Category: Parenting

Someday, I’ll Be A Tree

“Because I will someday become a tree.” I began. “When I die, you will plant me in the earth, and I will sprout up into a great tree. My roots will dig deep into the soil, drawing up nutrients and water, spreading out to connect with other trees and life. My trunk will grow big and strong. My limbs and hair will spread and stretch out into branches and leaves to collect the sunlight above, and I will sway in the breeze.” 

I laid down with my son tonight as he was preparing to drift off to sleep. I was on my side, and he rolled over to look at me…

“Daddy, you look like wood,” he said. I opened my eyes to his gleaming smile. 

“Really?” I replied, surprised, but thinking about how we had talked about our brown skin, and why it is different than other people. 

“Yeah, why do you look like wood?” he asked.

“Because I will someday become a tree.” I began. “When I die, you will plant me in the earth, and I will sprout up into a great tree. My roots will dig deep into the soil, drawing up nutrients and water, spreading out to connect with other trees and life. My trunk will grow big and strong. My limbs and hair will spread and stretch out into branches and leaves to collect the sunlight above, and I will sway in the breeze.” 

“You won’t turn into a tree, Daddy.” He laughed, with a big smile on his face at the idea. “If people turned into trees, the trees would have eyes and faces!”

“Maybe I will! Maybe I won’t.” I said to him, as he turned back over in bed. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” 

“Daddy, do trees talk?” His small, tired voice asked.

“They do, in a few ways.” I said. “Trees talk through the wind, like the air in our lungs across our vocal cords. Their leaves shake and their limbs creak, and they sing a song in the wind. They talk in another, special way too. They talk through their roots, through the soil in the ground, with each other, and with other plants. If one tree is in need, they send food and water to them. When another tree dies, that tree gives its nutrients to the others so they live on. Trees talk with each other all the time! When I am a tree, you can always come to me to talk. You can sit under my shade and listen to my leaves. You can touch the soil under your fingers and know I am part of it, and the whole Earth loves you.”

By that time, however, my son was asleep, possibly dreaming of his dad made of wood. 

Tell Me, Don’t Show Me?

Today I learned something new about myself from watching my son.

We were at the playground, and he wanted to swing. This playground had the flexible seat swings instead of the firm plastic ones. No biggie, I thought. I figured he would get on it himself just fine.

I watch my son. Sometimes he would grab on the chains but not move back into the seat. Sometimes he would move back into the seat but not grab the chains. I tried telling him how to do it, but he’s not there with it.

So I decide to show my son how to get on the swing. I move to the swing next to him, grab the chains, and line up my butt to move back into the seat. I ask him to watch how I do it.

“No” he replied, refusing to even look my way.

“Just take a moment and watch” I plead, getting frustrated by his refusal to do something so simple as to be shown.

“No, Daddy, I don’t want to.” he said firmly.

Why would he refuse to even watch? Why would he refuse help while he stands there and struggles with what he wants to do?

I thought about this as a strange behavior at first. It defied initial reason, so I started to consider it from his perspective.

That’s when I mentally tripped right on myself. I do this behavior. Even if he didn’t learn it from me, it’s definitely something I do as well:

I prefer to be told rather than shown how to do something.

This inverts expectations about teaching and learning for me.

Initially, I thought not wanting to be shown how to do things was about my own ego. Sometimes I feel so capable of understanding what someone is saying clearly, I think I shouldn’t need any other input for understanding. Sometimes if someone starts with showing me how to do something, my ego is hurt because they think me insufficiently capable of understanding them.

Another, more positive and likely perspective, is I am primarily an aural or verbal learner than a visual learner. It makes sense with how I absorb books and audiobooks, yet have a difficult time engaging with video content. I process my thoughts as words, which is great for writing and the spoken word, but less ideal for visual presentation.

Somewhere along the path, probably as I was taught how to instruct to adult learners and had to lean into visual presentations, demonstrations, and a new default of showing, not telling. These are assumptions often made about adult learners who have not been in formal education for some time. It’s also the wrong way to instruct me, and appears now to be the wrong way to instruct my son.

In either case, I am the mistaken one, and I am getting in my own way of effective learning, understanding, and even teaching to some audiences. Rather than get frustrated by people wanting to show me how to do something, I should be communicating my needs on how best to teach me, and be mindful of it when it’s time for me to instruct others.

I’m going to give my son a break and try to do as much as I can by telling him. That’s how he’s preferring to learn right now, and it will probably be better for us to use our most common forms of communication as we learn more about each other together.

Level 40 Alex, Level 1 Dad

I just got good at being me.

I’m almost 40 years old. I’ve been through college, a first career, first marriage and divorce, a second career, a second marriage, and a cross country relocation where I’ve planted my flag in the great state of California. I feel like I know myself pretty well.

I know my strengths, I know my weaknesses, and I have no problems expressing either. I have a fairly good idea of the things I don’t know which impact my daily life, and I aggressively acknowledge that there is much in this world I don’t know that I don’t know. If you can follow that, you’re probably on your way to self-actualization yourself.

One of the big things I know I don’t know is how to raise a kid.

Starting back at the beginning.

It’s been a while since I’ve started something new. I started my second career about 10 years ago. I met my wife about 7 years ago. I moved to CA two and a half years ago. In each case, I had started a career before, been married before, and relocated somewhere before. I had a background from which to work.

This is my first time raising a kid from birth. I’ve been a stepfather to teenagers. I’ve had very limited babysitting experience. I’ve never been in the day in, day out of keeping a newborn alive. For the first time in a long time, I’m back at Level 1.

Is there a buff for this?

I’m hoping that all the other experience gained from doing other things helps. I know I’m not going to be jumping right in and be awesome, but I hope that as I encounter the unknown found in dirty diapers and extreme sleep deprivation, I can pull from having to crawl through the other muck of life to get to the promised land of a potty trained child. I hope as we negotiate on what pre-school and schools to send him to, I can draw from the other decisions I’ve made to help guide us.

I’m not going to be a grade A dad right off the bat, but I want to be a great dad, and maybe that will help make the difference.