Gather. Discover. Cultivate.
In the photo, he grins up from the base of a human pyramid. He occupies the exact same spot I did in my last pyramid, which was, oddly enough, just a few weeks ago. Bug’s blonde surfer hair sticks to his flushed face as he balances another boy on his back. Eight kids, two counselors, and a big field of green.
His first day of camp, and Bug had already found his place in the pack.
The minister of my Unitarian congregation invited me to share the story of why I joined our church. The Sunday I’m scheduled to speak happens to coincide with a moment of extraordinary upheaval in the national Unitarian Universalist Association. A senior-level hiring decision unearthed patterns of white supremacy and bias that many people of my faith believed didn’t exist, not here, not among us. We see yet again that privileges, blinders, and oppressive structures exist everywhere — even within people of goodwill who speak of inclusion and equity. Even those of us whose deepest value is radical love.
He slides into bed next to me, his left side far warmer than his right. His chilled skin presses in as he drinks from my heat. “Can you put your arm around me?” He asks.
“Sure, scoot down.”
A shifting. The sheets tangle and we kick ourselves back to softness. Dark lingers. December morning takes her sweet time stretching awake. We wait her out.
“It’s funny how the neck is shaped,” he says in his dreamy murmur.
“How so?”
“It’s like it’s designed exactly right so someone’s arm can fit underneath.”
He blocks the dryer, wild eyes and a grin. I duck, pump, shoot. His wet boxer shorts whip past his ear and splat against the back wall of the drum.
“Oh man!” He turns and yanks a shirt from the washer tub, untwisting its rope of an arm from a pillowcase. He cuts in front of me and pivots. Past my block, he fakes then scores. “Yes!” Fist in the air.
We can do so much better. For the past few years, our patterns were stuck enough to seem hopeless. This past June, I made the choice to cultivate a more loving home.
After a long summer that included a stretch of five weeks apart, my son is back. This is the first night of his 4th grade year that he is spending with me. The evening coincides with a parent-teacher event. This means my boy runs wild around the neighborhood with his pals for a few hours before I have to leave him behind. He comes in, flushed and breathless, and parks himself in front of his video games. I lock the door behind me.
As I shift, so does my son. I invite him to “special time,” a goofy name for a powerful connection, and he first rolls his eyes. “I’m not doing that.” The idea of playing just with me for 30 minutes is near the bottom of his list.
“You get to be in charge,” I explain. “It just has to be between here and the park.” Also, no screens, and no one’s hurting anyone else. Other than that, we can do anything he wants.
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Can I throw pillows at you?” His eyes have stopped rolling and now they’re fixed on me.
“Sure, as long as you’re not hurting me.”
“Can we go outside and play a tag game?”
I laugh “Of course.” Tag is the one thing that I almost always resist when he suggests it. Chase my son endlessly around the neighborhood? I’d rather stay in and clean hair out of the bathtub drain. As it turns out, it’s not tag or pillows. “Pirate ship!” he shouts, and runs into the living room to start moving furniture. We pull out the ladder for scaffolding, king-sized sheets for the mast. Bug creates turrets using plastic wine goblets. He also creates something called a “maker” which is a kind of on-deck factory that turns raw materials into weapons.
If someone asked me to describe my son with naked honesty, I might say obstinate, aggressive, bright and powerful. Curious but easily frustrated. Sometimes cold and snubs emotional connection. The boy hates to lose. He’s an Eeyore on steroids.
If that same someone were to walk into our house during our first shot at Special Time, they’d see an entirely different boy. Here is a child who is eager and spunky. He’s creating an elaborate game with unclear structure, and he’s persevering with enthusiasm. As he turns the form of Minecraft into a real-life activity, he’s engaging me in fizzy conversation. He’s cracking jokes.
The visitor in our house would meet a boy who is close to his mom, sharing and cooperating, confident enough to be fine with uncertainty. Here is a Piglet who is ready for anything.
So which boy is he?
We like to think of personality as fixed. That person in our life is a certain set of characteristics: maybe kind, a little introverted has good follow-through on commitments but fumbles in front of crowds. This is the person we know, and because we know she’s this way, we have a sense of predictability in our friendship, workplace, or marriage. If people are changeable, how could we function in our roles?
Indeed, we haven’t needed to ask this question much because most of the common (if mistaken) personality theory that dominates our lives reinforces the notion of consistency. It’s how we end up with ENFJs in workplace training with ISTPs, figuring out how to cooperate on a team. Nevertheless, as anyone who has taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) knows, the test has its flaws. A question comes up: “As a rule, you proceed only when you have a clear and detailed plan.” The test-taker then has to think, In a project meeting with my co-worker? When coaching my kid’s basketball team? Cleaning my closets? Working out at the gym?
Which rule for “as a rule”? The trainer is little help. She’ll say, “pick one area of your life and stick with that.” This test is supposed to map a person’s defining characteristics yet allows the random selection of context and perspective? A little skepticism is fitting.
The fact that organizational leadership and development professionals still rely heavily on the MBTI is not confirmation of its reliability. Indeed, there is no replicable research to back it up, and the science is flimsy at best. The lack of connection to any empirical evidence about “personality type” should gut its foundation and release its hold on us.
“What concerns me is the cultlike devotion of many consultants and practitioners to it without the examination of the evidence,” says Adam Grant, a professor of industrial psychology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
– Lillian Cunningham, “Myers-Briggs: Does it Pay to Know your Type?” in The Washington Post, December 14, 2012.
Corporate training is a $50 billion a year industry. Its influence is one reason we still believe so firmly in fixed personality traits. Another is based in the theory that we simply see what we want to see, that we seek out examples of certain traits and fix them to people. Personality, then, is an illusion.
Yet another curious idea is that personality, while unfixed and changeable overall, is consistent in a particular context.
Lee Ross, a psychologist at Stanford University, has another intriguing idea. . . He thinks we actually are seeing consistency in human behavior, but we’re getting the reason for it wrong. “We see consistency in everyday life because of the power of the situation,” he says. Most of us are usually living in situations that are pretty much the same from day to day, Ross says. And since the circumstances are consistent, our behavior is, too.”
– Alix Spiegel, “Is Your Personality Fixed, Or Can You Change Who You Are?” from Invisibilia on NPR.
Every so often, I look up exes to see where they’ve wandered. It’s a rare indulgence — rare enough that when I find them again, they have crossed oceans of life. One fellow was all braggadocio masking incompetence and sloth. He was stuck in debt and working a customer-service job he hated. Now runs his own business. His company lead tours in the mountains and edu-tains high school groups in the nation’s capital. The contrast is startling. It’s a marvel that he’s so completely not who I thought he was. . . or rather, that the man he was at that time and place was only one slice of a much larger, evolving person.
Traits may not be as inherent as we assume. Change the context, and the person himself can change.
If I want to become someone different (as indeed I do, with regard to how I approach my career and family), it’s not going to work for me to do so in the current stage-set of my life. If an environment rewards mediocrity, how can a person develop drive?
Shifting the situation invites a reworking of the self.
Taking on a project in a volunteer setting, or stepping into a leadership role in the kiddo’s school, or diving into HOA budget management, or committing to a regular childcare exchange with other parents in the community. . . these are just a few of the ways to “become” someone different. A new role in a new context allows for the cultivation of qualities not yet fully formed in the familiar self.
My son and I are not “who we are,” despite the inane it is what it is trope that comforts our dissonance and excuses our inertia. If we aim to invite a fuller version of ourselves, then we must change what we do, and where, and when, and how.
Image: Micah Bazant from the Trans Life & Liberation Art Series
. . . a discouraged child tends to focus increasingly on her anxious desire to fit in and quickly loses sight of the needs of others in the family. Children are always trying to improve their sense of securely belonging as valuable members of the group, and they fear losing that connection. Therefore, the more the child’s discouragement deepens, the less capable she feels of interacting with others in useful ways. Instead, she is more likely to resort to misbehavior to connect inappropriately, to feel negatively powerful, and finally to gain at least a perverse sense of respect before giving up when her attempts fail.
– Linda Jessup and Emory Luce Baldwin, Parenting with Courage and Uncommon Sense
My boy has been back with me for a week. During that time, I have not screamed once. I have not stormed out to cool down. We have been on time for camp drop off every morning without a fight. Bug has gotten himself out of the bath, teeth brushed, and into bed before 9:00 every night without me raising my voice or lifting a finger.
On July 7, I made a commitment to heal our family. This is a tall order. A family is more than just one mom and it would seem that one mom alone can’t overhaul a whole family culture. Each of us can only control ourselves. As it turns out, this may be the concept that brings the most significant change to our family.
When children are very small and dependent on us, we can haul them out of troubling situations and put them in their cribs at specified times. We can decide what food is in front of them. As they get older, this control shifts. They fight their own playground battles. They can get up out of bed and turn the light back on. They can snub dinner and sneak treats from the fridge behind our backs.
A parent cannot control a child. Control is an illusion. Dominance as a method of control is an illusion. A parent can withhold, wheedle, punish, threaten, bribe, and ignore, but even with these dangerous tools, a parent cannot control a child.
What a parent can do is model healthy choices and guide a child to build the capacity to navigate the world.
I made a commitment to learn whatever I could to strengthen our family. The past few weeks, I have planted this commitment into the center of my days. Between reading and journaling to reflect on the approaches I’ve taken (and might like to try), I’ve immersed myself in a 16-hour Parenting Encouragement Program class. The process has been intense and even transformative. That word that usually makes me roll my eyes, but in this case, “transformation” about captures what’s happening here.
My son comes off the day camp bus in a foul mood and immediately lays into me for some perceived slight, like asking him to please hand me the tablet so I can charge it. He is furious, steaming, telling me he hates me. These are his steps in our standard friction-filled dance, one we’ve been perfecting for years.
Now, I choose a different dance, one that improvises and responds. First I catch my breath. No reaction. I ask myself quietly to note that Bug’s behavior is a textbook version of discouragement, that he is actually seeking connection and a sense of belonging through a mistaken goal of taking revenge on me.
A parent cannot control a child. A parent can only control her own choices.
I choose my words with care. “It seems like something is really bothering you. I’m sorry it’s hard. Remember that it’s not okay to call me names or hurt me. When you are ready to talk about what’s bothering you in a less hurtful way, I am here to listen.”
He continues to simmer and spit but it’s cooling down. I sit quietly and breathe, remembering that my son is a creative child, he’s bright and resourceful. That he is learning, as I am. Even in my silence, I keep my mind on the goal of encouraging him and helping him feel connected and capable.
After a little while, after we’ve moved on to the next phase of our evening, he quietly — almost distractedly — says, “You should write a bad review of that camp.”
“Really?” I say, just as casually. “And what would I write in this review?”
Then he opens like the sky. Something happened this morning at the high ropes course. A misunderstanding, a punishment he felt was unfair. We talk it through and I match his tone. Attentive but calm, like this is any old conversation on any old day, not a huge issue. I do not come up with a list of solutions or reprimand him for what most likely stemmed from his failure to listen to instructions. I reflect back what I’ve heard and capture what his feelings might have been about this. Finally, I say, “Would you like to think through what you could do if this happens again? Or to keep something like it from happening next time?”
Bug shrugs and says “maybe,” then turns to his crafts. He’s had enough for now. Enough is fine. Enough is miles ahead of where we were a month ago. Enough is a victory. When and if he does want to tackle the issue, I’ll be ready to help him tap his courage and find his way.
I can only control myself. The choices I make contain the threads that stitch together this family. When Bug and I were stumbling through our difficult 9-day stay-cation together in June, this was my commitment:
I am determined to sustain a creative, positive planning attitude for the duration of this stay-cation with my son. This means I am equally determined to postpone any self-improvement initiative that might divert energy from our formidable endeavor.
Now I see that these two journeys — family health and personal well-being — are part of the same whole. Indeed, they turn on the same axis. The more skillful a parent I become, the more loving our relationship, the more encouraged my son, and the more nourishing our home. From this place, we all grow. In this place, we thrive.
Image: Pristine Cartera Turkus, “Mother & Child”
The motionless dragon in deep waters becomes the prey of the crabs.
– A fortune in a cookie in Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth
My mother is taking a Spanish class. This is her retirement. She also teaches ESL several days a week and is active in two book clubs. Each spring, with a gaggle of bibliophiles, she travels to the UK for a mystery writers’ conference. She goes to church, putters in the garden, cooks a meal almost every evening to share with my dad, and shows up at Bug’s school events. She even pops by my house to give Noodle a daily walk while I’m at work.
All of this, and now Spanish.
“I need to do something to keep from being bored,” she says.
In all seriousness. Bored.
Those of us who experience ugliness in our family dynamics often prefer to remain concealed. There is less shame when one stays underground.
– Tracey Watts, “The Explosive Child” in Brain, Child Magazine
In two months, the school year ends. I’ve scheduled the vacation from work. I’ve cancelled the trip to Myrtle Beach. My son and I will have nine uninterrupted days together.
This is a luxury. Most working parents crave time like this, time with our over-scheduled and growing-too-fast kids. Be grateful, Smirk.
Gratitude yes, it is here. It just happens to be mixed with a shot of dread. I am mystified about how to make the nine days anything but miserable for us both.
How many parents are sitting on a locked vault of tangled up feelings? It can’t just be me.
(Maybe it is just me.)
I’m not very skilled as a parent. Loving, sure. Dedicated and creative and willing to learn. But bumbling, too. Perplexed. The issues that arise are rarely what I predict and never what I’m prepared to face. My responses miss the mark. I careen around our home, swinging between tight-lipped and screeching, in the face of my boy’s constantly shifting needs.
The loving bond that grows dense and loose in my friends’ families is, in ours, a stunted thing. At the end of our weeknights together, when Bug finally stops arguing about homework, bath time, and how many chapters we’re reading, when he finally conks out, I’m sapped. The thought of facing a mere weekend together wears me out.
Nine days?
The thing is, I’m willing to learn. I’ll eagerly dedicate these next two months to preparing for those nine days. My son is nearing tween-hood. This may be our last best chance to cultivate the trust and connection that he’ll need as he slogs through the tar pit of adolescence. I have a stack of books. And blogs. And habits to practice both in anticipation of what might come and in response to what does. When I turn to it and start learning, it all makes sense. The way forward is clear.
Then almost as soon as it appears, that clarity begins to blur. In creep the other responsibilities. Up goes the volume on their demands. The fact is, only so much of the strife in our home is a result of “parenting” as some discrete set of techniques. Of our troubles, far more than I’d like to admit, arise from me.
I live 23-1/2 of every 24 hours in a state of low-level panic. A thirty minute cardio high is the only thing that reminds me of the world outside my hall of mirrors.
Unresolved financial concerns haunt me. How can I leverage my skills and energy to move into a higher-paying position? With this question nagging, I push harder at work. I submit a conference proposal, step up on a search committee, and get involved in the new DC undergrad internship initiative. None of this I have time for, of course, but I do it because I need to ensure that Bug and I stay a few feet back from the financial cliff.
The anemia of my social life concerns me. How can I give Bug a strong community of peers if I don’t build one around us? With this question tugging, I reach out to the people around me. I schedule a walk with a girlfriend, volunteer at the Unitarian church auction night, plan a weekend playdate, and put a potluck on the calendar. None of this I have time for, of course, but I do it because I need to ensure that Bug and I are woven into a rich and supportive community.
The paucity of my creative efforts prick at me. So, too, the half-assed attempts at mindfulness, the chaotic closets and filthy windows, the short shrift I give to the relationship with my Mister, the public meetings I fail to attend for the condo association and local school board and VDOT as they make decisions that upend the value of my home, the urgent call to action for racial and economic justice, the runaway bad habits of eating too much and staying up too late that destroy my sleep and mood and ability to manage any of this with grace. . .
Does growing into a better parent begin with focusing on “parenting”?
Or with 10 minutes of morning journaling? Or with a commitment to a professional development plan?
With daily exercise and 8 hours of sleep?
With a counselor?
With breath?
With less?
What heals a frayed bond between a 9-year-old boy and his mama?
We love each other, of course. All of this begins and ends in love. This hard work, these questions about how to proceed, they pull at me to build a home that can be my son’s sanctuary and his launch pad. Every question comes down to love.
In its most active, living form, what does love need? As it tries to push itself up from the root, how do we cultivate it?
This question churns under all the others. Sometimes I forget this simple truth, and the details topple me. That is when I roar until my throat fills with mud, and I am swamped with shame. That is when I want to sink into the earth.
And that is precisely when I most need to remember that my love for my son is under everything. It won’t let me sink. It catches me and helps me find my way back to the surface.
Then I — then we — get to keep on learning.
In two months, my son and I will have nine uninterrupted days together.
I have no idea what to do to prepare.
My son and I have nine uncertain years left together.
I have no idea what to do.
I guess I’ll do it anyway.
After another night of ignoring, hitting, and name-calling (the kiddo to me, not the other way around, thankfully) and a morning with even more of the same, I’m lost again. Serious anger is roiling around inside my son. His cold fury manifests as prickling hands and words. He seeks to needle. He seeks split the seams and set fire.
I recognize my tendency to respond to my son’s daggers with my own verbal stabs. I roar. I exert dominance.
These choices escalate the war.
Recovering from a recent hellish family trip to California, I posted this:
Bug’s had nine years to become the person he is. I’ve had 42. If I hope to cultivate healthier ways of being in our family, I’ll need to do it one itty-bitty step at a time.
I’m trying this now. Seeking out and attempting tiny new approaches. Even if I have no idea what or why or how, I’m trying something.
In the spirit of taking tiny steps, I choose this morning to read about natural and logical consequences.
From Alyson Schafer, “Positive Discipline: Signs your ‘Consequences’ are Punishments in Disguise” in the Huffington Post:
A logical consequence must include three distinct qualities, and if any one is missing, it’s a punishment.
1) Related
The consequence must be directly related to the child’s behaviour. This is what makes it logical. Most importantly, the child must be able to see the connection. For example, if you don’t put your clothes in the laundry hamper, a logical outcome is that your clothes won’t get washed when it’s time to do the laundry. If you tell that same child that they won’t get screen time — one of our favorite things to confiscate — if they don’t put their clothes in the hamper, the child’s perception is that their parents are using their personal power to be mean and make them pay for their mistakes.2) Respectful
Anytime you show a child disrespect, you are being punitive. (Quick test: Would you speak the same words to a friend or a coworker? If not, chances are it’s disrespectful.)3) Revealed in advance
The child must be given all the information up front so they can make clear choices in their behaviour. For example: “If you would like to eat, you need to stay at the table. If you get down from the table, you are excusing yourself and we’ll accept your choice and see you at the next meal. Please know there will be no food until that time, so when you get down, you’re done.”In short: “Stay and eat or get down and wait until the next meal to eat — your choice.” But parents must be sure to actually follow through with implementing the consequence. Too frequently we simply threaten the consequence and the child fails to learn.
Photo from The Good Men Project
Shannon E. Williams 