Posts Tagged ‘children’

Keep Your Children Fearless

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

When Kathleen was home recently she pulled out the home movies that I’d transferred to DVD. I don’t think I’d looked at them other than to check to make sure that the transfer was good. We sat down as she skipped through movies taken when she was very little. I was thin, my hair still black and she was completely fearless.

In one summer video when she couldn’t have been three, her mother filmed while she and I were in the back yard of the old house. She was insisting that we do it again. What “it” was didn’t become clear until I saw myself set down the coffee mug and lift her to the platform of the swing set. From my casualness and her urgent demands it was clear that we’d done this over and over. I saw myself pick up my mug and walk off, unconcerned, as she reached out, grabbed the monkey bars, and dangled there, three times her own length above the ground. Watching now, all of us were astounded as this little girl swung and kicked and the younger, casual me eventually put down his mug again and caught her, just at the moment she lost her grip. We viewers gasped, but our younger selves on screen just did it again.

We skipped forward several years, coming eventually to a now five year old in a green checked dress who stood beside her sister, not yet a year old and in a stroller. Kathleen sang a medley of songs starting with “Twinkle Twinkle” then “Skidamarink” and a big finish with “The Lumberjack Song” (a Monty Python classic, and for some reason, the song we sang at bedtime every night.) She doesn’t sing now, but the younger Kathleen had no qualms about singing as loud as she could.

There’s a part of her fearlessness that’s survived. She’s a professional musician and I’ve never seen a hint of stage fright in her. She can get up and play with anyone. I’m not sure I can take any credit for that, but it’s there. And there are other things I see. She’s independent, unafraid to take off on her own to visit friends in New York, make decisions that’s right for her, and plot her own path in life. Her younger sister is much the same. Cross either of them at your own risk.

As parents, adults, there’s so much we try and protect our children from. That’s well and good, but there are also adventures for them, monkey bars to hang from, cliffs to dive off of. As frightening as it sounds, sometimes you just have to pick up your coffee cup and watch them try something new and scary.

I smile every time Kathleen calls me. Her ringtone on my phone is “The Lumberjack Song.”

Some Thoughts On Travel

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

My wife and I took our youngest daughter on a trip to the UK recently, a graduation from high school celebration. I’ll have much more to write about it in the coming weeks, but here are some initial thoughts and observations:

  • Air travel sucks. Avoid if at all possible.
  • Travel light and wash out things in the sink. I wish I could convince my wife of this, but it works for me.
  • Security is reaching theater-of-the-absurd proportions.  It provides me no comfort, just makes me angry and out of sorts. This appears to be the general consensus of travelers.
  • People living a few thousand years ago were probably just screwing with us. Have you seen Stonehenge?
  • The ideal construction for city homes is four stories, with twenty-foot ceilings, with perhaps a shorter fifth floor as an attic/garret.  The Georgians and early Victorians were glorious builders and we’d do well to imitate them closely. Bath has jumped high up on my list of ideal places to live (South Kensington ain’t too shabby, neither).
  • Pubs trump virtually every American innovation for meeting and drinking or just relaxing. My wife now loves cider and it’s virtually impossible to find around here.
  • Infrastructure matters. Big time.
  • Showing up and meeting people in person is grand. I love the connectedness of the net, but meeting face-to-face matters.
  • Sometimes you just spend the money and enjoy the smiles of your children. They have long memories. My memories of my daughter’s beaming face are priceless.

 

 

Jennifer with David Tennant and Catherine Tate (Yes, The Doctor and Donna).

 

You may need to look closely at the pic. Yes, that’s the Doctor pointing at the camera (and if you look even closer you’ll see that it’s not a pen but a sonic screwdriver that he’s holding). Ms. Tate is busy signing an autograph.

 

Take A Moment To Brag About Someone Else

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

Are social media just for saying, “Look what I’m doing! See what exciting place I’m visiting! Don’t forget about me!”?

Much of this is so very uninteresting. I just don’t care. But a simple shift and things start to attract my interest. Stop talking about yourself and talk about other people.

I’m a parent, so one of the things I love to do is to brag about my children. It’s easy because they’re intelligent, beautiful, and extremely talented. But I also have talented and intelligent friends and colleagues. Talking about the really interesting things that they’re doing is much more interesting to others than when I talk about myself.

I do think that praising other people, bragging about them, is useful. Bragging is typically thought of in negative terms, but I think it has its uses, in moderation. Talking about others takes the focus off of yourself. As long as you’re not overbearing or “name dropping”, others may find what you’re talking about interesting and useful when you remove yourself from the conversation.

In this age of tweets and blogging, talking about others, promoting them, bragging about them fits right in. And it’s a refreshing break from people talking and bragging about themselves.

Take a moment today and brag about someone else. It’s fun and it’s contagious. And it’s gratifying when you learn that someone else is bragging about you

Here’s my bragging session today: check out this recording of a song my daughter Kathleen composed and performed: In The Mingo.