Category Archives: Family

The Subtleties of Privilege

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I’ve been teaching first year college writing seminars since my oldest daughter was knee high. Now that she’s a first year college student herself I sporadically think about her when interacting with my students. Sometimes I imagine her sitting around our seminar table. What kind of discussant would she be? Would she tune in or go through the motions? Be bold enough to come to office hours? Appreciate my killer sense of humor? How would her writing compare to theirs?

Most recently I’ve been thinking about how her college experience compares to theirs. Her family is flawed, but more stable and secure than average. As a result, her life is more simple than some of my students’ lives, one who has missed a few classes as a result of “family business emergencies” and another who disappeared for a week and a half because of serious domestic problems. She doesn’t know it, but her comparatively uncluttered mind is a subtle, but significant form of privilege. When it comes to her homebase, she doesn’t have to worry about substance abuse, abusive behavior, violence, estrangement, or divorce. Consequently, in class, at swim practice, hanging with friends late at night, she has no excuse not to be fully in the moment.

When it comes to her family, my guess is that most of the time her orientation is “out of sight, out of mind”. We’re social media luddites meaning we don’t exchange a constant stream of text-messages. Alright I confess, we don’t exchange texts at all. However, we do enjoy Sunday night skyping. Last Sunday though, she texted younger sissy and said she was hosting a prospective student so now we’ve gone a week and half with zero contact. Not complaining, just illustrating how relaxed she is about her distant family’s well-being.

Maybe the most challenging aspect of parenting is striking the best balance between providing your children a stable and secure foundation while simultaneously giving them increasingly challenging responsibilities that prepare them for independence and adulthood. Provide the former without the later and you run the risk of children developing a debilitating sense of entitlement. Provide the later without the former and odds are the increasingly challenging responsibilities will prove overwhelming.

I worry that some of my students may not persist to graduation because their chaotic family lives will prevent them from attending class regularly and they may not roll up their sleeves and strengthen their basic skills enough to earn passing grades in increasingly difficult courses.

And I worry my daughter may not fully realize the extent of her privilege.

A Cry for Help

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If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll recall a confession I made a month or two ago—I’m more handsome than handy. As a result, once a year, the GalPal hires a handyman or should I say “person” to caulk, replace the carpet on the garage steps, fix faucets, and other things that I should probably know how to do.

But I’ve always been mechanically challenged and no one ever taught me how to replace or fix carpet or faucets. My “tool chest” is unbelievably bad. So once a year I suck it up and make out a $300 check to some manly man who spends five hours doing what would take me five weeks. Good for the economy right?

The GalPal upped the ante recently when she came home from church with the “great” news that she met a handywoman who was just starting up her business. “I want to give her a try.” Damn, what if her van is parked in the driveway when the boys drive by? Screw the Neanderthrals, good for gender relations right?

If only I was that evolved. Truth be told, one of two things has to happen. She has to switch to a nondescript van or my hyper handy brother-in-law has to move from Indiana to Washington so he can chip away at my “Honey do” list throughout the year, thus sparing me more Handywoman humiliation. My b-i-l, let’s just call him Bil, is known among his four adult children as “The Smartest Man in the World.” Not just the smartest, also the handiest and funniest. I’m beggin’ ya Bil.

Like all of us, Bil is fallible. His one flaw is a doozy too. He lives several states and thousands of miles from his only grandchild, see below in full dog regalia, my godchild. The inhumanity! It’s high time he pack up his fishing poles, rifles, Pittsburgh Stealer jerseys, wife, and head due west. If Olympia is too dark, gray, and wet for six months of the year, what about Wenatchee, which is convienently half way between here and Missoula, MT, home of flappy eared grandchild.

The outcome? He sees his grandson every few months, he sees us a few times a year, he makes the Handywoman redundant. A distinct win-win for family and my ego.

Postscript. I recently installed a new toilet. Well, truth be told, I watched my friend next door instal our new toilet. To his astonishment I had removed the original before he arrived. Him, where is it? Me, recycled downtown at Habit for Humanity. Him, didn’t know you had it in you. Wish you had saved the hardware. Me, breaking down things and demolition have never been the problem, it’s the putting back together where I suck.

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Palm Springs Retrospective

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Managed to earn points while sharing a one bedroom, one bath timeshare with the in-laws for four days in Palm Springs last week. Something about my “unusual patience” and “good humor”.

In-law humor can be kinda delicate, but I have to admit, I was pretty funny. My sense of humor is a barometer of my level of stress and my connection to the peeps I’m with. The greater the inner calm, the deeper the connection, the funnier.

Sunshine and warm temps were a highlight. It was bizzare walking off the plane after 41 straight days of rain into the sun-drenched semi-opened airport. Thought the GalPal was going to pull a Pope, get on all fours, and kiss the ground.

In four days, I worked out for 45 minutes. Went for a run one morning. Ran through the development, down to Dinah Shore, into Patriots Park, around the high school, to Mission Hills, and back. Ran and ran and ran some more. Thought to myself, that had to be a solid 7.5-8 miles. Pulled the GPS out of my shorts pocket, 5.75 miles. Chalk it up to warmer temps and no teammates.

Playing golf with my father-in-law was a highlight. I negative split both rounds, 46-40-86 and 50-38-88. Easy, shortish, 6,100 yard courses rated 69.5. As expected I have no touch, but I somehow finished round one off with two birds for the first time ever. Round two was a par 35-37, so I had a 12 footer to play the back nine in level par as the Brit’s say. Channeled my inner-Schwartzel and hit the hole, but it lipped out. Renting clubs was an interesting experience because they were nicer than my sticks. It has been twenty years or so, so maybe I should upgrade before Senior Tour qualifying school next year.

The California strawberries and Salmon Farfalle at a restaurant whose name I can’t remember were off the hook.

Enjoyed a grande green tea latte non-fat extra hot (that was for my sissy who probably quit reading a few pgraphs ago because of the self indulgent nature of this post) at a swanky hotel with a lake in it. While there, we saw a bikini clad women walk smack dap into the middle of a business attire happy hour.  The GalPal declared, “Sex worker.” Who knew she possessed that type of radar? So of course the rest of the afternoon, whenever I spotted a scantily clad woman, I had to ask, “Sex worker?”

Taking the tram up to the top of Mt. San Jacinto was a highlight. The GalPal is injured so instead of hiking we found a big rock in the sun, grooved on the cool temp, meditated on our surroundings, and had a nice talk. We didn’t plan well, only having two apples in one backpack. Make that one after the GalPal watched hers bounce down the side of the mountain. I had to make a tough call, could I rescue the runaway apple without expending more calories than contained within the apple. I rolled the dice, hunted all over the hillside, and finally tracked it down. Bruised, but still edible.

The one lowlight was the 40+mph winds on our final day. Let’s just say our take-off was NOT fun. All I could think was “I’ve probably flown more miles than 90% of the people on this plane, but I’m still more scared than 90% of them.” One would think the more you fly, the more you get used to turbulence. Not me. I sacrificed all of the points I had earned over the four days in about four minutes. Certain my life was about to end, instead of thinking about my lovely wife and wonderful daughters, I thought I may never get a chance to hone my short game and turn my 86 and 88 into 76’s and 78’s. How tragic that would be.

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Teach Friendship

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Most friendships just evolve. Our closest friends typically end up being people with whom we share a common activity or interest. In terms of living emotionally healthy, constructive, fulfilling lives, nothing matters much more than who we become friends with and whether they inspire us to be better or worse people than we would be without them.

Because we aren’t as intentional as we might be about our friendships, we assume the young people we have responsibility for will just “find their way”. Experience is a great teacher, but parents, teachers, coaches, youth pastors, and other adults that regularly work with young people should explicitly teach friendship. Choosing friends that inspire is a learned skill. Just hope that those types of friendships naturally evolve at your children’s and your own risk.

Those were my thoughts while reading a nice one-pager by KJ Fields titled “How to spot an unhealthy relationship” in Group Health’s Spring 2011 NWHealth magazine. Thanks to Fields for providing a tool for teaching friendship. These are signs that a relationship may be bad for you:

  • You don’t feel respected or listened to.
  • The other person’s opinion is always the one that matters most.
  • Your feelings are belittled.
  • You act differently around this person, fearing disapproval or anger.
  • You feel worried and tense about the relationship, rather than enjoying it.
  • You’re always the one to make the effort or compromise.
  • Your values and beliefs are far apart.
  • The other person is overly critical of you, and frequently insults you.
  • You find yourself lying to hide information from the other person.

That’s a nice conceptual framework for dinner table, school, or youth group conversations with adolescents especially about peer relations in general and dating relationships more specifically.

A War on Oil Dependence

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Photo credit: Ray Maker, DCRainmaker blog

We’ve had “wars” on poverty, drugs, and terrorism, why not oil dependence? Imagine a bold president challenging and inspiring us to reduce our use of oil by 20% in ten years. Why wait for that type of leadership? Let’s just commit to driving two percent fewer miles, per year, for ten years.

Dare we learn some things from other people in other places, like this Amsterdam family? Note the obvious: the fenders and racks; the large kid/cargo holder; the simplicity of the bikes and bike riders; no lycra, helmets, or cleated shoes; the utter normalness of it. With dedicated lanes and slowish bikes, helmets aren’t as critical. And the less obvious: the slower pace, the reduction in greenhouse gasses, the health benefits and reduced health care costs, the vitality of the sights, sounds, and elements.

City planners need to incentive bicycle commuting by integrating dedicated bike lanes, and safe, well-lit bicycle parking lots into their designs. Cities need to provide employers with incentives for bike lockers, air compressors, showers.

Car insurance should be based upon mileage traveled. Find the national average and set rates so that people who drive the national average pay existing rates. Make people self-report and audit a small percentage each year. People that drive 10% more than the national average, pay 10% more; 10% fewer miles, pay 10% less.

A nod to Friedman, raise the gas tax to $1/gallon.

I would love for someone to point me to counter examples, but our public bus systems are painfully inconvenient and slow. And unless you’re fortunate enough to live in a handful of our largest cities, subways and trains are rarely a viable option.

In the U.S. we like to pat ourselves on our collective back for being creative and hardworking, but we’ve shown no imagination or gumption when it comes to developing genuine alternatives to car travel.

Time to change that.

Two Roads Diverge—The Conclusion

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The conclusion—Our children and the fork.

What should our children do to increase their odds of enjoying some semblance of economic security?

For the last several years I’ve been preaching a liberal arts education gospel. The message has been that the key to success in our increasingly competitive knowledge economy is a rigorous higher education that develops analytical, writing, critical thinking, and related intellectual skills. Then this mind-blowing article appeared in the New York Times—Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software.

Fork anxiety alert.

E-discovery companies like Cataphora are forcing me to rethink many of my assumptions. In terms of employment success, a college education, even a law degree, guarantees less and less. Instead of starting over with a brand new gospel, I need to supplement my call for a rigorous college education with additional strategies.

One overlooked strategy, self-sufficiency, is beautifully described in the book Little Heathens. Each of our children have to decide whether to follow our model of pursuing competence or expertise in one particular area, and then trading that competence or expertise into money through long work hours, and then handing significant percentages of the money over to others for a litany of products and services including, but not limited to: growing and preparing food; making and cleaning clothes; entertainment; education, hair and related personal care; pet grooming and care; cleaning and repairing bicycles, cars, and homes; tax preparation; counseling and medical care; yard work; personal trainers and life coaches.

Rightly or wrongly, most modern peeps have convinced themselves that their time is worth more than it costs to pay for those types of products and services. But the fork will change that equation for some of our children. What if our children experience under or unemployment, what if their wages can’t keep pace with inflation? What if they have more time than money? Although no one is talking about it, self-sufficiency is a common sense insurance policy in an increasingly unpredictable woods.

In addition to greater self-sufficiency, young people who develop a specific craft or trade will enjoy more economic security because they’ll be able to use their craft or trade to supplement their income or weather periods of under or unemployment. If artificial intelligence or related technological breakthroughs make them redundant for six months or a year, every four or five years over the the course of their adult working lives, my daughters could teach violin to Tiger Mother offspring. Put all of your economic security eggs in the intellectual skills basket at your own risk. Teach your children to lifeguard or teach swimming, to cut hair, to repair bicycles, to landscape, to design web pages, to care for and tutor younger children.

Also, and we’re nearing the end of our journey, agitate and advocate for “life-skills” in your children’s school curricula. We have to push back against the President’s and high profile business leaders’ insistence that all we need to negotiate the fork is marked improvement in math and science education. Truth be told, I’m not very self-sufficient, more handsome than handy, so for my daughters to become meaningfully self-sufficient, I need the help of teachers and other adults in the community.

Where’s the room in the curriculum? Not sure, but independent, Waldorf, and other alternative schools often find room for life skills. The publics would be well advised to turn to their smaller, funkier brethren for guidance. And since I don’t expect that to happen, parents better put their heads together to figure out how to help their little heathens become more self-sufficient.

And to borrow from Sue Sylvester (I shudder if you have adolescent children and don’t get that reference), that’s how Ron sees it.

Two Roads Diverge

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The first in a week-long, three-part series.

I’m doing some reorienting. Prioritizing my non-work identities and relationships. Mid-life crisis? Don’t think so, but time will tell. Check back in a year or two from now. Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I’m taking the first steps of a journey whose outcome is unknown.

So what follows, like my identity more generally, is a work in progress. I don’t expect anyone to agree with everything. Or anything.

U.S. citizens are at a fork in the woods. A fork formed by a decline in manufacturing, technology-based automation, slower economic growth, and heightened economic scarcity.

More details here, although you don’t need Tyler Cowen or me to tell you about what you’re experiencing day-to-day.

We talk at length about the trees in the woods—fast rising gas prices, exorbitant health insurance premiums and college costs, and declining home values —but hardly at all about what lifestyles are most sustainable and meaningful.

The fork has prompted a radical shift in thinking. In the U.S., throughout the 20th century, parents thought, “I expect my children to live a better, more comfortable life than me.” Today the default is “I worry and wonder whether my children will be able to live as well and comfortably as me.”

Two roads diverged in a wood and I—I worried and wondered.

Economic security seems outside of our control. The economy is in constant flux and no job is secure. We can’t get politicians to think beyond their re-election and balance our state or national budgets. We can’t get them to stop fighting distant wars. We can’t slow China’s and India’s growth. We can’t reduce our dependence on oil. We can’t get consumers to stop shopping at Wal-Mart and other big boxes. We can’t stop companies from outsourcing jobs. And there’s seemingly no way to improve parenting, fix schools, or reduce inequality.

The fork is doubly tough for adults responsible for young people. They worry, what does their future hold? “I’m worried for myself and I’m worried for you.”

If we stop or even slow down, we may be overcome with fear for the future and overwhelmed with anxiety; therefore, we fill our days with work, shopping, entertainment, new apps, Facebook.

I wouldn’t be able to write this sentence if I weren’t extremely privileged, but I wonder if these tough economic times are an opportunity to slow down and think through more carefully how we want to live, to find ways to live more sustainable, meaningful lives. Or maybe, since lifestyle choices are intensely personal, I should say, how I want to live, to find ways for me to live a more sustainable, meaningful life.

Before fleshing out those concepts, consider the perspectives of the political left and right who have distinct opinions about the causes and consequences of the fork. Competing voices in the woods if you will. And yes, I’m conscious I’m overgeneralizing. Sometimes when you’re painting, you just grab the broad brush.

The right interprets economic history and life more generally through the lens of American exceptionalism. They’re more anxious about accelerating ethnic diversity than they are global economic restructuring. They refuse to acknowledge our relative decline and are nostalgic for the second half of the 20th century when the U.S.’s economic, military, and political advantages were much more obvious. They’re in serious denial, but if you tell them that they’ll label you anti-American, because in their worldview, American exceptionalism is self-evident.

Stagnant wages and high unemployment aren’t a result of technology-based automation, economic globalization, or our consumer choices. They’re temporary anomalies. Small bumps in the road. If the Kenyan-born, Muslim president (okay, that was uncalled for) would just embrace American exceptionalism, reduce the government to a fourth of its current size and lower taxes by half, we’d quickly reclaim our rightful role as the world’s unquestioned economic superpower. Then we could pick up living large again.

Wednesday—Part 2 of 3—The left, the President, and my evolving thoughts on the fork.

Suburban Life(r) Postscript

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Since waxing philosophic on the downsides of suburbia, I’ve been beating myself up for a lack of contentment. Guess I need to learn the art of self compassion.

Home shopping on the Northwest Multiple Listing Service helps me appreciate three things about our home including:

1) High ceilings. We’re a tall people and so it’s really nice to have extra headroom. And you never know when you’ll be overcome with the urge to work on your golf swing. Still not sure how I once managed to get smoothie remnants on the kitchen ceiling. Note to self, don’t stick the wooden spoon in too far when at full throttle.

2) Considerably more natural light than most homes. After the last five months, all I can say is, damn this weather. Sorry bro.

3) Best of all, the woods behind our house that were supposed to be developed before the 2008 economic meltdown. Everyday, and usually stark naked, I stare into the woods and think, what a beautiful, positive consequence of the terrible recession. Just the trees and me naturally. Somewhere the people who almost ended up living where our woods are located are thinking, “Not having to see Ron in the buff, what a beautiful, positive consequence.”

Looking ahead. Friday’s post—March Madness and the Miami Heat.

Young, Devout, Maligned

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Adults routinely trivialize, and in some cases derogate, young people’s religious values, beliefs, and practices. It’s wrong and it should stop.

Exhibit A. Slate Magazine’s Tom Scocca’s recent anti-Joel Northrup screed. Northrup is the homeschooled Iowa wrestler who two weeks ago chose to forfeit his state tournament wrestling match because he didn’t want to compete against a female.

Here’s what Northrup said about his decision not to wrestle. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan and their accomplishments. However wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most high school sports in Iowa.”

And here’s Scocca’s unbelievable Slate Magazine response.

Iowa Wrestler Won’t Wrestle a Girl Because His Parents Are Raising Him to Be Self-ImportantPosted Thursday, February 17, 2011 10:08 PM | By Tom Scocca
Joel Northrup, a 112-pound high school wrestler in Iowa, decided to lose his first match in the state tournament by default rather than compete against a female opponent, Cassy Herkelman. Northrup wrestles, or sometimes chooses to refuse to wrestle, for the Linn-Mar High School Lions, although he does not attend Linn-Mar High School. He is home-schooled by his parents, but Iowa allows homeschoolers to participate in varsity athletics.Having been given the chance to take part in the Linn-Mar athletic program, Northrup and his parents decided to use the public school as a platform for their beliefs about the role of women. In a statement, Northrup wrote:”[W]restling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other High School sports in Iowa.”The passive voice—”I have been placed in a situation”—is appropriate, narrowly. Northrup’s father, Jamie Northrup, said the family helped the son make the decision. (The elder Northrup is reportedly a youth pastor at a nondenominational church whose main pastor has preached against “gender confusion”; he is also a “volunteer chaplain with the United States Army,” where presumably issues about women’s exposure to violence and combat never come up.)One easy way to have avoided the situation would have been for the Northrups to really stand by their beliefs and let high school sports be played by people who go to high school. Out of all the students who attend Linn-Mar, there might be a 112-pounder who would be willing to go to states and wrestle a girl, rather than sticking the team with a default loss.

But entitlement means never having to sacrifice anything. The Northrups were too good or too godly for high school, but they weren’t too good for high school sports, until high school sports turned out to include gender equality, at which point they wanted to drop out again. Once the high school athletic system gave him a suitably male consolation-round opponent, Joel Northrup went back to being a participant.

It’s like the ultra-Orthodox Jewish students who sued Yale in the ’90s because they wanted to go the university but be segregated from the opposite sex. Either turn your back on the sinful world and its rights for women, or don’t. Society isn’t an a la carte menu, and the whole human race is not there to be your waiter. If you want to be a wrestler, wrestle your draw.

Scocca pretends to know Joel Northrup’s family because he can’t wrap his head around the fact that he is a deeply religious adolescent. In Scocca’s mind I suspect, that’s only explainable as a result of indoctrination. Also, it’s important to Scocca that his readers know “The elder Northrup is reportedly a youth pastor at a nondenominational church whose main pastor has preached against ‘gender confusion'”. Guilty by association of politics unacceptable to Scocca in the same way the right ripped Obama for his former pastor’s extremist views.

And who does Northrup think he is opting out of public schooling? In the end, how dare he act on his religious convictions in a way that is antithetical to Scocca’s politics.

Scocca needs to take to heart his last two sentences and Stephen Bates’s brilliant book, Battleground: One Mother’s Crusade, The Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of our Classrooms. Bates’s book makes it crystal clear that society isn’t an a la carte menu, and the whole human race isn’t there to be Scocca’s waiter.

Scocca, if you want to be a citizen in a pluralist democracy, learn to accept the byproducts of diversity including conservative religious and political behavior.

I’m sure my politics are more closely aligned to Scocca’s than Northrups, but I’m inspired by the fact that Northup had the courage of his conservative religious convictions. The wrap on teenage boys is that all they do is sit around and play video games while girls excel all around them. So forgive me if I find it refreshing that one of those maligned teenaged boys simply and courageously acted on his beliefs when he knew he’d be criticized for it. Scocca is afraid of conservative religious behavior. I’m find apathy far more threatening.

Granted, as the documentary Jesus Camp poignantly illustrated, some young people are indoctrinated by adults. Others simply conform to a strict religious family culture that they’re born into. I understand respectfully challenging those adolescents’ beliefs, but many young people seek spiritual meaning and choose religious practices relatively independently. In particular, journalists and other media continue to demonstrate an utter lack of sophistication by unfairly lumping all of these religious young people together.

Give me a whole generation of Joel Northrups and Ronnie Hasties and I’ll be even more bullish about our future. Hastie was the Tumwater High School junior running back who was penalized for extending his right arm and pointing his index finger upward after scoring a touchdown in a Washington State playoff game last fall (thus delaying the game a few seconds).

“It’s my way of giving glory to God, not to myself,” he explained. “I want to give God the credit.” Someone hold Scocca back.

What was lost in the Hastie story was what happened in the subsequent week. Hastie’s coach explained that Hastie didn’t want to jeopardize the team so he decided to kneel on the sidelines afterwards. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this,” Hastie said.

And yet, rest assured, many adults will continue to make a big negative deal out of youthful piety.

Suburban Life(r)?

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Weekend edition.

I was fortunate to grow up in Midwestern and a Southern Californian suburb. Nice, comfortable homes in safe, well maintained “subdivisions”. Roomy yards with minimal fencing in the Midwest and a small fenced-in pool in SoCal.

As an adult, I’ve chosen a similar path, living in nice, comfortable suburban homes that are logical extensions of the ones I grew up in. Apart from short stints in flats abroad, I’ve spent my whole life in the suburbs.

Makes sense then that I’m growing increasingly ambivalent about life in the burbs. A part of me longs for a radical break and a distinctly different living experience, one either much more urban or one more natural, on water. At times life in the burbs feels like a dissatisfying compromise, monocultural porridge that’s too hot (too far from urban civilization) or too cold (cut off from nature).

I’m really tired of having to drive everywhere all the time. I want to walk and ride my bike to the store, to restaurants, to friends’ places, to theaters.

I want to simplify my life a lot more and I want a smaller home, but save the downsizing medal because ideally, I also want to be able to disappear into a small carriage house or separate apartment. Also, I want a home that takes advantage of as many of the environmental advances builders have made in the last decade as makes sense.

There’s a nice, new condominium building being built downtown, but the GalPal is loathe to give up gardening.

Don’t mistake my longing for a radical break and all of my “I wants” with a lack of appreciation for our home, neighborhood, and neighbors. I’m keenly aware of my privilege and this is not a problem. We’ve grown to like our home and neighbors a lot even if we’re not all that enamored with our hood.

I’m just wondering if the grass might be greener in town or on the water’s edge.

What do you think?