A few thoughts from when my home was invaded by adolescents

That was a long time ago, but I'm thinking now about a couple of specific things we heard at the girls’ school in those days.

One was a seminar titled something like “When an Adolescent Invades Your Home”—I mentioned it in this post (written when both girls were in college). The presenter said that for quite a few years, children live largely unconsciously, with the lights off (he turned off the classroom lights to illustrate). Then, he said, a wonderful thing starts to happen: the lights come on (he flipped the switch to on) for a while (he turned the lights off). He didn't play with the switch much longer, but we got the idea.

This rang true, as I remembered doing really stupid things when I was younger, and yes I do feel very fortunate to be alive. Even today, the lights aren’t on for me all the time… but enough about me :). The point, though, is that for junior high kids (and even high school kids), the lights aren’t always on.

Another thing from that seminar iirc is that the onset of puberty has been happening earlier and earlier in the United States. One guess is that it's related to the hormones we feed to livestock to get them to mature faster. Anyway, the lights aren’t coming on necessarily sooner, but the hormones are raging earlier. So it’s more challenging now than it was a half-century ago.

The other thing that stuck in my mind was something their junior-high school Principal said in a graduation speech (probably in 2005). As parents, we have many roles with our kids. We supervise, guide, teach them, coach them, and so on. But what stuck in my mind was his comment that from here on out it’s mostly cheerleading; by now their habits are largely already set. From here on out (this was 8th grade graduation), we are not going to change their minds about many things, or get them to develop or drop many habits.

In other words, the time for most (key word, that: most) of that has already passed. Which is actually kind of scary, considering that the lights are still off a fair amount of the time and that their hormones are probably raging more than ours were at their age.

But then nobody said it would be easy.

An eventful week; a grateful me

The younger ex-teen got married last weekend; it was a celebration of great joy—and also relief.

You see, Grandma Bessie (my mom) was planning to visit us, arriving Tuesday night. But rather than going to the airport, she went to the emergency room due to abdominal pain, severe and unrelenting. My mobile phone exploded with text messages. The phrase “aortic <something>” was heard. X-rays and CAT scans were discussed.

They had me at “aortic”; I started checking flights, but didn’t book anything until the medical folks settled on the diagnosis: aortic aneurysm. I clicked “Book this flight” for Alaska 837, SJC→HNL Wednesday morning.

Wednesday

Am I getting old, or was it just the stress, or have the seats gotten harder? Whatever it was, I was hurting by the time we landed. Inga picked me up and we went straight to Queen’s. Dr. Sato came in and advised Mom to get the endovascular aneurysm repair, maybe like the one decribed here on webmd.

As I heard the story, Mom had said she’d consider it; today the surgeon was recommending it. He itemized a bunch of risks, things that might happen during surgery. They’re not frequent, he said, but they do happen. I asked him what he would recommend for his own mother, if she had a similar condition. Surgery.

He told Mom of a past, younger patient of his. He recommended the surgery, she declined, she went home, the aneurysm ruptured, and she died the same day. Mom was sold, and Dr. Sato indicated that he’d try to do the endovascular aneurysm repair Thursday afternoon.

Then an anaesthesiologist came in, describing how the anaesthesia itself had risks (beyond the surgery), including death! My comment was, we don’t have many alternatives here.

Thursday

In the morning we heard the surgery would be at noon! I ran down to the hospital, having spent the night at “home,” and hung around until they shooed me out. I sat in the waiting room for a while, and then sister Donna said I could join her in pre-op. After some confusion, the nurse and I found each other, and she ushered me in to Mom’s area, where it was freezing. I was impressed by the keep-warm technology.

Mom was mightily bored by all this and kept dozing off, or maybe she just closed her eyes. Eventually they said they were really going to do the surgery, and I snapped a pic just as she was about to go to the “OR.” The photo is dated 1:57pm.

I went home for a nap, and Mom was done about 5:20pm. The surgery had gone well, I heard. I eventually figured out how to get to the surgical waiting room in QE Tower. Quite a few folks were there, sister Inga and nieces and nephew; several of them were still heading to California for the wedding.

They let me into the recovery area after a while, and I joined Donna there. Mom would have to lie flat for four hours, the first two with sandbags on her thighs, to discourage reopening of the surgical incisions (pokes, actually). She wasn’t too happy about that.

I held Mom’s hand for the next 3 hours or so, giving her Bible passages or praying or chatting or just sitting. At some point Donna took my parking ticket to a nurses’ station, where they stamped it for me. I would later find out that the afternoon’s parking would be on the house :).

At the 7:00pm shift change, the new nurse asked Mom if she knew where she was.

“Hospital,” she murmured.

“Do you remember the name of the hospital?”

“Queen’s.”

“Do you know what month and year it is?”

“October,” she croaked.

“And do you know remember the year?”

“Seventeen.” It was barely a whisper.

“Who are these people?” the nurse asked, indicating Donna and me.

“I don’t know!” she said. Very funny, Mom! The nurse wasn’t fooled for a moment.

Some other post-op procedures were needed. An X-ray for example. So the X-ray guy showed up after a while and said something about sitting her up. The nurses updated him on the situation; I didn’t have to tackle him.

Around 10pm the nurse moved her to a private room in QE tower. We were about to exit the elevator on the 8th floor when an EMERGENCY indicator lit up, the doors closed, and the elevator expressed back whence we came.

The doors opened to reveal a nurse with a surprised expression; he released the elevator, mumbling something about grabbing another one, and the elevator returned to the 8th floor. Our nurse explained that some ICU patients must be transported without delay immediately after surgery; they cannot wait.

Mom got situated and after a while, Donna suggested I go home. No argument from me on that.

Friday

The next morning, Dr. Sato dropped by Mom’s room to ask how she was doing. Any pain? Mom shook her head no.

He smiled. “See? Told you!”   He also said, “You can go home today as far as I’m concerned.” No medication needed, but Mom should take it easy the next couple of weeks.

I ran “home” so Jana could take me to the airport. (I had already packed my things.)

My return flight was uneventful, but all too long. Again my seat hurt. The lovely Carol picked me up late Friday night.

Saturday

I’d missed Friday afternoon’s rehearsal, but I was assured all I had to do was follow directions—always a challenge for me, but perhaps it would be OK this time.

Several friends of Peter and Sheri spoke at the ceremony; each one added a unique perspective, so that all of us present got glimpses of both bride and groom. I have to tell you that as much as I respected and esteemed Peter before the ceremony, his friends’ comments made me feel even happier to have him in our family. The celebration was intimate and meaningful and and God-honoring.

By the way, my nephew Keith unobtrusively live-streamed the ceremony; Mom and Donna and Jana and Mom’s great-grandchildren all could see it.

As I said at the reception, “It’s hard to be humble when Peter is your son-in-law!” Oh, and we “facetime”d with Mom at the reception. She looked happy.

---

I am a very grateful man today. I wasn’t quite in a panic Tuesday, but as I said several times, it was a little too exciting. Aortic aneurysms are often fatal; it was fortunate indeed that Mom had a lot of pain so that she would know to go to the hospital. And it was fortunate that the symptoms appeared before she came to California.

And now both my daughters have husbands that make it impossible for me to be humble.

And it’s also really hard to be ungrateful. My cup is full, even as the nest is empty.

Another memory of Dad

I took a right turn and heard a thumping from the trunk. It was a big roll of paper, "butcher paper" I think, that we used for covering tables for yesterday's lunch reception. The sound reminded me of something Dad told me.

"Did Dad ever tell you that story about the bottle in the trunk?" Neither Mom nor my sister Donna had heard it.

I guess he was still single when this happened, so probably more than 60 years ago. He and a friend were driving, and there was a bottle or something in the trunk. They turned a corner and heard this Bah-dum-bah-dum-bah-dum from the trunk. They found this amusing. "Hey, that's pretty good!" They checked for traffic and swerved left.

Bah-dum-bah-dum-bah-dum. Swerved right. Bah-dum-bah-dum-bah-dum

Pretty soon another sound was heard: a siren, accompanied by flashing lights in the rear-view mirror. They pulled over.

"Lemme smell your breath!" The cop was not pleased.

"The steering seemed a little loose," my dad said.

After checking his license and registration, the cop let them go. "Next time test your steering in a parking lot," he growled.

Is that the kind of thing to tell your son, but not your wife or daughter?

Thoughts toward the end

Dad is 92, so statistically speaking he’s probably not long for this world. His cancer is metastatic and he’s in the hospital, which only reinforces the prognosis.

We’ve spoken about his approaching end, but as I’ve told many grieving friends and colleagues in the past, one can never actually be ready for it—no matter how long we’ve seen it coming.

What is happening inside me? Well, I have to tell you I’m rather a mess. Dad’s fondest wish is that his descendants all outlive him. Indeed, the alternative would be awful. I know all this, but I’m not actually ready to go through it.

So how am I processing all this? Not very well. And yet part of what’s happening is that I feel compelled to be a better man. When I got Thursday morning’s notice, “You’re eligible to donate life-giving blood!” the urge to run over to the blood center was powerful.

You see, Dad had a habit of donating blood. When I was still living at home, he would sometimes announce, “Going to give blood” before heading to the blood bank. Part of that was prudence: you build up credit, and if you need some units of blood in the future, you don’t have to buy them. I don’t know how many gallons he gave, but it was way beyond what he might ever credibly need. So the savings aspect wasn’t his only motivation. Giving blood, I learned, is something a man does.

And so, with Dad so many steps closer to the grave, I wanted to do something life-affirming—something Dad would do, or rather, something Dad did.

As Phillip stuck the needle into my arm that afternoon, I mentioned Dad’s habit. “Part of why I do this is I wanted to be like him. Still do!” I said, barely retaining my composure.

“That’s what a parent wants,” he returned. Indeed.

Something else is happening to me in these days: when I see young people, my paternal feelings arise a little more strongly than before. Perhaps that Socioemotional selectivity theory is kicking in: 18 months ago I felt like I’d live forever, but today I know better—that I’m unlikely to double my years. I probably don’t have even four decades left.

I can hear some of you laughing: “Four decades? I haven’t even been alive that long!” But I remember my grandmother telling me just the other day, when I six or seven years old, that this world goes by fast. I’m here to tell you that she was right. The other day I reported for work at my first “real” job as a development engineer at hp. That was about four decades ago.

A colleague spoke about a lack of enjoyment in life—particularly his work life. I thought about his words and wrote him a few paragraphs with my thoughts. Another young guy stood up to the boss in a meeting. He wasn’t defiant, but he declined to promise an earlier delivery date for one of his tasks. I wrote him some paragraphs about a similar experience I’d had in my earlier years, and encouraged him to keep up his self-awareness. Bowing to the pressure will only get you in trouble, I told him.

I’m not sure I would have done that two years ago; two years ago I’m not even sure I would have noticed what these guys were saying, or how it was an invitation for me to speak [or write] into their lives.

With young women, my paternal feelings come out even more strongly, perhaps because I have daughters. A young friend is starting a career in elementary education, and as I thought of her energy and her love blessing those kids, it made me feel so happy. I told her so, too.

And that brought to mind the passion and experience that the lovely Carol brings to her lessons, and to young mothers at a church group—I thought about how she’s blessing those students and those young mothers, and that made me happy, too. (I also told her.)

It is good to think about death sometimes, as this article notes. I’m not sure I want to greet each morning with, “It is a good day to die,” but I need to remember that I will die some day, probably before four decades are out. And also to think about people in my life who deserve good words from me—comfort or encouragement—and remember to be liberal with those gifts. If not today, then when? As the Bible says, Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. And not because something Bad will happen if I don’t, but because doing it will bring good into the world, in and through my life. And because that's what a man does.

Why we thought it was a good idea

Some years ago I read about the paradox that whereas parents report lower levels of happiness during the child-raising years than childless couples do, they later remember those years as happier times than their childless counterparts.

I've wondered about this on and off, and a few days ago found a possible explanation. I was reading Atul Gawande's marvelous book Being Mortal, where he mentioned an interesting study of patients who experienced painful medical procedures while awake. (The experiment was one of a series recounted by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.) These patients were asked throughout their procedures to rate the level of pain on a scale of one to ten. “At the end, the patients were also asked to rate the total amount of pain they experienced during the procedure.” (237)

The patients' final ratings were not even close to the sum of their moment-by-moment ratings; rather, “[t]heir final ratings largely ignored the duration of pain. Instead, the ratings were best predicted by what Kahneman termed the ‘Peak-End rule’: an average of the pain experienced at just two moments—the single worst moment of the procedure and the very end.”(237)

Indeed, it seems to apply to a lot of experiences in life, not just surgery and child-raising.

---

In my own case, as I look back on my own experience in raising two wonderful daughters, I remember the positive experiences more than the negative ones. When we were living in Japan, our younger child attended local schools. They had taken the kids to visit a shrine, and our daughter reported to us that the children had been expected to stand in a certain place, bow, and clap. (No church-state separation there!) "But of course I didn't do it," she added.

She had interpreted the ritual -- correctly I think -- as a prayer to the god of that place, and I was so grateful that our young child had the spiritual discernment to understand she was being asked to worship another god, and also the intestinal fortitude to resist the pressure to conform.

I also recall keenly when our older daughter, then 13, said to a roomful of parents and school officials, "I want to know what will be done to address what happened today." (What had happened didn't include physical violence, but a teacher did behave quite badly. I do not think she was a bad person, but she was certainly in the wrong job.)

The principal, momentarily dumbfounded, asked what our daughter had in mind. "She should apologize to us," she said, "and some of us should apologize to her." Did I mention that our daughter was 13 when she said this?

Do I remember any negative experiences? Well, there's what probably amounted to the stupidest thing I've done as a parent -- which I don't think I've confessed on this blog.

There were times when I was sure one of our kids had reached a new plateau of unreasonableness (this happened more than once). I remember that it happened, and I remember using that bit about the new plateau (I was pleased with myself for coming up with it too). But I don't remember with any clarity what triggered the exasperation, or even the feeling itself; those memories have faded into oblivion. I also know that we had some nights of very little sleep, some hours of continuous screaming and wailing from a restrained child, epic cleanup experiences (you don't want to know), discussions about why you really shouldn't bite your sister, and other things like this... but not very clearly.

Which may be why someone referred to them as "Collin's perfect children": I know my daughters aren't perfect, but I have a hard time locating their faults.

Remembering Danny

My brother-in-law Danny died a week ago. He was in great pain and ready to go to his reward. I called my sister the day before, and she filled me in a little on his condition. He'd been hallucinating off and on. Did I want to talk with him? She handed him the phone.

"Hi Collin!" he said. He sounded cheerful, or was that just me wanting him not to be in pain? I told him I was sorry he was going through all this. He seemed not to hear me, but said, "I'll call you back, OK?"

No you won't, I thought, but what I said was, "OK." What a miserable situation! He wanted to go, he was deeply uncomfortable, and if he recovered, my sister would have had a horrific time trying to care for him: a leg was due to be amputated, and his heart was going to need a valve job within a year.

And yet how terrible for him not to be there any more!

Well, I wanted to write a few things about him while I can still see.

The lovely Carol mentioned a time when our kids were very young. There were frustrations, but she never heard Danny yell at his boys. She asked him about it, and he explained that he'd put a hand on the kid's shoulder and lower his face to be directly in front of the kid's. (Maybe that was one hand on each shoulder—I don't recall exactly.) His nose no more than 3 inches from his son's, he would say firmly, "You need to put away your toys now." It was not loud, but it was quite effective.

Danny's musical gifts were considerable, and he used them at various churches. At yesterday's memorial service, I kept reminding myself that he wasn't about to appear on stage with his cane and sit down at the piano. Several people mentioned yesterday that he started many musical groups and worked patiently with almost anyone who wanted to sing or play.

What I remember most about him most was his gentle manner and the way he talked about his health challenges. "Everybody's got something," he would say, and he was certainly right about that. But Danny had way more than his fair share.

"I'll call you back, OK?" he said. When I get there, some decades hence I suppose, I'll hold him to that promise.

He loves you oppressively?

From Daughters of Song by Paula Huston (think "Huston, we have a problem"):

It feels good talking this way; she finds herself sighing with sad pleasure as she recounts the events of her vanished childhood.

Finally she stops… “Your father must be a very strong man,” Jan says.

“He is.”

“He must be proud of you.”

She laughs. “More than that. Much much more. You can’t even imagine it.”

“He loves you oppressively?”

Huston, p. 101

When I read things like this, I wonder, is that me?

Gratitude

The transition to being "empty nesters" is not instant, but it is inexorable: within a month, our sole remaining teen-ager will start her third decade.

It is bittersweet, this transition. We raised our girls to go off to college and become independent, and they've done the first. The ex-teenager will be married within the year, and that's good, too; I just hadn't thought all this would happen so soon. It was nearly three years ago that I wrote this sentimental piece about the then younger teen, and I certainly miss the days when I'd come home to the lovely Carol, and also to little (and later not-so-little) girls, who would sit on my lap, or want to be carried around ("運んでもらう!"), or tell me about their day.

Which reminds me of a story. One day, a man came down the street and gave me a hundred-dollar bill. The next day, he did it again. For something like twenty years he did this. I got accustomed to it.

Then he stopped coming so regularly. He'd come during the summer, then stop. He'd come again toward the end of November, and then in January he'd stop. Sometimes he'd show up for a week in March or April.

These hundred-dollar bills (an inadequate metaphor but please bear with me) were not earned or deserved, so the appropriate attitude is gratitude. We are so fortunate to be able to enjoy these exceptional girls (I imagine every parent thinks his or her kid a genius, a spiritual giant filled with zeal and compassion; I am no exception) -- and to know that they're gone doing what we raised them to do.

Though I sometimes mourn the passing of those truly wonderful days, I know that I've received more and better than I deserve, and when I remember this, I can be thankful.

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!" Amen.

What was better in Mississippi in the 1950s

The October Atlantic arrived today, and the lovely Carol sat with me as we read a brilliant article about "Donald T," the first child in the United States to be diagnosed with autism. Donald's story has a happy ending; he lives independently (mostly); he drives and plays golf; he is probably the most widely traveled person in town. He is known and liked by many. A few observations, in no particular order:

• Donald's parents were rich. People who are poor and odd are weird; if you're rich and odd, you're eccentric.
• But it's not just that they were rich. Donald lives in the house he grew up in (he is now 77). I have the impression (not fact-checked) that a lot of people in Forest have lived there several decades.
• Donald's parents were married for life.
• They also took terrific care of him; he was not neglected by any standard. They took him to a Dr. Kanner at Johns Hopkins, who first used the term "autism" in the United States.
• Since the 1990s, autism has been on a tear; half a million autistic children will enter adulthood over the next decade or so.

A key point the writers make is that we are going to have to adapt to these autistic adults. This will be easier, the authors note, if we consider "them" as being part of "us."

I resemble this remark, actually; I'm sure I had Asperger's as a child and maybe as a young adult. (Obsessed with numbers? Comfort in clothing a higher priority than its appearance? Others' points of view found mysterious?) But I digress.

As I read about Donald's life, it reminded me about something I heard at a recent seminar. Half a century ago, when America was not nearly as mobile a society as it is today, a child might go to the school his/her parents attended, maybe even be taught by the same teacher. Today, with many broken homes, we have a lot more in the way of nuclear families living where no one in their family lived before. Neighbors change more frequently (five owners of the house next door over the past 25 years for example, vs. about three over a half-century for the house next door to where I grew up).

In the 1940s, Dr. Kanner at Johns Hopkins found 11 cases of autism total. Doubtless there were more, but I believe that with stable communities and families, a lot more of them could just sort of get along -- whereas today, with families moving a lot and neighborhoods constantly changing, people need to function at a higher level to make their way in the world. In a small town, the clerk at the grocery store might know who you are and have time to give you a hand with getting your cash out (or your ATM card swiped). But the lines at supermarkets today are filled with hurried and harried people who really don't want to wait for someone to fumble through swiping their debit card through the card-reader.

In other words, it's a lot tougher world out there for people who don't function all that well. This also is something that is hitting Millennials harder than the Silents or Boomers, or even GenXers.

I'm not saying I want to live in the Mississippi of the 1950s, but I wonder if Donald, even with all his parents' money, would do as well if he'd been born in California 50 or 60 years later.

Therapeutic? Where did that come from?

Other notes/reactions from this lecture series ⇐click
So this phrase just came up: "moralistic therapeutic deism". Apparently "millennials" generally hold this belief, even those in the church. The therapeutic part means, basically, that the main point of life is to be happy and fulfilled.

Where did they get this idea, I mean those that hold it? From us -- from their parents. "We just want you to be happy." Advertisers help, but mainly it is we, the parents, who gave them this idea.

Trouble is, it's not just millennials. Divorce rates aren't much lower in the church than they are outside, and I'm afraid that many (not all!) of these divorces happen because "this isn't working for me" -- the therapeutic goal wasn't being met.

How do we get out of this? How do I stop this sort of "stinkin' thinkin'" in my own life, and how can I help others to avoid it?

One thing is avoiding "we just want you to be happy," in favor of Hauerwas's worthy adventure, or the intersection of your passion with the world's need (put more eloquently by Bolles in What Color Is Your Parachute). So "We want you to find a worthy adventure"?

Maybe.

Thoughts on escapism

Sitting at Disney's California Adventure resort, I was struck with a sense of the absurd; I mean it was surreal: here was a place dedicated to illusion and escape.

I had driven to the southland with the younger teen so she could visit a friend from Hong Kong, satisfy her practice driving requirements for her driver license, and have some bonding time with Papa. We stayed with my cousin and her lovely family -- her engineer→manager→entrepeneur husband, her teenage daughter destined to break many hearts (dozens are likely suffering in silence already), and her boys full of energy and curiosity. Like our uncles, she brings a lot of laughter to the home herself, but she makes it clear that children must obey.

My cousin suggested spending a few hours at California Adventure, which we enjoyed immensely, but it was after "Soarin’ over California" that the sense of the absurd hit me. "Soarin’" is a fabulous illusion; you don't have to try much at all to believe you're flying over golf courses and orange groves and mountains.

And I really admire the design and execution of these theme parks. Just the parking structure is a thing of beauty! You drive in and attendants direct you to the right floor, then to the right row. You park and there is no traffic! Why? Because everybody else is parking behind you! You unload your car and take the escalator down. From level 5 for example, you take one (not four) escalators to ground level. This is brilliant! Since people only ever go between their cars (at level "N") and the tram (at ground level), why make someone at level 5 take escalators to levels 4, 3, 2?

Later, I mentioned my sense of the absurd "What felt wrong about it?" she asked me. At first, I wondered if it was just that so much energy went into escaping reality. She said, "But if I'm reading a book at home, couldn't I be escaping just as much?

Well, that was a good point. Is it just that I'm a fan of reading, or is there something more to it?

last edited 27 July 2008

Both daughters home!

Just around lunch time today, we were lounging around (I took the day off) and mentioned the seahorse exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

That was not what I'd call a hard sale. "I haven't been there in a long time," the ex-teenager said wistfully. "I love spontaneous trips!" said the other. I grabbed dog food and we all headed off together, stopping at our neighborhood market to get some apples. And cash.

What a beautiful day! The teen-ager napped in the back seat for part of the drive. We parked in the garage at Foam and Prescott, and walked down to the beach. The sun was shining and the water was astonishingly blue. We took our shoes off and enjoyed the feel of the coarse sand. After looking at shells for a while we dried our feet, got our shoes back on, and went to the aquarium.

The aquarium is gorgeous, maybe even more so than I remember it. Seahorses are amazing creatures. I don't think I knew they were fishes. It's amazing how they move, using very thin fins. (These guys are not tunas.)

After 2–3 hours we're ready to look for dinner. We chose Sly McFly's, on Cannery Row at Prescott. Fish and chips, and clam chowder in a bread bowl -- not exactly health food but delicious and satisfying.

The drive home was uneventful. We talked some about college life, about some surprises and general thoughts as the ex-teenager is approaching graduation.

I'm a thankful man, to have both daughters home and to be able to enjoy this day with them and to hear their thoughts on life....

Where the Wild Things Are

We read the book to the kids years ago, and last night rented the DVD from Blockbuster®. The two stories are quite different, and each very good. The book is a children's book, but I wouldn't call the film a children's film. I mean, it's not The Book of the Dun Cow, which I consider rather creepy for the pre-teen set, but as Wikipedia® reports, the film has a PG rating in the US. It is a little intense.

But I think the film a great conversation-starter. Why are the creatures so unhappy? What could KW or Claire or Carol or Max do to make the situation better? What are the limits of parental or civic/governmental power, and what must each person do for him/herself? And what do you suppose God would say about the problems shown here?

Dad: Here's how to be a breakfast hero

There it was on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News: there was an Eggo deficit, which threatens to put breakfast in the deep freeze. Huh? The inventor would have been dumbfounded.

But this gives you, Dad, a chance to be a breakfast hero: "No, kids, no Eggos were found in the store, but I, your father, a heretofore unsung maitre de cuisine (pardon my French; that's master of [the] kitchen), will save the day!" Here's how.

First, ascertain whether you have a working waffle iron. If yes, you're all set. Start the waffle iron preheating and spray it with "Pam" or similar. To mix the batter, follow the instructions either

• here (but no butter; use 1/4-1/3 cup of vegetable oil instead) or
• on the Bisquick box (if you have the latter in the kitchen)

and you'll be a hero. Allow yourself 45-60 minutes the first time you do this, even after ensuring you have all the ingredients on hand. The good news is, with practice you can have this down to less than 20 minutes from "Let's have waffles!" to the first plateful -- even without a baking mix.

If you don't have a working waffle iron on hand, then it's pancakes. Make sure your griddle is in good shape: the manly task of surface prep may have just fallen to you. Use either my recipe (to make from scratch) or the one on the Bisquick box, if you've got some. Dealing with a griddle takes considerably more practice than an automatic electric waffle iron, but you'll get used to it. The main thing is to have the right amount of heat (my recipe above gives some hints, but a more professional set is here -- oooh, but you might want to turn the heat down once you get the griddle to the right temperature -- and also to PAY ATTENTION while doing the pancakes.

When your first plateful turns out perfect, don't get cocky and think you can fire up the coffeepot between pouring the batter and flipping the 'cakes! Well, you CAN fill the kettle (and remember the 'cakes), and you can put it on another burner (fire up the correct burner, and check the 'cakes). And maybe you can even find the coffee (check the 'cakes) and then find a paper filter (and check the cakes), then measure the coffee grounds (check....)

You get the idea. You probably don't want to do this every day, but you can do it once a week. There is NO SHAME in using a mix like Bisquick or Jiffy -- or better, Krusteaz, which requires only water instead of eggs+milk! In fact, I think I'll tell you here that if you're going to do this, go out and get yourself a box. That way you have just one bowl and one "real" ingredient. Whoever has to do the dishes (maybe you) will be happy about that. It's also better not to have to fish eggshell fragments out of the batter, or out of your pancakes.

You can do this once a week and you'll get proficient pretty quickly. If there are some blueberries or strawberries in the 'fridge, they can be added -- probably on top (you don't have to plan in advance; you can just open the fridge to look for butter, and -- hey, strawberries! -- slice a few up and it's a gourmet breakfast). My younger daughter liked to add chocolate chips to the batter when I was about half-way through (some of us don't like chocolate-chip pancakes). There's all kinds of fun stuff you can do. Your wife will think you're a genius, too.

Visiting the kids

"Your kids will start giving you trouble at that age, unless they're like Collin's perfect children."

I heard that remark some months back, and it made me wonder what I'd been saying about the kids to my colleagues. Whatever it was, I guess it reflects my view of them.

The lovely Carol and I have been visiting the kids, now that they are both away at college, and seeing them in their new environs makes me even more aware that they are, well -- they are not "girls" any more; they really are young women. They have their own campuses, their own friends, their own rooms. We don't hear them coming home after class or after meetings or.... They really are "away"; they've left the nest. You might imagine that this has created a lot of complicated feelings in both parents, and you'd be right.

This morning, I picked up Merton and opened to his chapter on "Sincerity", which I don't recall reading before. Here I found this:

Your idea of me is fabricated with materials you have borrowed from other people and from yourself. What you think of me depends on what you think of yourself. Perhaps you create your idea of me out of material that you would like to eliminate from your own idea of yourself. Perhaps your idea of me is a reflection of what other people think of you. Or perhaps what you think of me is simply what you think I think of you.

No Man Is an Island, p. 194

I suppose I "knew" -- in a manner of speaking -- that how I think of the kids is affected by my view of myself. But which of Merton's distortions is operating when I look at the kids? Or is there yet another one? There are ways in which I wish I were different -- more understanding, less inept socially; I wish I were a better friend, less of a procrastinator -- am I projecting the person I wish I were -- dumping that onto my poor kids? I hope not! I know they are better students than I ever was (as their grades attest) -- so I'm not making that part up. They have nice friends -- for the most part, nicer friends than I had in high school. And they do sometimes procrastinate, though not as badly as I did in college.

Well, as I've said before, "Every father thinks his kids are geniuses, and I'm no exception." I know that the lovely Carol has something to do with them, as do I, but Harris's The Nurture Assumption makes me hesitate to take too much credit.

So I don't have this all figured out, but I wanted to tell you about it anyway. It sure is complicated being a dad -- not just stuff that a dad "does," but the personal growth that comes with it. It's definitely not for wimps.

Take up and read (to the kids)

At this year's first "Good to Great Dads" meeting, the men at my table talked about getting time with the kids. Encouraged by my greatest fan (the lovely Carol), I offered something that worked well for me: bedtime reading.

I'm going to assume you know a bunch of reasons why dads should read to their kids; if not, click for some from BeAGoodDad.com and BookDads.com. Here's a great summary from the bookdads site:

The changing role of fathers in today’s society asks more of us than ever before. A particular challenge for many of us is finding ways to forge and maintain strong emotional connections to our children as they grow. Reading aloud to our children not only allows us to promote the habit of literacy and to provide positive role models for our children, it also gives fathers a means to foster deeper emotional relationships with them.

http://www.bookdads.com/reading-aloud-with-kids-a-dads-perspective/

And for Christian dads, I'd add that reading the Bible counteracts the stereotypical image of church as Mom's thing.

What, me read the Bible?

Yep. We had a few volumes from the Read-Aloud Bible Stories series; as of this writing, overstock.com has a few. These books really make it easy. And if you stumble a little, it doesn't matter. What matters is you're spending time with them and giving them something from God's perspective.

You might try a (church or public) library before spending the money on your own copies; this particular series may not be a match for your kids. You could visit your local Christian bookstore and get their advice; if they help you with advice, please support them.

At some point, your kids may want to have a real Bible, a whole Bible -- one that's got everything in it rather than just the stories that the editors chose. You could do a lot worse than going with the CEV; it's easier to read than the NIV. Take a look at the first part of Romans 8 for example: NIV and CEV. See what I mean? "There is no condemnation" vs "you won't be punished."

What if they ask questions?

Well, I certainly hope they do! It used to happen all the time -- I'd read a story from the read-aloud book, and one of the kids asked what happened next, or where this person came from, this sort of thing. I said well, that's not in this book; it's in another part of the Bible that's not in these Bible story books. That's when our older kid asked for a whole Bible.

Did I do that on purpose -- bait the hook, so to speak? Well, not the first time. Afterwards, though, I congratulated myself for stumbling on a trick to whet the appetite, and from then on I did it on purpose.

Now, what if they ask you something when you're reading from the whole Bible, and you don't know the answer? Tell 'em you'll investigate. And go investigate! Do you have a copy of NBCR (or another reliable commentary) on your shelf? If not, you can do some research online, email your buddy, ask your wife -- and by the way, if your wife went to seminary or studied more Bible stuff than you did, that's nothing to be ashamed of. "That sounds like something Mom might know" is NOT a cop-out if you ask her yourself, check out her answer to see if you agree, and get back to the kids on it.

The Bible and...

There are a lot of other great books out there; my wife tried to get me to read literature to the kids, and sometimes I did. I also read the Berenstain Bears and the Box Car Children. (Even when I read 'em "literature" I took a rather liberal interpretation of the word; Wilder's Little House books, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little and Trumpet of the Swan, L'Engle's Austin family series -- this sort of thing.) Even literary junk food (or "television books" as we sometimes called them) can be useful for encouraging your kids to think about what the books are teaching. The Berenstain Bears books, for example, often portray the father as some kind of ninny. This is entertaining to a point, but I hope you ask your kids what the authors think about parents, about Papa Bear in particular, etc.

How long to spend reading to them?

This is a terrific question, and a hard one to answer. On the upper end, don't neglect your wife. (The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Who said that?)

But how much is "enough"? Here are a few random comments. Half a minute is probably too short. Half an hour may be excessive. If you can read one story from Read-Aloud Bible Stories, and maybe 2 or 3 pages from The Trumpet of the Swan, I think that's terrific. That'll take longer than you think, by the way, because the kids will ask questions like "What does 'superficial' mean?" or "can swans really write?" (depending on their age and sophistication).

Here are a couple of ways to think about it: Imagine it's Sunday night. The kids are asleep. There's school and work tomorrow morning. How much time did you spend reading to them Monday night, Tuesday night... up through tonight? Do you think it was enough?

Now fast-forward. They're in high school, and they stay up later than you do. The time for reading is past. Looking back over the elementary and junior-high years... will you say "I wish I had read to them more"?

I've got other things to do.

I hear you, I really do. But there never will be enough hours in a day for everything. Guaranteed! The question is, what are you going to shortchange? I mentioned to the guys at Good to Great Dads that our yard isn't in great shape, I'm at the same pay grade I was 7-10 years ago, etc. Will I regret those choices? Some of 'em, maybe. But taking 15 minutes out of your evening with the kids -- the boss will never miss those minutes, but your kids will.

---

A few conversations I remember:

We might have been reading Genesis, and one of the kids asked me if, e.g., in the garden of Eden, they had a smaller vocabulary, and if that restricted the range of their thoughts. (She didn't ask in those exact words.) I recalled a controversy about that from my college years, and also remembered hearing about a book, Thinking in Pictures (by Temple Grandin). In the week that followed, I found it in the library, and we read excerpts from it. (Yes, this involved some preparation on my part, but it was a fascinating read.)

I was reading to one of the kids from Stephen Carter's integrity, when I came upon the claim that ethics are based on the golden rule. "H'm, is that right?" I mused. My daughter paraphrased Matthew 22:38-40, or maybe it was Matthew 7:12 ("...do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets"), and I was put in my place.

Another: we were reading from Acts maybe, and one of the kids asked, "It seems people don't believe in God and spirits so much these days. Is it because we have TVs and things like that?"

Christian kids and college: notes from a parents’ seminar

A few weeks ago, our church had a seminar for parents and high school seniors. They started it off with a panel, and then Kara Powell, from the Fuller Youth Institute, spoke to us for a while. There was a Q&A session (kids in one room, parents in another). Following are some notes -- none from the Q&A though.

What did your parents do that helped you feel supported when you were in college? A panel of college students replied:

• Being available on my schedule, i.e., being flexible
• Telling me "I'm praying for you"
• Taking me to Costco!
• Coming to see my athletic events (using up their vacation time like that)
• Care packages.
• Asking every few weeks, "How can I pray for you?"
• Sending cards and packages. And newsy e-mails.
• Supporting me in my decisions even if they don't fully agree.

What annoyed you?

• Once when I was home on vacation, my dad told me, "Go to bed." ???
• Telling me to do my homework at a certain time.
• E-mailing my academic advisor
  (about what, I don't remember --collin)

What about getting connected with a faith community?

• I didn't know anyone other than my (athletic) teammates and ignored faith for a while. Eventually another kid found me and told me about a good church in the area; we went together.
• got connected through an FCA-like group (FCA = fellowship of christian athletes)
• Don't just commit to the first church you see.

Kara Powell

Confession: "I can go a long time" (minutes, sometimes hours even) "without thinking about God." Life is full for Kara now, research and teaching and raising kids etc., and it gets full very quickly for students entering college.

According to research of T. Clydesdale(?), Christian kids sometimes put their faith into a "lockbox"; it's invisible from the outside. In some cases they drift away from their faith entirely.

One case: a leader in high school (worship leader? Bible study leader?) went to college and gave up on all that. He smokes pot with his buddies who are, he says, "far more supportive than" anyone at church was to him. (Is that reality, or was he only justifying himself? Did his youth group leader just use him, or did he really care about his relationship with Christ?)

They showed a 5-minute section of a longer (20-minute) video. I think you can see the clip at http://liveabove.com -- summary of the video: Christian kids go to college, some of them discard their faith (at least for a time) and get into alcohol and (other) drugs. Some get drunk every weekend; one girl was sexually assaulted while too drunk to resist. etc.

This video was shown at an InterVarsity meeting (this is a Christian group!) and some of the kids couldn't speak because they were so upset. The point: this sort of experience is far more common, even among Christian kids, than we would like to think.

Later, a mother asked if it's different at a Christian school vs others. They didn't answer the question, but I have my own sources :). Regarding alcohol and the party scene, I have a young friend at Vanguard University of Southern California, and she affirms that it's definitely easier to avoid it on a Christian campus than a "secular" one. But if you're determined to get drunk, you can still do it. My friend visited Cal Lutheran with her son, and alcohol is definitely available there. (She was not favorably impressed.)

Regarding sexual behavior, according to an article in Christianity Today (and a book by a Catholic college professor), there is a dichotomy between conservative/Evangelical colleges and others (including Catholic schools). At the Evangelical schools, abstinence and restraint are affirmed/celebrated, and at the others, promiscuity is the norm. So our kids probably would have a different experience going to Whitworth, Vanguard, Calvin or Hope than they would at Cal Lutheran, Holy Cross, Stanford or UC.

Kara next went into three factors for keeping faith in the college years:

Having a firm grip on the gospel

What is the good news, really? They observed (Fuller Youth Institute research) that youth group graduates who are teetotalers completely switch gears when they get to college and drink a lot. From this observation they think the kids don't really understand the good news. (How did they come to this conclusion? I didn't catch that.)

Summary of the gospel in four points:

1. God made us GOOD; but
2. we sinned, which led to GUILT.
3. God responded by forgiving us through his GRACE, and
4. we respond with GRATITUDE. It's not about "sin management."

How do we deal with doubts?

Questions inevitably come to the Christian student when s/he enters college. Why do you go to church? Why does God let nice people go to hell? (Imagine a Bible Belt kid going to Stanford or Harvard and meeting a lot of nice kids who are not Christians. They're nice; will they go to heaven? Why not?)

Four principal ways of dealing with doubt:

1. diffused. student becomes a chameleon, simply adapting to whatever's around them.
2. closed; they don't want to think about it.
3. moratorium; they don't want to jump to any conclusions, so they try to hold all possibilities in their heads at once
4. achieved identity; having considered all possibilities, aware that nothing in this life is 100% certain, yet deciding that following Jesus makes the most sense.

We all hope our kids come to #4 but that's not realistic for a new college student. Probably #3, a willingness to really examine conflicting claims to truth, is the healthiest for a college student. Some of us remain in #3 forever. Personally, I go between #4 and #3.

Preparation

The suggestion was that we work on preparing our kids for what's coming. Part of this is being aware of the top 3 difficulties for Christian kids:

1. Finding friends;
2. Aloneness;
3. Finding a church community.

So a poll of high school seniors showed 15% believe their youth group prepared them well for the transition to college. (In other words, 85% didn't think so.) The action plan then would be to think and talk about these things ahead of time:

• where/how to find friends;
• recovery: how will (my parents? myself?) respond when I goof up?
• finding a church or an on-campus Christian group;
• time and money;
• the first two weeks.

Kids were asked why they go to youth group. #1 is they love their youth group leader. Seeing their friends was #6!

Most important factors on kids' faith:

1. Relationship with their parents (and their parents' own faith);
2. Non-parent adults;
3. Peer relationships.

This isn't very precise. Was this positive influence, negative influence, or both? How was this measured? Was this kids who were still holding onto their faith after college? Those who had drifted away? When was the survey taken? etc.

That said, parents and non-parent adults apparently have a huge impact on kids' faith.

---

So: Do your kids have adults in their lives other than you? Are there any kids in your life other than your own?

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day. I wrote about my own dad in 2006, and a little last year about fathers in general. But I thought I'd try to summarize some of the things my dad did that make him a great father.

• He modeled his values to me. Does he preach these? No, he lives them:
  • Empathy: try to see thing from the other person's point of view. He didn't talk a lot about this, but when I remarked that something (a caterpillar?) was funny-looking, he remarked that I probably looked funny to that caterpillar, too.
  • "The people that made this thing weren't magicians. They made it; we can take it apart (and maybe fix it)." This isn't to say "I can do anything", but just a reminder not to give up too early.
  • Kindness: don't make someone feel bad without a really good reason. He was rather annoyed with a colleague who had ridiculed someone else. The deed was done; why make him feel worse?
  • Thrift is good, but never buy something you think might be stolen. It came out that a highly-paid individual at the office had bought a stolen TV set. He didn't have to tell me never to do that; his disdain for that guy stuck with me.
• I wrote about this 3½ years ago, but Dad taught me to do things by doing them with me -- how to wash the car, how to overhaul the cylinders and adjust drum brakes, this sort of thing.
• He always appreciates the food Mom prepares.
• "I'm proud of you!" There are a lot of guys who never hear that from their fathers. I'm glad to say Dad said that to me many times as I was growing up, and he hasn't stopped. Not to say I'm so great, but he makes me feel like I'm great.

Odd that I think of these things now that the kids are all but gone. I like to think I've practiced them as they grew up.

You may have noticed that I don't write as much about my mom as I do about my dad. This is not to say she's not a terrific mom too! I suppose, though, that I think about Dad's example more than Mom's because he's the one I more naturally emulate.

Dad, if you're reading this, I hope the rest of your Father's Day is a great one!

a beautiful day

Got up this morning rather early, a little after 5:30, and decided to take advantage of it by going for a swim. Left an email for the younger teen: "went for a swim; back about 6:45," but not before noting that my daily Bible reading from 1 Timothy 2 began with a command to pray for the government.

Drove to the "Y" in the dark, heard an interview with some senator or another where he questioned the wisdom of bailing out people who got into trouble largely because of their own actions (he was talking about investment bankers, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders). You can be sure I prayed for our lawmakers.

At the "Y", two other guys were already in the shower, waiting for the pool door to open. I was #3 into the pool. It felt good. Pretty soon I had to share my lane; I did about 600 yards and levered myself out of the pool -- last April I couldn't do that. After showering and getting dressed, I called the younger teen on the cell. Should I buy milk?

Yes! 1½ gallons please! OK, off to Safeway. I had picked up The Anti-Alzheimers Prescription the other day, and he said to drink purple grape juice, so I bought some concentrate. Three for $6 so I fell for it.

She took Sophie (our '96 Toyota) but I decided to do a little later schedule. I prepared some oatmeal and made a cup of coffee, took my medicines, then processed some work email and reviewed somebody's code. Thank goodness for DSL!

Got on my bicycle about 8:10 or so, and took a leisurely ride over to the Redwood City train. The train showed up; it was fairly crowded. I took a seat opposite a young woman in a bright blue dress, quite short (the dress I mean). I tried not to look. But it made me acutely aware that I've been sleeping alone -- three nights in a row now, since the lovely Carol left Sunday evening for a writing workshop.

...which reminds me of a story I heard the other night on As It Happens (NPR); apparently men are less intelligent when they sleep with a partner than they are when sleeping alone. Same men -- the study took childless heterosexual couples and had them sleep together 10 nights, then sleep apart 10 nights (or was it the other way round? Maybe the sequence was mixed?). In the mornings, they took tests designed to assess cognitive impairment, and apparently the men were smarter after sleeping alone, even though they claimed they didn't feel any dumber. (Apparently the women were only slightly dumber after sleeping with their men.) I don't know quite what to make of this; I sure don't feel smarter today than last week.

We got to Mountain View, where I got onto the VTA light rail. Blue went elsewhere, to my mixed disappointment and relief.

Work was unremarkable, except that I executed three code reviews and answered a bunch of questions. So maybe I was more effective. To heck with that, though; I'd rather sleep with my hand on the lovely Carol's body. She called a few times today with requests for computer help, and it sounded like she was having a good time.

Oh, I attended my last meeting of this review board at work. This is a one-year kind of deal, and last month I had sent Audrey (who runs it) this email:

I'm not unhappy, and it's not that I don't love you, and really it's not about you, but... how long is the term for this review board? 12 months?

So this month my successor came with me to the meeting for a quick transition. Afterward Audrey emailed me, copying my boss, thanking me for being helpful and industrious and all kinds of other good stuff my boss can put in my next review (to be written next summer).

I appreciated the acknowledgment, I told Audrey, but "I notice you didn't forward the 'It's not that I don't love you' or the 'Don't leave me!!' emails." Yeah, trying to be like professional or something.

After work, I called the younger teen as I walked to the train. What should we do about dinner? Pick up at the Hawaiian Drive Inn! Not J&J, she said. She would start some rice for us.

The VTA vehicle came in a few minutes, and I typed away at another posting (which I might get up tonight, I'm not sure). Pretty soon we were at Mountain View, and a petite young lady asked me if this was the last stop. I noticed her NetApp badge. Where was she going?

Caltrain. It was her first time. Which way was she headed? South, so I walked 10-15 yards with her and pointed across to the San Jose platform.

It was warm! Now that it's officially fall (as of Monday), the temperature has risen. Train came pretty soon, and two stops later, I was off. I made it across the tracks to my bike before the gates activated, and I got across Broadway with the train's help. In a few minutes I was pulling my bike through the door at the Hawaiian place.

Most of the items on the menu came with rice, but here was a "braised noodle plate" -- the winner! Everything is made to order (unlike the steam tables at J&J) and I filled in a few more squares on this morning's New York Times crossword, which was focused on "jack" -- a male donkey, a lifting tool, a playing card.

There is something about doing a crossword puzzle rather than a sudoku -- the latter can be solved by a computer program (here, here, and here) but how would a program figure that "place for a fall" should be "EDEN"? Dinner was ready pretty soon, and I rode home fairly slowly, holding dinner in one hand.

Came through the door and popped open a cold one. Boy did it taste good! Rice on plate, some barbecue stuff. Mmmm. I sliced up a cucumber, took a few lettuce leaves, and drizzled a little salad dressing over all.

The younger teen pulled an ice cream carton out of the freezer. It had thawed and re-frozen in a freezer accident (don't ask). She thought it was yuck, but I sliced up a banana (are you detecting a theme here?), dumped it over some ice cream, and drizzled some Kahlua® over all. Definitely detecting a theme here. Mmmm... Hey, I rode 4 miles and swam 600 yards today.

Could we go to the library and pick up some books? Sure we could. Sophie was nearly outta gas, so we stopped and filled her up first. The elder teen called as we were pulling out.

"The answer is yes," I heard. Ah, they're talking about a birthday present (for me!). We talked briefly about what spirit/soul/body means (1 Thessalonians 5.23-24 for example) but didn't come to any conclusions.

We then headed over to the library with a full tank. I pulled a couple of quarters out of the car to feed the meter... but our money was no good -- free parking tonight!

I went to the card-less catalog and found that Diamond's Collapse might be here -- right here in Redwood City! Collapse with a capital "C" and that rhymes with "D" and that stands for ... well, nevermind.

A relatively excellent dad to your (little) girl

Our society's expectations for fathers aren't very high. This makes it easy to look pretty good! If you want to be a Super-Dad, you can buy books full of wisdom and sage advice, like the Clarks' Daughters and Dads, but here I'll just share a few quotes from real daughters, and make a few observations.

My dad is a hero because he pays attention to me.

—words on a paper-cup "trophy" in a father's study

I was home from my first semester of college, and I had so much I wanted to tell my parents—about the people I'd encountered, the things I'd learned, the experiences I'd had. But my dad hid behind his newspaper--he even lifted it higher. He didn't seem to want to know me. I felt invisible and so hurt.

—remembering a long-ago morning

Your little girl will be gone soon. So will mine. We've got them for such a short time; I hope our little girls will be like the first one above.

Dad, from now on (sniff), when I'm crying (sniff, sniff), would you please not say anything that's logical.

—a grade-school girl, in response to Dad's simple 4-step plan to solve her problem

I am stressing over my test tomorrow.... I pace around the house and practically wail. And my dad knows. I go to him and sit on his lap and hold his hands and feel the calluses on them. I feel the stubble on his chin like I used to do.... I place his big hands on mine and that choking sensation in the back of my throat settles down.

—a high school student

Every little girl has problems now and then, and we want to solve them for her. But sometimes advice (logical or otherwise) is the last thing she wants; sometimes she just needs to know that we believe in her.

I wish [my dad] would have been protective like that.

My Dad isn't really someone that give much insight into how to apply situations to my faith etc.

— a college student

She still wants protection from us, and our wisdom and guidance for her spiritual journey. Offering those to her without giving advice is tricky, but as you know, being a dad isn't for wimps!

Every morning when I rise sleepy-eyed, dull brain, messy hair and over sized t-shirt, my father finds me and smiles as I am the most beautiful thing in the world, gives me a hug. "Good morning", he says.

— a high-school student

I hope every little girl can feel that Dad is a fan.