Nerves of Steel

I’m nervous.

I don’t feel this way very often and, even when I do, I rarely let on. I pride myself on being flexible, adapting to situations as they come, taking in new information and adjusting accordingly. People tell me that they admire my calm, that they don’t understand how I can appear to be so relaxed in the face of difficult meetings, challenging personalities or mountains of paperwork. Somehow I manage to remain stoic, composed, cool under pressure through it all. I channel Yoda and Mr. Spock; I don’t let emotion get in my way.¹

But this morning, I’m nervous.

I’m sitting on the subway, making my way to a school visit for work. My legs have been trembling for enough time now that I’m slightly worried about what will happen when I try to stand up. My pulse has quickened and I recognize the awkward discomfort in my stomach. I’m still the image of a duck, unflappable to observers, while their feet paddle furiously beneath the surface. I doubt anyone around me can tell anything is wrong just by looking at me, even though I feel like my body is tying itself into knots.

It’s not because of work, by the way. The visit I’m making this morning should be a cakewalk and, in general, work rarely gets me bent out of shape. I’ve been a social worker long enough and had enough people yell at me, threaten me and, in one case, use anti-Semitic slurs toward me, that I’ve come to accept the stressful parts of the job as simply that – part of the job. I enjoy my work because of the interactions with people, even when those interactions are uncomfortable.

My foot starts tapping on the subway floor, making my bag shake as it rests on top of my leg. I close my eyes and take a few breaths, inhaling deeply and counting the seconds as I let the air out, forcing my escalating anxiety back under control. It occurs to me that my current struggle to maintain my composure is fitting, given the piece I’ll be reading publicly in a few days, though that realization doesn’t help me feel much better.

My foot stops tapping as I hear the subway doors open. I open my eyes again to check the station but it’s not time to get off yet.

This is what happens to me anytime I speak in public. Miniature lessons in graduate school, reading Torah in synagogue during Shabbat services, the presentation I made to my entire department at work; the context doesn’t matter. It always starts out the same: my heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest, my stomach does backflips and my legs turn to jelly right before I’m supposed to start. Then I breathe, start speaking and I’m on my way.

This is a new experience, though. I’m going to be reading my writing at a blogging conference for dads later this week and, days beforehand, I’m terrified. This conference has a lot riding on it, after all. The connections I make there can open up new writing opportunities for me and different ways for me to support my family. If I trip over a word or two as I’m reading, are these representatives going to think less of me? Are they going to lose sight of the story I’m telling because they’re distracted by my verbal fumbling? Am I going to lose my place and, in the process, the interest of a brand that would have otherwise pursued me?

Then there is the fact that I’m going to be away from home for three days. How are my kids going to behave while I’m gone? Is my wife going to be pulling her hair out and cursing at me while I’m schmoozing with other dads? What if someone gets hurt while I’m busy taking selfies with Chewbacca or test-driving a Kia or talking about football with Von Miller?² I still remember the guilt I felt when Eitan fell into a wooden piece of playground equipment, bashing his chin and needing to be rushed to the doctor for x-rays. I was only on the train then; how will I feel if something happens and I’m thousands of miles away?

I take another breath. I inhale, hold it for a second, and slowly let it out. Then I do it again. And again.

And again.

I tell myself that I’m overreacting. I remind myself that my wife is amazing and that “capable” barely scratches the surface of her strengths as a parent. Plus, I’m only going to be gone for three days, two of which Eitan will be in school for. I remember that I’ve interacted online with many of the other dads countless times and that reading my post will only be five minutes of a much broader experience. I think of the congratulations and other well-wishes I received when the announcement was made about my participation at the conference.

I feel the knot in my stomach begin to loosen and my legs start to regain their stability. I stand, slinging my bag back over my shoulder and move toward the door if the subway. I know that I will probably feel nervous again just before my turn to speak but I feel much calmer now. I hold the bar nearby as the train comes to a stop and the doors open. I take another quick breath and step off the train.

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^{1. My kids are the only real exception to this rule. I don’t become a blubbering mess in crises but there is some sort of glitch that causes my brain to suddenly have difficulty processing new information. It’s the only time I imagine I really look shaken.↩}

^{2. These are all things I’m going to be able to do at Dad 2.0 because Lego, Kia and Best Buy are sponsors.↩}

Not Quite Broadway

I took a personal day this week to be a parent chaperone on my son’s class field trip.

The trip was to a local theater to see a live performance of the children’s book, Click Clack Moo. I wouldn’t say it’s the most popular book ever, but Eitan has it and enjoys it very much. The basic premise is that Farmer Brown’s cows and chickens get very cold in the barn at night so they go on strike. They refuse to give Farmer Brown any milk or eggs unless he supplies them with electric blankets. The cows learn to use the old typewriter that Farmer Brown left in the barn to send him their demands; hence, the title for the book.

It’s a cute story; just trust me on this.

The show itself was cute, as well. The theater troupe turned the story into a musical and updated it a bit for the younger target audience. The most notable difference was the addition of Farmer Brown’s granddaughter, Jenny, who is visiting him. She has brought her laptop so she can check her email and keep in touch with her friends. Farmer Brown takes away the laptop (and the printer that Jenny also brought for some reason) because he feels like Jenny is never willing to help out on the farm and sticks it in the barn. I’m skipping parts, obviously, but the lesson of is about finding ways to compromise and work together toward a common goal, rather than sticking to one’s opinion at all costs.

My point, though, is less about the show or it’s message and more about taking the day to be with my son and his class. The time I have to spend with Eitan has continues to dwindle; my caseload at work was increased in the fall, I’m still teaching religious school twice per week and I’ve taken on some more private practice clients, as well. We’re all too familiar with this refrain by now; keeping busy means I’m making money to support my family but it’s a struggle to find time to actually be with my family. In fact, now that Shayna has begun expressing herself more clearly, I’m waiting for her to have her own “Daddy lives work!” moment. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

I try to take advantage of as many opportunities as I can to stay involved. I take days off to volunteer for field trips or go to work late so I can be at the school for early morning class programs. Also, if making these arrangements means that I have to finish assignments at home in the evenings once in a while to make sure I get my paperwork done, so be it. I want Eitan to know that I’m working a lot but that he and Shayna are my top priority, no matter what else is going on.

There is an additional benefit to going on a field trip with a kindergarten class, though: it’s fun. Let’s be clear: Click Clack Moo was hardly sophisticated theater. The show was enjoyable for what it was but we’re not likely to see cows chanting with picket signs at the Minskoff Theater anytime soon. There is something to be said, however, for spending an hour watching people in ridiculous costumes, hearing relatively clever songs and, most importantly, listening to children laugh through the whole show. There’s a reason J.M. Barrie put orphans in the theater¹ at the premiere of Peter Pan; children’s laughter reminds adults how to relax and just enjoy themselves.

It wasn’t only the performance, either. Between the bus rides and the waiting periods before and afterward, Eitan’s classmates and I had conversations and played games together. We played I Spy, told jokes and made faces at each other. The kids asked about my age and then told me how old their parents were. They told me about their families, their interests and each other. I don’t mean to paint myself as the Pied Piper of kindergarten children; certainly, some of my experiences as a camp counselor and as a father are clear indicators that there are limits to my powers of influence over kids. But these children, in particular, engaged with me because they knew I was their friend’s father and because I was an adult willing to listen to what they had to say.

This is not a commentary on other parents, either the other chaperones on the trip or the parents who were not present. Certainly, I understand that everyone faces a different set of circumstances regarding their availability to participate in these types of events. I’m fully aware that most jobs do not offer the kind of scheduling flexibility that mine does and that supervision for a family’s other children is not always as straightforward. Far be it from me to make any judgments about the ways in which parents demonstrate their involvement in their children’s lives. I just know that I had the opportunity to spend extra time with my son and his friends and I wanted to take advantage.

Eitan’s smile when he saw me waiting in the school lobby was all the justification I needed to know I had made the right choice.

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^{1. My apologies that the video clip doesn’t show the opening of the play, when the kids actually start laughing. The adults in the audience watch a man come onto the stage dressed as a dog and have no idea how to react. It’s the children’s laughter that helps them relax and accept the entertainment. Again, just trust me on this.↩}

Joy Breaking Through Grief

These seats are not nearly as comfortable as they look, I thought.

I fidgeted in my seat on the train, trying to find a better position. The dull ache in my left thigh that had bothering me for the last week or two returned, though I did my best to ignore it. I positioned my work bag on my lap, placed my coffee cup under the armrest next to me and took out my train ticket. I managed to slide out of my coat, doing my best not to disturb the heavyset man who had sat down next to me.

I had just settled in when I heard the conductor’s voice come over the train’s public address system.

“Attention, passengers: there are no trains coming into or going out of Penn Station at the moment due to signal problems. I repeat, there are no trains coming into or going out of Penn Station due to signal problems. As soon as we have more information, we will notify you.”

Of course.

The train car became filled with the sounds of people shuffling in their seats as they took out their phones to send messages about the travel delay. The voice of a young man behind me broke through the silence, informing the person on the other end of his call – and all of the passengers in our car – that he was sitting on the train and not moving.

So much for the quiet car, I thought.

The man next to me unfolded his copy of the New York Times and began to read, pausing every few moments to let out a cough. He pointed his mouth away from me but I found myself wincing anyway. To say that the last week had been taxing emotionally would be an understatement and I was going to need more energy for the coming weekend too. Getting sick was not an option.

I spied one of the train conductors walking along the platform toward the front of the train. She was speaking to someone through her walkie-talkie but I couldn’t make out any of the dialogue. She boarded the train again and I heard the sounds of the train’s brakes being released. The train lurched forward and we began moving through the tunnel.

I leaned my head back against the high seat-back and looked out the window. We cleared the tunnel and I gazed at the thick fog encroaching over the marshes near the train tracks. I could see the patches of ice that had managed to remain solid in the pond, despite the quick thaw of the past few days. The water rippled slightly as a breeze floated by.

I began picturing my wife’s uncle as my thoughts began to drift. I could hear him calling to his wife with his thick Brooklyn accent and trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to carry the tunes at the Passover seder. I imagined his hands, thick and strong, even as he aged, and the profile of his face, which had always reminded me of Yogi Berra. I thought of his smile, always warm and welcoming, and the way he always pulled me in for a hug instead of just shaking my hand.

The seats at the funeral weren’t so comfortable either, I thought, shifting my weight again.

My phone buzzed with the arrival of a text message from my brother, jolting me back to reality and reminding me why I was on the train in the first place. His wife had given birth to their first child last week, a mere two days after we had received word that my wife’s uncle passed away. My thoughts were replaced by the image of my brother’s newborn baby boy cradled in my arms when we went to visit him for the first time. He was bigger than my kids had been when they were first born but he still felt tiny, barely more than folds of skin and a mop of hair.

The edges of my lips curled slightly to form a sad smile as “Circle of Life” began playing in my head.

I began thinking about the highs and lows of the previous weekend again. I pondered my wife’s expressions of frustration as she mourned, the joy in my brother’s smile as he spoke about his new son and the Biblical phrase, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” I felt the familiar weight of intense emotions build between my shoulders and tried to remind myself that the coming weekend was supposed to be joyful. I knew, of course, that the circumcision of a Jewish baby boy is supposed to be cause for celebration. I just couldn’t quite shake the pangs of sorrow that were still lingering from the previous weekend.

The man next to me coughed again, startling me out of my reverie. The conductor’s voice came over the PA system again, announcing my stop. I shook my head quickly to recenter myself, gathered my belongings and excused myself out of the row. I made my way down from the train platform to my wife and children waiting for me in the car. The nerves in my thigh protested again as I sat down in the front seat but I felt the rest of my body relax. I didn’t know exactly what the weekend had in store for me but I did know that being around my wife and kids always seems to make things easier.

Here we go, I thought.

Welcome to the Party

A friend of mine sent me an article a few days ago.

The piece ran in Time Magazine, famously known for its annual award for Person of the Year and for Billy Joel not understanding the magazine’s contents (among some other journalistic credits, of course). It was entitled “How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men” and it focused, predictably, on the parenting techniques that are often used toward young boys. The author, Ms. Faith Salie, a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and author in her own right, cites numerous differences in the messages we send our male and female children, from the clothes they wear to expectations of behavior to their potential accomplishments in life. The idea is that parents send different messages to their children based on gender. Over the last twenty years or so, girls have begun hearing much more frequently that they can feel, accomplish and be whatever they want. Boys, however, are still expected to conform to “masculine” interests and professions.

“Boys will be boys, but girls can be anything,” she writes.

Ms. Salie’s argument focuses on the feeling of anger, in particular, and the ways in which men and women use anger to inform their actions. Her examples were predictable: angry men act out by hurting other people, while angry women act out by banding together to fight for equality and social justice. Her message, as a result, was not only that a child should be given the same opportunities and encouragement to pursue his or her interests, regardless of the child’s gender, but also that parents need to focus more on encouraging their sons to learn how to be more comfortable experiencing feelings in the first place. If young boys are taught how to live with negative feelings, perhaps they will not feel compelled to act out their feelings in such destructive ways.

My friend said that she thought of me when she read the article and I don’t blame her. I’ve written numerous times – like here and here, for instance – about processing the messages that I want my son to internalize about societal gender norms and what it means to be a man in today’s world. For that matter, I wrote my own version of this very Time article in a letter to my son just over a year ago. I imagine this Time article received a fair amount of internet applause and other positive attention, particularly in parenting circles, because of its seemingly refreshing message about the benefits of teaching boys to respect the people around them. Ms. Salie cites pertinent examples of the tragedies angry men have caused and makes a strong argument about the differences in the messages that boys and girls receive about their roles in society. It is a good piece of writing and I would recommend it to any new parent.

But I felt bored.

I don’t mean to disparage Ms. Salie or her writing. As I said, I think the article is an important message and there is no question that Ms. Salie has clearly found a larger audience for her message than I have. As I was reading, though, I knew that I had read similar think-pieces about parenting approaches for boys any number of times before. Time is supposed to be a news magazine but Ms. Salie’s argument felt like the latest entry in the “Here Is Some News That Is Not Really News” category. The attacks against conventional gender norms have been around for years and examples of men pursuing more developed senses of emotional intelligence have never been easier to find.

Welcome to the party, Time Magazine. It’s nice of you to finally join us.

All that being said, however, I should cut Ms. Salie and Time some slack. I pride myself on being self-aware and on examining the origins of my own biases and, in this case, they are fairly easy to identify. It makes sense that I would feel like this topic is not exactly newsworthy; I’m a social worker who specializes in working with children and I’ve seen my fair share of examples of the ways anger can lead to destructive behaviors, particularly in adolescent and young adult boys.

More importantly, I know that there are many places in the United States in which challenges to social conventions are not as easily accepted, not to mention the rest of the world. People hold life experiences and perceptions of the world dearly, particularly when the legitimacy of those perceptions is called into question. The messages that Ms. Salie describes being communicated to her son, as well as similar lessons which Trudy and I have seen being taught to Eitan, speak to the very reason why this article needed to be written, even if the message was not necessarily “new.” This type of article will need to continue to be written until our society finally accepts responsibility for changing the concepts we have been instilling in our children. We’ve seen progress; we just need to see a bit more.