One of the dangers of home birth--being judged by everyone you meet: Contributor Post

As the Big Day approaches, I’m finding that a lot of the things I used to think about childbirth and child-rearing have gone right out the window. For instance: never in a million years would I have imagined I’d be on board with cloth diapering. Not only did it seem like something for the granola and kefir set, I had this image in my head of a baby that looked like a heroin addict from all the safety pin pricks left by a dad with shaky hands. And then we got our first delivery of adorable cloth diapers with little buttons on them and I thought well, that won’t be so bad then.

Same thing with breastfeeding in public. There was a time when I thought it was kind of weird and mildly offensive for a woman to flop out a boob in public. Now I’m actually looking forward to our first “nurse-in.”

But when the subject of home delivery came up, I freaked out a little. OK. I freaked out a lot. My mom delivered my younger sister at home, and the stories that I grew up with (told mainly by my dad) about her being breech with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and completely blue by the time they finally got her out, went a long way in shaping my opinions about home birth. I should mention that my sister is totally fine, and Mom has since gone on record that it wasn’t as bad as all that, but the thought of having a baby at home still terrified me.

The girl had a certainty about wanting to it at home this time around, though, and when she told me why, I couldn’t really argue. Her first delivery had been a nightmare experience of abuse by medical professionals in a hospital setting, and she didn’t want a repeat of that experience if it could be avoided. So when we started planning to make babies, we met with a midwife who came highly recommended and I got to begin the process of getting over my initial fear and getting comfortable with the idea of home delivery.

Then came the fateful ultrasound, and suddenly things got a little more complicated. Twins are a special case. The medical establishment would prefer that you not deliver multiples at home at all, ever, case closed; the State of California, though, says go for it, so long as one of your midwives is an OB. We were fortunate enough to have selected a midwifery practice with one of the only OB midwives in the state, so we were good to go. We opted to take a dual-care approach: continue to see the doctors in the big buildings with the fancy machinery and the schedules of tests, and also receive in-home care from our midwife doctor.

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to experience the American medical establishment’s approach to treating pregnancy as a disease firsthand, my terror has started to shift; I’m becoming increasingly worried that we might actually end up delivering in a hospital. It’s not that I think the doctors or nurses are incompetent (although a couple of the ultrasound techs have been); it’s that they seem to value competence to the exclusion of compassion.

Don’t get me wrong: If I had to choose between competence and compassion in a life-threatening emergency, of course I’d rather have a competent doctor. But pregnancy isn’t a life-threatening emergency, is it? So why treat it like it is?

Let me be clear: I’m not anti-science. I’m not anti-medicine. I don’t believe choosing home delivery makes us better parents or that folks who go the hospital route are doing something wrong. I understand that the amount of pregnant women seen by your average HMO-based OB practice is overwhelming, and that things like compassion and caring are often sacrificed at the altar of efficiency and standardization.

As a result, though, we seem to be approaching pregnancy from the position of what can go wrong; it doesn’t seem to leave any room for the beautiful, miraculous thing that’s unfolding along the way. The medical viewpoint, as summed up by Martha Reilly, chief of Women's and Children's Services at McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center near Eugene, Ore. is that, “Reproduction is very dysfunctional.” That quote, by the way came from an article in The Daily Beast title Home Birth: Increasingly Popular, But Dangerous (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/25/home-birth-increasingly-popular-but-dangerous.html), one of several articles turned up by a quick Google search for “dangers of homebirth,” which all seem to boil down to the conclusion that hospital births are inherently safer because of the proximity of staff and equipment in the event of an emergency.

I can’t argue with that logic, but considering the fact that fully ⅓ of hospital deliveries in America end up in a C-section, I can’t vouch for the safety of a hospital in the event of a *non*-emergency delivery.

So what can you do? Like any decision in life, you do your research, weigh the options, take the risks into account, make the choice that seems right to you. In our case, the choice that seems right is to aim for a home delivery, have a solid backup plan if things get hinky, and let go of any attachment to certainty.

Oh, and be prepared for every armchair expert you meet to offer an opinion (and their judgement) on the subject, cuz that’s gonna happen no matter what you decide. Fuck ‘em.

Dear Other Parents, Can We Stop with the Horror Stories? -- Contributor post

Hey there, parenting pros. It’s me, the new guy. You know, the one with the twins coming in a couple of months. The one who looks nervous all the time. Yeah...that guy. I want to say I really appreciate how wonderfully pleasant and accepting you’ve been. When we meet, you make me feel like I’m one of you. No side-eye or making me feel like I’m not up to the task; just love and empathy. It’s super sweet.

That said, I do have one small favor to ask. If it’s not too much trouble, could you please dial the Tales of My Nightmare Children From Hell down a notch or two? I mean, I really appreciate your honesty and openness, I do. I know you’re just trying to help, to prepare me for the harsh reality of sleepless nights and being constantly covered in shit and puke. You want me to know that it’s not all sunshine and roses. I appreciate the reality check, but it sometimes feels like you’re taking a kind of sick delight in scaring the rookie. If that’s the case, let me assure you that it’s working.

You parents of twins, especially, with your tales of the conniving, collaboration, and conspiracy that your tiny terrors engage in on a daily basis. That, or fighting. I’m left to believe that when they’re not trying to kill each other, they’ll be plotting together to kill me and their mother. And that I’ll be getting half the sleep and covered in twice as much shit and puke as those slacker parents of singles. It’s as if you want me to start losing sleep now, just so I’m used to it when they get here. Mission accomplished, folks...congratulations?

While we’re on the subject, if you could also please stop telling The Cricket about everything that went wrong with your (or your sister’s/cousin’s/co-worker’s/best friend’s) pregnancy, that’d be awesome. It’s bad enough that the doctors treat her pregnancy like a potentially life-threatening disease; your armchair diagnoses of gestational diabetes and predictions of pre-term labor are less than helpful.

Look, I get it. I know that these horror stories are an attempt (albeit an awkward one) to bond, to share the camaraderie of the battlefield. All I’m asking is that you tone it down a little. We’ve been pretty much terrified from Day 1; when the doctor told us it was twins, one of us rocked back and forth repeating “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” and the other burst into tears. I’m not going to tell you which was which; all I’m saying is that we’ve got the “scared shitless” part down pat. So maybe we can bond over something else?

Here’s an idea: you know how you always conclude your stories by reassuring me that “there’s nothing quite like it” and that you “wouldn’t trade it for the world?” I don’t know whether you’re serious or just trying to make me feel better, but I find myself wanting to hear more about that part of it. That little ray of hope means the world to me. It makes me think that I might survive this after all. Could have a little more of that, please? I’d love to bond with you over that shit instead of, well, actual shit.

Tell me how much you love your kids. Tell me how amazing and smart they are. Tell me about the clever thing they did last weekend that was so far ahead of their age. Tell me about first steps and first words and first discoveries of the world around them. Tell me about encounters with nature and days at the park and trips to the zoo.

I promise I won’t roll my eyes or accuse you of bragging. I’m one of you now, remember? And as for the shitty bits? I’ve got plenty of opportunities in the very near future to find out about all of those firsthand, and that’ll be soon enough for me. In the meantime, fill my head full of the wonder and amazement of watching a tiny human grow, if only because it helps me sleep better at night and, frankly, I have a sneaking suspicion that I need to bank a few extra hours before they get here.

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Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a husband, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com

When did I become a daddy blogger? -- Contributor post

You could say that a lot has changed in my life over the past five years; if you did, I would counter by saying that you have a real knack for understatement. When I divorced, I was certain that I was never going to get into a serious relationship, let alone ever get married again. And kids? If you could have heard me talk about the prospect of having kids, you’d have realized that I just wasn’t cut out for fatherhood.

And yet, here I am, engaged to be married to the first girl I had a serious relationship with, and staring down the barrel of fatherhood. Times two. Twins. And instead of freaking out about it, I’m absolutely loving it. People have been telling me for years that as soon as you find out you’re going to be a parent, everything changes. I thought it was just a cliche, maybe a collective delusion. Well if so, I’ve joined the collective and I’m just as pleased as punch about it.

One thing I never expected to be, though, is a daddy blogger. Or is it Daddy Blogger? Either way, I wouldn’t have thought that I’d be one of them; suddenly, though, my future kids are all I can think about. I can’t stop myself from wondering what it’s going to be like to see their tiny smiles and hold their tiny hands and see their first steps and hear their first words. It’s sappy, I know, but there it is.

It even led me to start a comic strip of sorts, all about the babies. I’m not kidding. I was driving around one day and I imagined a conversation between the twins in utero; when I got to my office, I superimposed the conversation on ultrasound images of the babies and posted it on Facebook. And then I did it again. And again. Thus was born Teh Bebes. Here’s the first one (you can find the rest at https://www.facebook.com/tehbebes):




I know this single-minded obsession with the babies is Nature’s way of getting a self-centered human male to sit up and pay attention to an important shift in the winds of his fate. I tend not to be the most observant person in any given room, so I appreciate the evolutionary assist...but does it have to be all-consuming? I can’t seem to have a conversation anymore without slipping in a mention of my status as a father-to-be. I know it’s obnoxious, but I can’t help myself.

I worry that it’s only going to get worse from here on. I worry that I’m going to start writing articles where I discuss the benefits of cloth diapers and attachment parenting and how to make your own baby food from organic vegetables. I worry that I’m going to be the person at the party that everyone avoids unless they have a question about the best method for getting baby vomit off a silk tie. I worry that my corny jokes and odd sense of humor are only going to get more corny and odd.

Mostly, though, I worry that my newfound interest in all things baby is going to make me a less interesting person in general. I’m hoping that at least my kids will think I’m interesting. In the meantime, this is me: embracing fatherhood in my early forties, embarking on a new journey, and giving in to the compulsion to document and share it every step of the way.


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Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiance, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com

Come again, doc? -- Contributor Post

Today’s post is brought to you by the letters T and F and by the number 2.

T is for testicles. T is for testosterone. T is for trembling tearfully, totally terrified. But mostly, T is for twins.

I’ve been joking with The Cricket since pretty much the day we met about how she doesn’t want to have kids with me, because twins run in my family. It’s a bit of an exaggeration; when I say they run in my family, it’s more of a quick walk. There are currently two sets of boy/girl fraternal twins in my almost immediate family: my cousins Rick and Sue, children of my dad’s brother, and my brother’s kids, Zach and Taylor. It’s not an epidemic, by any means.

Also, you’ll note I said fraternal twins, as in the product of two eggs being produced. So technically my male relatives had zero to do with the making of said twins. But it was a fun joke, nonetheless, and I enjoyed the way she would roll her eyes at me when I would say it. Especially when I would say things like “Kennedy sperm don’t wait for a second egg to drop, they swim up and grab it!”

So when she told me she was pretty sure that she was pregnant, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to increase the frequency of the twin jokes. I was still cracking jokes as we sat in the doctor’s office for the first ultrasound. The doctor was chuckling good-naturedly, clearly feeling sorry for what Cricket had to put up with, when she suddenly stopped, turned pale as her lab coat, and said “Why would you say that about twins?!” I assured her that I was just joking, that I liked kidding with Cricket about twins, that I wasn’t serious. She turned the screen our way and said, “Well, it’s not a joke anymore.”

F is for father. F is for forty two. F is for freaking out. F is for frequently fainting and falling face first onto the floor. But mostly, F is for fuuuuuuuuuck...

Come again, Doc? What’s that you say? There are how many? Fuuuuuuuuuck...

Hey Mom and Dad, you’re gonna be grandparents again. P.S. There are two of them. Fuuuuuuuuuck...

Hey honey, I’m going after work to pick up a second Pack & Play, and I found a double stroller with matching car seats on Craigslist. Fuuuuuuuuuck…

F is for failure, as in me at fatherhood.

F is also for find, as in I know we’ll find a way.

F is for finished, as in my theater life for the foreseeable future.

F is also for figure, as in we’ll figure it out.

F is for fortune, as in how much this is going to cost.

F is also for fine, as in I promise we’re going to be fine.

F is for fear, as in what I feel in my bones.

F is also for fun and fantastic and fabulous, as in the times we’re going to have as a family. And that, my friends, moves all the fear further and further from the front of my mind.

And what does the number 2 have to offer?

2 is the number of times per minute that my brain shouts “TWIIIINNSSSSS!!!” at me. 2 is the number of condoms I’ll be wearing from now until the day I die. 2 is the number of babies headed my way. But mostly, 2 is the number of people I’m drinking for between now and May.

Wish me luck.

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Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiancee, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com

Sibling Anticipation, or "Mom, are you pregnant yet?" - Contributor Post

A few days ago, I had a rehearsal and Mom needed a nap, so I volunteered to take the monkey with me. He loves hanging out at the theater, so it was no problem to talk him into tagging along. In the car, though, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“Jerry, I just realized that I’m a really lucky kid because I have two dads: my step-dad, and my real dad.”

“That’s right buddy...you’re pretty lucky!”

“And when we have a baby, the baby will be lucky to have two dads, too!”

This kid is relentless. He’s been dropping hints about wanting a little brother/sister for a little over a year now, and recently he’s picked up the pressure like a closer at a used car lot. It used to be that he would just harass The Cricket about it, but lately he’s expanded the scope of his campaign. And, as you can probably tell, he’s not entirely certain how the whole thing works; he’s under the impression that since I’m his step-dad, if and when his mother and I have kids together, his real dad will be those kids’ step-dad. It makes sense, I guess, if you don’t know about things like divorces and custody arrangements. When you’re six, shit is simple.

So I did what I was always do when six-year-old logic leaves me speechless; I diverted.

“What do you think would be your favorite part of having a baby in the family?”

“Well, I could just teach it stuff...like how to make paper airplanes and play X-Box games. Oh! Jerry, did you notice that I’m getting better at making paper airplanes?”

Thankfully, the six-year-old logic is coupled with a tendency to randomly change subjects; I’m pretty certain it’s just a tactic to throw us off our balance, and I knew this wouldn’t be the last of the baby talk.

Sure enough, on the drive home from school yesterday, the tone became very serious as he said, “Jerry, I need to ask you something.”

“What’s that buddy?”

“When we have a baby, will we have a baby shower?”

He’s like a CIA interrogator, asking surprise questions and slowly chipping away at your resistance.

“Probably so, buddy,” I replied. “I mean, if we have a baby, that is. *If* we have a baby, we’ll definitely have a baby shower. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just wondering who I’ll invite to the party,” he replied innocently.

“Oh. Gotcha. Who would you like to invite?”

“I’m not sure. Being pregnant takes a long time, so I might know different people by then.”

You have to admire the tenacity, and the ability to visualize an outcome so convincingly, but where the hell is this baby obsession coming from?

Later that night, he was back at it.

“I think we should talk about what name we’re going to call the baby.”

“Well buddy, Mom and I have already talked about what names we would use if we have a baby.”

“Oh. Good,” he said, walking out of the room. “I just don’t want the baby to not have a name.”

Of course, all this talk of babies has me squirming. Divorced at 38, I’d pretty much written off the possibility of being a dad, and I was okay with that. Then I met The Cricket and I got an instant 4-year old son, and I settled into the Step Dude role nicely. I’m still kinda shaky, but I’m learning as I go and getting a little better at it every day.

Now I’m 41, and I’ll be honest: the thought of having a baby simultaneously exhilarates and terrifies me. I know I couldn’t ask for a better partner in the endeavor, but I have all these doubts about whether I would be up to the task. What if it turns out that I’m a good step-dad but a shitty bio-dad? What if I fuck it all up and my kids end up hating me? Or worse, what if I don’t like them?

But none of that matters to a determined six-year old. He wants a baby sibling, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to take no for an answer. So I expect I’ll be hearing more about it on the next drive to school. I know one thing for sure: if this kid ever decides to go into marketing, I’ll be first in line to hire him.

...

Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiancee, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com


 

Kids Don't Learn to Love Themselves In a Vacuum -- Contributor Post

With Monday's news, a lot of us on the team are trying to deal with our grief in our own ways. Today, Jerry Kennedy from Choosing the Truth looks to the future.


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I had plans to write a different post today but, like many folks in my age bracket, the passing of Robin Williams on Monday rattled my cage. His death follows pretty closely on the heels of the suicides of three folks in my immediate circle of friends over the past year and a half, so maybe it’s hitting a little close to home. Whatever the reason, I’m a little sideways from all the reflection and thinking. Chances are pretty good that you are too. As evidence of exactly where my head is at, this post has already gone through three title revisions and I haven’t even finished the first paragraph.

I started out with “What I Want My Kids to Know.” It was going to be an inspirational list of life lessons that I plan on passing on to The Monkey and to any offspring of our own making that might one day happen on the scene. It was going to be a list of things for them to remember when the darkness seeped into their souls that would maybe, just maybe, cause them to reach for the phone instead of for a belt. Or a gun. Or a bottle of pills.

Then I expanded the title to “What I Want *All* Kids to Know,” because only a selfish prick would be concerned about just his own kids. The fact of the matter is that far too many kids have very little in the way of positive influences in their lives. Moms and dads who ignore them, or don’t have time for them, or who learned how to be dicks at the hands of their own parents and are just passing it along to the next generation. I wanted those kids to have the list, too.

And then I realized that my list really only had one thing on it. Only one item that I want all kids to know, no matter who they are or where they were born or what they grow up to be. Only one message:

Love yourself.

Some of you will be protesting at this point. “That’s so selfish!!” you say. “I want my children to love other people, not just themselves.” To you I say this: if you teach your kids to truly, deeply love themselves and that they are worthy of loving themselves by the very act of being born, you won’t have to worry about them demonstrating love for others. It will be second nature to them, and words and acts of love will flow from them like water from a bottomless well. They’ll be a blessing to everyone they meet.

Still others will be screaming that I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid of the “self-esteem” movement and that I’m enabling the “pussification of America’s kids.” To you I say this: go fuck yourselves. You seriously want to bitch that a bunch of five-year-olds got medals for playing soccer, even though they didn’t win, as if feeling good about playing is some kind of mortal sin if you didn’t earn it by winning the game? Yeah, you might be exactly what’s wrong with “kids these days.”

If you ask me, the “self-esteem” movement doesn’t go far enough, mostly because they focus on things that are external to the child (medals, awards, grades, etc.), instead of on teaching kids that they’re worthy just because they are. No need for external validation because, while it’s sometimes nice to have, it’s always temporary. Loving yourself should be a forever relationship, 24/7/365 until the day you die.

It’s no mystery why most people don’t feel that way about themselves. From the second we came into the world, most of us were were greeted by a family that did everything in their power to get us to conform. They weren’t being malicious; they were doing what they believed to be in our best interest: teaching us to comply, to not make waves, to fit in so that we would be acceptable to the people around us.

How can you learn to love yourself when you’re taught from the very beginning that you need to change who you are in order to be acceptable?   

Before you think I’m advocating a “no-discipline” policy, please understand me: I’m not talking here about your child’s behavior. Children absolutely need to know acceptable from unacceptable behavior. They need to learn about when certain behaviors are approriate and when they’re not (check out the article “We Don’t Play With Our Vulvas at the Table” for some great tips on that subject - http://www.scarymommy.com/dont-play-vulvas-table/).

But they also need to learn that they are not their behaviors, that even when they do something unacceptable or socially inappropriate, they are still worthy of loving themselves. And that’s your job, mom and dad. That’s your job, stepparents. That’s your job, grandma and grandpa and aunt and uncle and teacher and neighbor and family friend. Don’t fuck it up.

I know it’s hard for a lot of us because we haven’t figured out how to love ourselves yet, let alone how to teach our kids to do it. But does the fact that you don’t know how to play the piano mean that you shouldn’t encourage your kids to pursue playing the piano if they have a knack for it? Or does the fact that you’re not good at math mean that you should tell your kids that math is stupid, even if they have a talent for it?

Most kids come into the world with a leaning towards self-love. It’s their natural state, a seed planted in each of them. All the seed needs is a little coaxing, a little encouragement, a little tending and watering. Before long, it will grow into a beautiful, strong tree at the core of their being, a tree that will bear fruit in the form of loving words and deeds.

In loving memory of Mork from Ork, the guy who taught me that it was okay to be a weirdo. Na-Nu Na-Nu.

 

A Six Year Old Discovers the Power of Now -- Contributor Post

Today, Jerry Kennedy from Choosing the Truth gives another great tale from his time as a step-dude. Very Catch-22.

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Over the 4th of July weekend, we took a family road trip from Sacramento to Orem, Utah to visit my soon-to-be brother-in-law and his family. It was a short trip: we drove out on Thursday, stayed and played Friday and Saturday, and drove back on Sunday. Almost as soon as we got there, the Man Cub started his countdown clock for when we were going to leave.

“Why can’t we stay longer?” he asked, and with good reason. He was really enjoying his time with his cousins, who he only gets to see about once a year, and was disappointed that we couldn’t stay longer.

“Well, Jerry and I have to go back to work on Monday,” said the Cricket. “We’d love to stay longer, too, buddy. Maybe next time.”

“But I want to stay longer,” he grumped.

I decided to take a stab at re-directing his thoughts by engaging him in a sure-fire, totally age-appropriate philosophical discussion about being present. I know, in hindsight it sounds ridiculous to me, too. What can I say? Sometimes I get carried away in my enthusiasm to impart whatever wisdom I’ve managed to scrape together, especially when I have a captive audience strapped into a child safety seat, safely tucked in the rear of the car, where there’s no danger of me seeing him roll his eyes. Look, I never said I’d got the hang of this parenting thing yet. Anyhow, back to being present.

“Hey buddy,” I said, “can I ask you a question?” This is how I always start the diversionary tactics, and I think he’s starting to catch on; I may not have seen the eye roll, but I’m fairly certain I heard it. He humored me anyway.

“Yeah.”

“Are you having fun, thinking about going home?”

“No,” he whined. “That’s why I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here and have fun.”

“But you’re not having fun right now, are you? Because you’re thinking about when we have to leave, and that’s making you feel sad, and so you’re missing out on the fun you could be having right now, aren’t you?”

He eyed me suspiciously. I don’t blame him; I am, after all, only a step dude. I’m also the guy who once tried to convince him that eating his broccoli would make his magic stronger, and that he’d managed to make the clock disappear once he’d cleared his plate. Try explaining that one to the kindergarten teacher when she tells you he tried to turn one of his classmates invisible. And so when I say things that he doesn’t already know to be true and factual...well let’s just say he raises an eyebrow in consideration.

After a few seconds of deliberation, though, it clicked. He didn’t even say anything else, just wandered off to find his cousins so they could play. He grokked it: enjoying his now was more important than worrying about the future.

I, on the other hand, had to take a minute to process what had just happened. I realized that just a few months ago, he wouldn’t have given a flying fuck about leaving until we’d strapped him in his car seat and were driving away. Why? Because up until recently, he had no concept of time. Everything in his world happened now. There was no past, no future, only what was right in front of him. But that was starting to change. Now some old dude was having to remind him to stay present. The same old dude who was constantly telling him “Ten more minutes to bedtime,” and “We’re leaving for school in half an hour.”

I can’t think of any better example of how we screw ourselves up into the giant balls of stress by the time we’re young adults. On the one hand, we preach the value of time and we push deadlines and timelines and schedule every minute of every day, and on the other hand, we tell each other to slow down and smell the roses. No wonder we’re fucked up: we can’t even decide whether to live in the past, future, or present.

Jeez. I hope he’s ready for a discussion about duality and paradox on the drive to school tomorrow.
















 

On Mayhem, Meltdowns and Mood Swings -- Guest Post

Jerry Kennedy, stepdude and writer at Choosing the Truth, is here talking about the inherent moodiness of the children, in a way in which we all can only nod our heads in resignation...and then joy. Thanks, Jerry!

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Shortly after I first moved in with my then girlfriend (now fiancee) and her 4-year-old son, I told her that living with a child was an awful lot like living with a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic suffering from multiple personality disorder and delusions of grandeur; two and half years in, I still think that’s a pretty accurate comparison.

Don’t get me wrong: the Monkey is a delightful little human being, capable of melting your heart with his sweet smile and his infectious giggle. It’s just that he’s prone to the occasional sudden change of temperament. And by “sudden”, I mean he can change moods faster than Clark Kent can exit a grungy phone booth in blue tights and a cape.

Apparently, he’s not alone. When I’ve shared my observation with other parents, they always kind of nod and get the far-off look of a shell-shocked POW. It turns out that most children go through these periods of, shall we say, difficulty? Call me naive, but this was kind of a surprise to me. As a childless person (and therefore clearly an expert on parenting), I’d always assumed that kids who acted out were the result of bad parents; or if not “bad parents,” at best well-intentioned parents who lacked good parenting skills.




It’s okay; go ahead and laugh now. I deserve it. In my child-free cocoon, I would look at parents and say things like “If only they would say no to that child every now and then, they wouldn’t have this little monster on their hands.” Yeah...I was that guy. As I quickly learned, though, this parenting shit is hard. I mean really hard. Like “doing a Rubik’s Cube while juggling chainsaws on a tightrope suspended over a pit of hungry crocodiles” levels of hard. And that’s on a good day.

But they’re not all good days, are they? Sometimes, our days are not so good. Sometimes, our days are pretty freakin’ bad. And sometimes, when the Moon is in the seventh house and Mercury is in retrograde, we’re get the pleasure of the meltdowns. Jumping Jesus on a pogostick, the meltdowns.

I’ll never forget standing on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with the Monkey while his mom went to ride the Giant Dipper and having him screaming at the top of his lungs at me for literally five minutes. To the point that he was starting to hyperventilate and turn red in the face. To the point that I was starting to worry that people were going to call security to come and rescue this poor child who I was clearly torturing with hot irons. And all because I wouldn’t let him have a root beer...or something. I’m still not entirely clear on what it was all about. I finally ended up calling Cricket; she jumped out of line, rescued me from my stuttering and blundering, and that was the end of our day. We’d only been there an hour (Santa Cruz is a three hour drive from home) and we were going home.

Here’s the clincher, though: on the walk back to the car, the tiny demon immediately resumed human form and wanted to know if we’d be coming back to the Boardwalk later in the day so that he could ride some more of the rides, and also could he have some ice cream. W. T. F?

I’m learning, though. Where once I was a terrified, uncertain, semi-adult person, I’m now a slightly less terrified, almost not quite certain, bordering on being a grown up person; and I owe it all to Douglas Adams and the art, or rather knack, to flying. Adams says that the knack to flying is in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. The real trick, he says is in having your attention suddenly distracted at the exact moment you’re about to hit the ground.

When this bit of advice first popped into my head with regard to my parenting technique, I thought that it meant I needed to distract the Monkey immediately before the tantrum started. I tried that, and it worked spectacularly. I’d tell him no, he couldn’t conduct an experiment involving enriched plutonium, see the familiar twitch of an oncoming meltdown, and immediately burst into a silly song or ask him if the moon is really made from elephant boogers; if I timed it right, he’d completely forget about the plutonium and we’d be on the path to Crisis Averted City. Thank you Mr. Adams!

But as I get a little more comfortable in my parent skin, I think Douglas had a bigger, much more important message for me. I’m finding that as I travel the Step Dude Path, I often trip on one of the many obstacles along the way and, in a sense, throw myself at the ground. It’s not very often that I miss, and I spend a lot of time nursing those bruises. Every now and then, though, I get distracted just before the inevitable crash; a silly giggle, a toothless smile, or an unexpected Father’s Day present...and suddenly I’m flying.

 

Confessions of a Formerly Reluctant Step Dude -- Guest Post

I'd introduce Jerry Kennedy here, but he does a damn good job of it, himself. Look for more of him at Choosing the Truth.

...

So I’ve been staring at this blank page for a week now, wondering why in the hell I thought it would be a good idea to request a spot as a guest blogger for Darlena. I mean, I’ve been a blogger for awhile now (my first blog post was published in May of 2009...did we even have the Internet back then?), but I’ve always written about subjects that I knew pretty well. Whether it was sales and customer service or my own journey of personal development, it was stuff I knew. But to contribute to a parenting blog? That’s a different animal entirely.

Parenting is brand new for me. I have no children of my own. Up until 2 years, 7 months, and 14 days ago, I was certain that I never would have children of my own. Recently divorced after 17 years of marriage (yeah, I’m that old), I was planning to live out my days footloose and child-free. And then it happened: I walked into my friends’ house for a birthday party, and I walked out in love with a single mom. You know what they say: “the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley...” Or at least that’s what Robert Burns would have said.

Anyway, the point is that I was suddenly in love with a woman who had a four-year-old son. Like really in love. Like stupid in love. And I decided that I wanted to be part of her life, kid and all. I mean, how hard could it be? I’d missed the really difficult parts (dirty diapers, random projectile vomiting, sleepless nights, crying fits, terrible twos, terrible-r threes), and everything should be a piece of cake from here on out. Right? Uh-huh...and jelly beans really *are* Easter Bunny poops.

So here, in no particular order, are some lessons I’ve learned about myself from stepping into the “step” role and living with the child I know as the Monkey:

1. I do, in fact, have a temper, and the fuse is shorter than I could have imagined. All my life, I’ve been laid-back, even-tempered, able to keep my cool in any situation. It was a badge of pride for me, like a super power; I was Guy Who Never Gets Angry. That is, I was GWNGA until a small, angry, red-faced person started shouting “NO!!!” at me at full volume. I’ll never forget the day I snapped: before I knew what had happened, the Monkey had lost every privilege for an entire weekend and, if I hadn’t had the good sense to walk away, would have probably been restricted to his room until he was 35.

This might not seem like a big deal to some folks; after all, I didn’t get physically violent or shout. To me, though, it was devastating. I felt like a major failure because, despite my outer appearance, I was *angry*. And over what? A defiant child. What kind of superhero was I? How could I go from Guy Who Never Gets Angry to Dickhead Who Takes Away Legos and X-Boxes For Life in under a minute? I have no idea, but for a split second, I wished he had more toys that I could take away.

After we both cooled down, we had a chat. I apologized for overreacting, and he apologized for yelling, and we decided on a slightly more reasonable consequence for his behavior. It’s happened a few times since, but I got some great advice from my coach (aka Mommy). She told me that when a child is upset like that, continuing the conversation is only going to fan the flames. So now, I walk away, wait until he calms down, then we talk. Don’t get me wrong: I still see red, but now I take it as my signal to stop. Ram Dass once said, “If you think you’re so enlightened, go spend a week with your parents.”  I think he meant children.

2. I don’t know anything about anything. When I first met the Monkey, he was a big fan of dinosaurs. That’s actually a bit of an understatement; dinosaurs were his life. One of the first conversations we had, he asked me if I knew what the biggest dinosaur was. I confidently said, “Brontosaurus!” I don’t actually remember what the right answer is, but that certainly wasn’t it. Apparently, science has learned a lot about dinosaurs since I was a kid, and I hadn’t been keeping up. When I would read stories to him at bedtime, he usually wanted me to read from his dinosaur book; it was full of dinosaurs I’d never even heard of, in spite of collection of Michael Crichton books.

And that was only the beginning. From planets (Pluto isn’t a planet?) to primates (WTF is a bonobo?), from comics (there’s really a villain called the Abomination?) to cartoons (how did I not know about Adventuretime??), I’m kind of a dunce. Or at least I’m a dunce when it comes to things that little boys find interesting. Living child-free for so long, I had no idea that so much had changed. I’m still woefully inadequate when it comes to dinosaurs and Marvel comics, but I’m learning...mostly by pretending to be Nick Fury sending him on a mission when I drop him off at school.

3. Being a step dude is one of the coolest things ever. In the beginning, I was super reluctant to have the Monkey see me as a parental unit. He had an amazing mom and a dad who was an engaged and active participant in his life. He had no need for me to be anything other than his mom’s boyfriend. Besides, I was certain that any child who viewed me as a parent would be irrevocably damaged; I was afraid of the responsibility, afraid of the commitment, and afraid of the attachment. I was so awkward about it, in fact, that at one point he started introducing me to his classmates as his brother. I think that was even more confusing to his classmates, who always looked at me like “Seriously? That old fucker is your brother?? No way!” Kids can be so cruel.

Eventually, though, as it became more and more clear that this was a family unit I wanted to be part of, my reluctance subsided. I became comfortable with being called the Step Dude and, eventually, “my stepdad.” I certainly lucked up: I get to be an active participant in the life of an amazing child, even if he is sometimes headstrong and grumpy and yells at me. It’s all worth it when, in one of his lucid moments, he looks up from what he’s doing and says “Jerry, I love you.” Four simple words that have melted the frozen heart of a soulless, old curmudgeon to the point that I’m now looking forward to someone calling me Daddy.