Dad Post #220

Kids want to be treated like adults – at least sometimes – and they remember who treated them as such. And by ‘kids,’ I don’t mean teenagers; I mean the years just before that, around Michael’s age. I remember the moments I was treated as older, and the adults who esteemed me this way, via some serious activity or conversation, with an ‘adultlike’ tenor or topic. Something weighty. Something bordering on the unsafe or unchaste or uncharted for a ten- or twelve-year-old boy. “Hey Dan, do you understand girls, because I don’t? What do you think? And speak of the devil, here comes one now, on that rickety, rope bridge... that's swaying and fraying badly! It’s gonna give out any second and drop her right into the jaws of those snapping alligators! We’ve got to save her! AND I NEED YOUR HELP!” A kid could be sheltered from all of that – “Wait here Dan! And don’t go anywhere near the water!” – but requests to discuss and do ‘adultlike things’ are cool. (Of course, it doesn’t have to be about girls, or vice versa; I am just unimaginative.) And yet I fear Michael’s too eager to grow up. He’s eleven and he talks flatly about college and buying a house. He seems to equate stoicism with maturity. I want him to express! What about renting and traveling?! Is that bad advice? I want more nonsense and emotion! Hasn’t he learned anything from his father? Haha. Yes! Yes, he has. He’s learned what not to do; he’s learned to temper the people-pleasing, overdisclosing compulsions he was hereditarily burdened with. Hopefully, he has no concept yet of something like professional mediocrity. And maybe these flaws skipped a generation; maybe his DNA is clean. Or maybe I was just like Michael when I was eleven. It’s hard to say. We learn. We live. We grow. Hopefully we expand, and not contract, even amidst the doubt and discomfort, even when hurting and afraid. How else do we expand? Under heat, baby, under heat! And there’s a lot of fun and amazement in there, too. Success isn't the only teacher, or even the best. Surf it all, and don't shy from confusion or ambiguity or existential cynicism. It's okay to go there. But bounce back. You don't have to know everything. To some questions there are no answers in this form. It's okay. Everything is okay. Optimism is better. Way better. Enjoy, love, be vulnerable, be grateful. And all the while the years will tick away. This is unequivocal, certain, unceasing. Michael will be 40 before he knows it. No sense in jumping ahead, Bud.