of the fact that for a long time, I always felt this need to clarify the point, or to correct people if they referred to Olivia as my daughter. "STEP-daughter." It was never an attempt to disown her, but rather a certain uneasiness about the notion of myself as a parent: I'm not her father, just her step-father, as though that somehow abdicated me of the responsibility of her well-being. I would on the one hand speak of how she spends considerably more time with me than with John, and then on the other feel this need to insist she's his, and not 'technically' mine. Like Olivia using words like 'dad', whenever I referred to myself as a 'parent', I felt like I was trying the word on for size, and most of the time, I was left feeling somehow like an impostor. I felt like I'd chosen a role for which I was not qualified, and that I was required to warn everyone I came into contact with, the way someone will say something like "yes, I can fix your computer, but I'm not a licensed technician."
As I sat there, speaking with Jess, reliving what six years with Olivia has taught me and joyfully sharing with Jess the various epiphanies I'd had (and leading up to my most recent one), perhaps for the first time, or if not, most certainly for the strongest time, I no longer felt like 'the great pretender'. I
I'm a parent.
Sure, my relationship with Olivia will continue to have its moments of awkward trepidation, but the fact that we've established a parent-child relationship, that we love each other immensely, and that we're an important part of one another's worlds and always will be - that's irreversible, and probably was long ago, before either or both of us were willing to admit it.
Approval, If You're Wondering
The point that got cut short that night as I spoke to Justin's new belle was "approval". The pragmatists will talk about keeping their bellies full and giving them a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head. The romantics will talk about "love" as the cure-all, and how crucial it is to shower your child with it and provide them with a nurturing environment, but to me, whether it is parenting or partnership, love is not enough. Love never is. It is entirely possible to love someone and not express it. It is entirely possible to hurt the ones we love, to neglect them, to be critical of them, or to be downright cruel to them. Love is never enough.
I've come to believe the most important think you can give a child is neither the bed to sleep in (though that's important), the help with the homework (though that's important), the assurances that they are loved (though that's important), but simply: approval. Instill in them, in no uncertain terms, the knowledge that you approve of them as a person, and thereby empower them to develop not simply a sense of self, but a sense of self-worth.
My brother shared with myself and my siblings a piece of slam-poetry a while back: "Pretty" by Katie Makkai. It struck a chord with me, one that resonates strongly enough that it sometimes brings a tear to my eye when I re-watch it. I'd already become aware of the way in which most adults, in interacting with Olivia, gravitate so quickly to such notions. "What a pretty little girl." Everyone wants her in clever little dresses and to be "a little princess". I'd already made a promise to myself that I would never suggest to Olivia that my loving her was in any way contingent on her being "pretty", and that whenever I told her reasons why I loved her that physical beauty would only ever be mentioned if it found itself listed as one amongst many reasons. She will, in time, as we all do, develop for herself an image of how the world sees her, and based on that, build a self-image, an invariably slightly-distorted copy of that image inferred by the comments of those around her.
When I tell her I love her and why, I tell her the things I want her to value, in the world and in herself. "Pretty" can be amongst them, but it cannot and will not be the first and foremost. She is an incredibly intelligent, imaginative, polite, kind, clever, witty, funny, compassionate, and charming little girl, who happens to also be very pretty.
I Think This is Where We Came In
My mother saved all my report cards. We had a place near the mantle where we kept all the trophies I got through school and through Air Cadets. They insisted on having my Commission scroll framed even though I recall not caring that much about it at the time.
I'm heading to lunch with my sister, and then we're going to visit my father. Dad has always been very proud of me, and I've always known it, even if it wasn't always expressed in so many words. He thinks I'm a very smart young man.
He's right. I am. Well, maybe I'm not that "young" any more, but he's still right about the "smart" part.
