Sometimes I’m Just a Big Kid

There are so many aspects to good parenting. The goal is ensure my kids become competent, successful adults. But I want the process to be fun and to include many great memories for them and for me. So there is a side benefit for me as a parent. I can partially re-enjoy things that make one’s formative years so enjoyable. Most of it is vicarious. But some of it involves simply being a big kid. With Philip or Chloe, I will watch youth-targeted television and movies, practice sports and sometimes even play games: both group and individual games. More recently, I’ve been playing two computer games. One is Silent Hunter and the other is Navy Field. Both mimic naval battles from World War II. I am particularly fond of submarine movies and my all time favorite movie is Das Boot. In both games, I have put myself in command of a German U-boat.

In Silent Hunter, I have no choice but to skipper a submarine. I end up sinking scores of Allied ships before I need to start over. My computer assumes the role of the not-very-well skippered Allied ships I manage to sink over the course of half an hour of play time. At this point, I know the game well enough that it is really just a shooting gallery with some excellent graphics. Rarely am I in danger of being sunk, even when facing four or more fresh Destroyers or Battleships.

In Navy Field, every ship is commanded by a real person somewhere in the world. The game includes small Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Aircraft Carriers, Battleships and Submarines. As players become more experienced, Navy Field permits them to skipper progressively more powerful and diverse ships, and to fire progressively more powerful weapons with progressively more accuracy. A typical Navy Field battle involves twenty to thirty-five ships on each team and lasts ten to fifteen minutes. Normally, only five to ten ships survive a battle. There is a special rush associated with sneaking up on an enemy ship, firing off a torpedo, hopefully sinking or at least severely damaging the enemy and then scurrying off before depth charges take me out, or lack of air forces me to the surface in close range to angry enemy canons. There is a special thrill in advancing to qualify for a better submarine, better torpedoes or a better deck gun and then using the new item for the first time in mock combat. There is likewise a feeling of trepidation as I dive trying to avoid enemy fire or surface to unknown threats after diving. And there is a brief regret when my submarine is sunk and a sense of brief victory when I survive an entire battle. If I am not careful, I can let a lot of time pass while playing submarine commander on the computer.

But perhaps the best part of playing these games is sharing the experience with Philip. Philip does not play computer games nearly as much as his peers. And he greatly prefers shooting at virtual zombies or soldiers over battling virtual maritime vessels. But he has his own Navy Field account and borrows mine from time to time. He’ll even play Silent Hunter from time to time but he is not motivated to get good enough to survive an entire campaign. Sometimes he will simply watch me play. He always seems to enjoy having me recount a new or unusual experience I have on the virtual battlefield.

In contrast, Philip tends not to like me asking him about school, his homework, what he did with his friends or anything about his private world. For those things, he comes to me or we don’t talk about them at all. He’d rather hear about my day at work than answer my questions about his day at school.

But there is more to the submarine games and other things I do outside my age. I like stepping into Philip’s world. I like doing things that I would be doing if I were a teenager today rather than three decades ago. I like listening to the music Philip and Chloe like, as much as I like listening to the music from my teen years. Both allow me to revisit the formative years. I like being a fan of the Hermes High School sports teams, and I like reading the news of how my former high school’s sports teams are doing today. And more recently, I like playing submarine commander. Sometimes I’m just a big kid and every parent deserves to be a big kid from time to time.

The Tension Between Friendship and Social Standing

Earlier this year sociologists Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee empirically demonstrated that teens leverage cruelty and aggression to achieve and maintain their social standing with the interesting exception that the very most popular teens are unusually kind toward their peers.

As Chloe and her peer group head into middle school next year, that hierarchy has begun to form and the jockeying for position within that hierarchy leveraging cruelty and aggression has already started. At the top of the developing social hierarchy among girls is Gayle who has already established her position without ever resorting to cruelty or aggression. But right below Gayle is Rachel, who is quick to use whatever means necessary to shut down anything that has the potential to challenge her social status. Chloe and Patty share a particular loathing for Rachel’s behavior but as far as they can tell, most of their peers seem to tolerate Rachel’s behavior in exchange for Rachel’s approval. And one step down from Rachel is Britney, Gayle’s best friend. Britney rivals Rachel in how much she uses aggression and cruelty for maintaining her status especially as Gayle’s best friend, but Britney does not demonstrate anywhere near as much creativity as Rachel.

Chloe also has particular difficulty with Britney. After Britney, Chloe is one of Gayle’s closer friends—but without all the drama. Chloe and Gayle love getting together on and off-campus as well as trading text messages. But whenever Britney has the opportunity, she tries to undermine Chloe’s friendship with Gayle. A common tactic Britney uses is the need to tell Gayle a secret. Chloe has noticed that whenever she is having a conversation with Gayle, Britney creates a reason to pull Gayle away. “Gayle, I have something really important to tell you. Chloe, I need to talk to Gayle alone about something private.” More than once, words like these have pulled Gayle away from Chloe and Chloe’s frustration with Britney has been increasing.

This past week, Chloe and Gayle have been spending even more time together and Britney’s efforts reached a new ethical low on Thursday. At recess, Chloe, Gayle, Britney and a bunch of other fifth-graders were playing a game that involved tagging. At one point Chloe tagged Britney and Britney yelled, “Gayle! Chloe just told me she only tagged me because she wanted to get me away from you!” Chloe froze in shock and then denied it. “Yes you did, Chloe. I wouldn’t lie to my best friend!” Chloe continued to protest but Britney remained adamant. Gayle didn’t seem to know how to respond and Chloe was worried Gayle was most inclined to believe Britney. When Chloe got home, she was absolutely distraught. She felt deeply wronged by Britney but didn’t know what to do. She felt Gayle would be most inclined to believe her best friend Britney, despite all the ostentatious deviousness. Chloe was also frustrated by how easily she could be caught off guard by Britney without knowing what to say. Amelia and I tried to help Chloe by listening and offering suggestions but our words only managed to frustrate Chloe further. We didn’t know what to expect on Friday.

But Friday brought a true surprise. I arrived at home a little early for the Memorial Day weekend and I saw Chloe sitting on our front porch with a brown-haired girl whose back was turned toward me. But as I emerged from my car, I soon discovered Chloe was sitting there with Gayle. The two had planned a sleepover at Gayle’s house and were expecting Gayle’s mother to return from shopping any moment to pick them up. The two walked up to me to greet me. “Hello Gayle,” I said while Chloe stood tall facing me with a confident smile. The two went back and forth explaining their plans to me. And I relished in Chloe’s private social victory. Not long after, Gayle’s mother arrived and drove off with the two girls.

In the house, Amelia gave me the background I could not ask Chloe in front of Gayle. After school the two girls had exchanged texts and discovered neither had plans until late the following morning. Chloe proposed getting together and Gayle had countered with the idea of a sleepover at her house that Chloe had quickly accepted. It was certainly an impressive turn-around from the previous day.

At this point in time it is difficult to imagine how the social hierarchy will play out, especially as middle school comes upon these girls in full force. But I have some predictions. Gayle will hold onto her status at the top of the hierarchy without ever needing to resort to cruelty or aggression. Rachel will continue to hold her position near the top by stepping on anyone who challenges her. Britney may or may not maintain her “best friend” status with Gayle, but I think there is a high possibility Britney’s cruelty and aggression will backfire upon her. Britney lacks even the basic level of craftiness that Rachel exhibits and eventually other, craftier aggressive social climbers will successfully claw their way past Britney. One such winner may be Patty, who is certainly kind to friends like Chloe but wouldn’t be afraid to do what it takes to keep someone like Britney in line. With friends like Gayle and Patty on her side, Chloe will find a place where she is comfortable. At least, that is my prediction for now on how the tension between friendship and social standing will play out.

How Kids Are Resilient

For the past few months our family has been volunteering at a local family shelter. Over the next two years, Philip will be journaling about his experiences and interactions there to meet one of the requirements for his honors program at Hermes High School. Today we spent about ninety minutes at the shelter decorating cookies with kids between the ages of four and nine. Like Philip, I volunteered at a family shelter when I was in high school. It gave me a view of life I would not otherwise have seen. Some thirty years later, I am viewing life at a family shelter with an older set of eyes.

What strikes me the most about the family shelter is how much fun the kids seem to have and how happy the kids seem to be. There is a large common playground and a large common kitchen and dining hall. A cork board displays a calendar of activities for the kids, including both weekly and one-time events. At the three events we have helped with so far, the kids seem not only happy but committed to one another’s happiness. One seven-year-old girl Tracy takes particular interest in the younger children. While I sat outside repairing bikes one day, a pair of boys wanted to sit close to me and watch. Tracy helped the boys overcome their hesitations and explained everything I was doing. She also made sure the boys didn’t touch anything that might hurt them. When we managed the Easter Egg Hunt, all the older children took it upon themselves to make sure each of the younger children filled their baskets. There was not the slightest evidence of bullying.

The adults at the family shelter are a different story. Whether they are there as a result of bad fortune, bad choices or some combination thereof, living at a family shelter rather than in a more common living situation is frustrating and embarrassing. I have never seen an adult overtly take out that frustration on a child. In fact, the parents at the shelter seem to be going the extra mile with their kids. But I can see the weight of their situation on each adult’s face. The men seem to take it the hardest.

Recently, my wife Amelia read Farewell to Manzanar, the memoir of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston who spent a window of her childhood living at one of the internment camps established for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. Despite the unfair treatment, economic challenges and restrictions on freedom, the years at the internment camp proved to be this woman’s happiest childhood memories. There was something special about the closeness and the effort to band together. It was a sense of community she wanted to find a way to recreate for her own children but never fully succeeded in her own mind.

Kids enjoy going to the playground, making quick and possibly short-lived friendships and simply playing, especially in large groups. They love being on sports teams together. Even the ones with less athletic prowess love being part of sports teams. Events with lots of kids like birthday parties, beach trips, camping trips and barbeques are thrilling for kids.

As adulthood approaches and takes hold, the desire for autonomy becomes progressively stronger. Philip now spends hours inside his bedroom with the door closed. While young adults are comfortable sharing apartments in cramped quarters, older adults do not merely want their own home, they want a house: ideally a house with lots of square-footage and lots of acreage.

As I look at Tracy and the other kids living at the family shelter, I expect they are forming great memories. But I also think they are burying various forms of stress to process later in life. No matter how much parents want to protect their kids from adult troubles, some always manages to penetrate. But at manageable levels, the buried stress does not need to emerge in the form of unhealthy behavior. And when offset by the joys and benefits of community, Tracy and her peers are probably much better off spending a few months at the family shelter than most would expect. I’m looking forward to future interactions at the family shelter and also to reading Philip’s thoughts as he journals these experiences.

The Friendship Matrix

I find one particular tension is the most complicated and difficult part of parenting. While I want the home and family to be a safe and nurturing place for Philip and Chloe, coddling them is not an option. I need to expose them to the kinds of challenges and adversities they will eventually face as adults, so that they are properly prepared for what will come. How much I protect them, how much I withdraw my protection and how much I orchestrate adversity is a delicate task.

The biggest thing I want to train them to manage well in life is relationships. With middle school coming quickly, Chloe is beginning to encounter what is probably the most difficult peer environment one ever encounters relative to one’s maturity. We’ve worked hard to ensure Chloe’s best relationships have been well maintained as well as cultivated. Patty and Holly have proven to be the best and most desirable friends among Chloe’s peers. Patty goes to school with Chloe, and Holly does not. What makes Patty and Holly stand out has been that both have proven to be extremely fun and extremely trustworthy.

The remainder of Chloe’s peers fall into what one might describe as a friendship matrix. Some are particularly fun. Some are particularly trustworthy. A few are neither. There is little correlation between the two, although some peers’ untrustworthiness is bad that it undermines how much fun they can be. We’ve worked with Chloe to help her understand the difference and to operate accordingly. Savannah, for example is extremely trustworthy. But Chloe does not have nearly as much fun with Savannah as she has with nearly all other friends. Rita’s daughter Jasmine is a lot of fun, but Chloe knows that Jasmine is not particularly trustworthy. Nonetheless, Chloe spends a lot of time with Jasmine and we are supportive of the friendship. Jasmine’s insensitivity hurts Chloe’s feelings sometimes but Jasmine’s insensitivity has also trained Chloe to set firmer boundaries with others. At this point, Chloe uses what she has learned about boundary-setting when dealing with Jasmine.

Jasmine is manipulative. A lot of kids are manipulative. She tends to remember promises made to her while forgetting promises she had made. When confronted, she tends to argue that she “really meant” or “really said” something else. While some of Jasmine’s words and actions cause Amelia and I to groan, we have not shut Jasmine out of Chloe’s life. Instead, we use the relationship to train Chloe how to manage people who are manipulative like Jasmine. When the two were deciding upon a movie, Jasmine at first claimed she didn’t want to see Insideous because it was “a bad movie” but later the same day when the two learned Patty was planning to see Insideous, Jasmine began to praise Insideous without admitting Patty’s presence was influencing her values.

Such behavior is frustrating for Chloe. She reviews Jasmine’s words and actions with me or with Amelia whenever they violate what Chloe considers the dividing line between right and wrong. But such small violations of one’s moral and ethical compass happen with regularity throughout life. Those who cannot handle the grayness of the world at large live in a state of constant frustration. Or worse, they fail to embrace a moral and ethical compass. Those who can accept and even navigate the grayness of the world at large while still living by a personal, high code are not only the strongest adults I know, they are also the most capable of finding meaning and happiness whenever a beacon of light cuts through that grayness.

With middle school now only months away for Chloe, I know the difficult behaviors she encounters and the associated hurt she experiences are going to increase in both frequency and severity. This last year before middle school is a time for her to develop the life skill of navigating through the grayness before that heavy grayness settles in for a three-year tenure. Regardless of how bad it gets at Hermes Middle School, Chloe will always have her home, her brother and her parents as a safe refuge. And backing that up, she’ll have her very fun and very trustworthy friends, Patty and Holly.

The Toxic Allure of Tiger-Mothering (Part 4) Verbal and Social Confidence

An unfortunately over-effective means of prosecuting one’s case to the public is to present it in an “either-or” manner. Amy Chua has championed her authoritarian parenting style, Tiger-Mothering, by claiming the sole alternative is a permissive parenting style she calls “Western Parenting” – which she indeed successfully argues against. Two weeks after Chua’s essay was published, Dr. Wednesday Martin of Psychology Today debunked Chua’s “either-or” argument with solid research that favored authoritative parenting over both authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting. What is the difference between authoritative and authoritarian parenting? It is a warm relationship. An authoritative parent holds his or her children to high standards, but would never do something cold or crass like tear up a hand-made birthday card no matter how poorly the birthday card was crafted.

While children reared in authoritarian households often display many impressive competencies as adults, the most obviously missing competencies are verbal and social confidence. Chua asks us to look at the “stereotypical” Chinese child or adult raised by a tiger mother. She expects us to be impressed with the stereotype. Instead, most of us cringe. The most obvious missing element is relationship skills. As I look at my adult peers in the professional world, I see no shortage of “smart” people. But what is woefully lacking is true leadership skills. Leadership is the most challenging of all relationship skills.

Chua forbids play-dates, summer camp and acting in school plays. She doesn’t necessarily explain why each is forbidden. School plays seem to be forbidden because there is no way to quantify success and Ms. Chua is only interested in success that can be quantified. She has no means to measure the value of the verbal confidence that is built participating in a school play. In the cases of play-dates and summer camp, her problem seems to be a less-than-authoritarian training atmosphere.

In our home, we put large amounts of effort into ensuring Chloe and Philip develop healthy relationships—not merely so they can have fun—but so they can develop those ever so important relationship skills. Amelia and I invest a large amount of time talking to Philip and Chloe about their peers and their peers’ parents and how individual and group interactions play out in both individual situations as well as overall. From time to time a peer has dysfunctional relationship skills. Occasionally, the dysfunction is biological. But normally the dysfunction can be traced to the parents who are too authoritarian, too permissive or simply dysfunctional themselves. This makes for important teaching moments as we review the stories Chloe and Philip bring home. Alternatively, we sometimes encounter a child with a biological handicap whose parents invest heavily and patiently to help the child manage his or her handicap, and the results are often very impressive. These situations become converse teaching moments in which Chloe and Philip can learn about the power of overcoming one’s own weaknesses.

Admittedly, Chua’s authoritarian approach to social development is in many ways superior to what permissive parents do. Permissive parents merely let everything happen. They do not steer their kids toward emotionally healthy peers and away from the emotionally unhealthy ones. Under Chua’s roof, her kids learn to interact with adults, whereas under a permissive parenting model, kids mainly socialize with other kids. Permissive parents wonder why their kids shun their parents and other adults in favor of their peers at progressively earlier ages. I am not merely speaking about a teenager’s natural need to establish his or her personal life independently from the family of origin. The age old complaint “what is wrong with kids these days?” can be directly attributed to permissiveness in the social realm.

Still, I see Chua and her Tiger-Mothering model as lazy. Chua merely shuts the door on meaningful peer interaction. An authoritative parent manages the interactions and provides very meaningful direction whereas an authoritarian Tiger-Mother, simply forbids interactions that have the potential to promote permissiveness.

With Chloe, for example, we’ve had to teach her to accept the fact that not all her peers or peers’ families will operate according to the values we are teaching her. It can be frustrating for Chloe at times, but I believe it is going a long way toward Chloe being able to operate as a successful adult. She needs to develop the skill of managing which peers she can trust and which peers she cannot trust. And she is discovering that the trustworthiness of a peer does not always correlate with how much fun the peer is. The children of authoritarian parents and permissive parents normally don’t learn this important lesson until much later in life.

With all that said, Chloe’s experience navigating the awkward world of tween girl relationships relative to others deserves its own post without the necessity to rebut Amy Chua’s arguments in the process. In the meantime, I trust four posts in responding to Ms. Chua’s alluring arguments have been sufficient to get any reader thinking intelligently without succumbing to any kind of either-or trap. With that, I am pleased to move onward to new topics.

Prom: A Guy Needs to Ask with Style

October 4, 2005 is a day that probably almost nobody remembers as special. But its impact on high school prom season is starting to hold out against the test of time. On that day MTV first aired the Our Last Prom episode of their popular series, Laguna Beach. During the first half of the episode, one after another the high school girls from Laguna Beach enjoyed the surprise of being asked to prom in unique and creative ways. In theory it should have been another fun episode for fans to watch. But instead it had a cascading effect. According to Unhooked author, Laura Sessions Stepp, high school girls suddenly had raised expectations about how they would be asked to prom. By the 2006 prom season some six months later, high school boys in upscale, middle class and even economically depressed communities were either going the extra mile or they were being rebuffed.

Interested but Certainly Not Ready

Chloe is now almost twelve years old and she is decidedly interested in boys. At any given time, Ryan, Wren, David or Brett is the object of Chloe’s interest. It makes me think back to when I was still a tween and my heart was set on a younger tween in my neighborhood named Shelli. Shelli was quite the little firecracker. She looked like a miniature version of then-starlet Suzanne Summers. She was extremely athletic and outgoing. She wore her shoulder-length blond hair down, in a pony tail or in pinky tails, always keeping it varied. At times, Chloe reminds me of Shelli.

It was the autumn of my seventh grade year. I was playing football for the first time and wasn’t particularly good at the game yet. A few of us like my friend Ken were good. Most of us like me were playing for the first time at the age of either twelve or thirteen. As a group we were particularly poor at maintaining hold of the ball. Nearly every time one of us got tackled, the player in question would lose control of the ball. For anyone not familiar with the game of football, that is called a fumble and it means the other team can get control of the ball and even run with it. Coach Carmichael was getting frustrated or at least he was acting that way.

“None of you knows how to hold a football! Here’s how you hold a football! You hold it like it’s a boob!”

I wasn’t sure I had heard Coach Carmichael’s last word correctly. Ken who had certainly heard the coach correctly but also knew most of us were unsure spoke up, “Say that just one more time, coach.”

“I said you need to hold a football like it’s a boob. Hold it like you would hold a girl’s tit.” He held the football with one point buried into the thin gap between his right arm and his chest and the other point in the index finger of his right hand so that his palm and most of his fingers were beneath the football and his thumb clasped down from the top. He explained what he was doing detail, always referring back to his original analogy.

All of us were mesmerized. The idea that there was a “correct” technique associated with handling a girl’s breast so that she would enjoy the experience and that one could likewise handle a girl’s breast in a way she wouldn’t like was news to me at least. From that day onward, nobody wanted to fumble the football when tackled because it meant that the boy who fumbled didn’t know how to handle a girl’s breast. As a result our team hardly ever fumbled. When somebody did fumble, a crowd of teammates would take it upon themselves to repeat Coach Carmichael’s imparted wisdom in every detail.

The fact that tween boys take a sudden and intense interest in girls’ breasts is no secret. The fact that tween boys and girls like Chloe take a sudden interest in one another is no secret either. The mystery is why. As a parent, I am baffled as to why God, nature or evolution arranged things so that in the process of growing up, very intense interest emerges long before one is even close to ready. Back at my school years and years ago, there was an entire middle school football team of boys including me each of whom was not only confident he could maintain hold of a football when tackled by a varsity player, he was also confident he was ready to satisfy a tween or even a teen girl with the correct fondling technique. Or at least we all acted that way around one another. But only a few weeks later the little firecracker, Shelli, put my confidence to the test.

We never went on a date. We didn’t get ice cream or go to a movie. After school, we rode bikes in the large parking lots of our condominium association. We played kickball, dodgeball and foursquare. On hot days we swam in the pool. There were three tween boys and three tween girls including me and the little firecracker living in our neighborhood. On the first Saturday in November, I found myself alone with Shelli. I don’t remember what we said but we agreed to kiss. It was a quick peck. She also wanted to check me out and agreed to let me check her out in exchange. A week later I found myself alone with her again. In the week since we had seen one another, she had a made a decision. “I want to go to second base together,” she said firmly. She had the exact location picked out in the woods far behind our buildings. I walked alongside her and repeated all of Coach Carmichael’s words to myself in my head. But when the little firecracker lifted up her shirt to get what she had asked for there was nothing that resembled the dimensions of a football. In all likelihood my chest had more mass. Shelli leaned against a fallen tree and wanted me to approach her from the front rather than behind as Coach Carmichael has instructed. I decided to approach from the side with my right hand.

The whole interaction was extremely awkward. I mumbled some words of affection and attraction. The little firecracker had gone silent. We had trouble making eye contact once we were finished. Nothing intimate ever happened between us after that day. Instead we had trouble speaking with one another. When the larger crowd of tweens would gather, I would try to hang close to her but she would act like she didn’t see me. At other times we reversed roles and I was the coy one while she hopelessly sought some kind of validation I was too afraid to give. A few months later Shelli moved to a different neighborhood. We would see one another from time to time in the years that followed but never gathered the courage to talk. It wasn’t until thirty years later when we connected on Facebook that we were able to discuss what happened, admit to our regrets but also admit that we were both long since over the matter and that our discussion was the final act of closure. The only thing I don’t regret was that Shelli was my first kiss.

Parents including me put a lot of energy into protecting their kids from the kind of interaction that happened between me and Shelli for the simple and explicit reason that tweens are not ready to be intimate. The majority of parents have rules. Some parents have particularly strict rules. For the strict parents, the solution is to keep the boys and girls away from one another for as long as possible. Technically, Amelia and I have rules too. But while most parents merely forbid, Amelia and I want to give Chloe appropriate and satisfying outlets for those feelings that somehow have come long before she is ready for a serious and intimate relationship. It is why we take her to dances and even reward her for mustering the courage to ask a handsome boy to dance.

If I could go back to either of those days with Shelli long ago, instead of doing what I did, I wish I could ask her if we could spend more time kissing and talking. I wish we could have agreed to talk on the telephone together and maybe even go for walks holding hands. Things certainly would have been different. But I did not have the social confidence to say or do those things. And perhaps that is the difference between my generation and Coach Carmichael’s generation. His generation championed the sexual revolution. In contrast, my generation is championing healthy relationship skills. We’ll see how we do.