Boys and their real MVP mamas are the most poignant thing. I have this weird compulsion, likely related to discomfort with vulnerability, that’s especially hard to contain at milestone birthday parties. Waiting for an opportune moment of sweetness or reflection, I abruptly tell the mother her baby will be in kindergarten before she knows it and then leave for college.
I always expect a dismissive laugh, but every time they make a mock crying face and lament, “I know!” Clearly it’s on their mind and, it might surprise you, mine too. Yes I am a prolific complainer about what kids do to your life and personality, and I can’t stand having to engage with any of them not related to me.
But due to neurosis and FOMO, I am also a walking model of loss aversion in most walks of life. According to this behavioral economics concept, the pain of a loss is worse than the satisfaction of a gain of the same magnitude, e.g. you’re more sad to lose $100 than happy to win $100.
In so many ways I can’t wait for the child-rearing season to end, and I would rather die than try for a third. Yet I also don’t necessarily want to let go so easily. We received a boilerplate email for my older boy’s kindergarten orientation this month, and my eyes were misty talking logistics with my wife. I get teary watching stupid (awesome) Pixar movies and believe the first five minutes of “Up” should be rated R.
Basically I am a fraud cracking jokes about sentimental moms, like the homophobe who of course can only be a closet homosexual. Under the cover of no other adults in the household being able to understand Chinese, I unabashedly say the corniest, cringiest things to my sons. A common one is “You know when you grow up and go to college, we can still be best friends and hang out.” Or “Because I love you, I can hold you whenever I want.” It’s effing pathetic; I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I don’t even like hanging out with them after the initial surge of dopamine. All they want to do is beat me with light sabers and then make me read books about light sabers. They are beautiful creatures though.
As I learned from Homer via Brad Pitt in “Troy”, they are beautiful because they are fleeting. The most painfully wonderful lesson children teach their parents is the impermanence of it all. Everyone knows the antidote is to stay in the moment and be grateful for it, but I feel like you have to be a Jedi master to do it all the time.
Lately the phrase I keep repeating to myself is to dial into the moments. Not dial into the moment, which is too open-ended and unrealistically implies being present all the time. But dial into the moment-s, plural, amassing as many as I can, volume over perfection.
I still have the 5-year-old sit in my lap while I put on his shoes. The excuse before was to make sure the gray part of the sock is squarely over his toes for comfort, but he’s got that down now. We look like Dumb and Dumber with his body being too big for my lap and legs too long to extend as much as he does, but somehow my disproportionately long arms make it work. Lady Lysa from “Game of Thrones” called and said my parenting is on point and on schedule.
No doubt I am setting up my sons for severe codependency issues later in life, but I don’t consider the challenges they face in adulthood to be my problem. I want to focus on the now and how to squeeze these last moments before the last remnants of those baby faces disappear.
I can imagine these feelings are magnified for a mom, the real-time nostalgia of deeply missing things even before they’re completely gone. I get it. I think laughing at them is my way of crying with them.
Your boys are so handsome! You’re nailing fatherhood, G Tang.