Legging out the Early Laps
Even though it’s currently 3 a.m. and my almost-3-year-old screwed me with his wake-up call expertly timed in my sleep cycle to minimize my chances of falling back asleep, my heart is getting fuller over time. You’re going to listen to this sappy garbage, and you’re going to like it. I’ve earned it after so many cheap one-liners and entire blog posts assailing the parenthood experience.
It’s easier to blurt out the negativities and sarcasm, and I will continue to do so because I must stay true to myself. Plus complaining and ranting don’t require as much effort as something more loving, and they’re more popular (see: President Trump). People who don’t have kids probably like to hear what they’re not missing, while parents want to relate with a bit of misery-loves-company.
Here’s a break from the easy way. I’m starting to see and feel the big picture with kids. Like the stock market, the day-to-day can seem meaninglessly up and down and sometimes just down-right painful. Zoom out of the fluctuations to a long time horizon, however, and it’s unmistakably moving up and to the right.
The little people relentlessly, exhaustingly, excruciatingly… have made this a wonderful life. They’ve gone from unwelcome alarm clock to ultimately the best reason to get out of bed.
I used to liken children to a drug addiction or toxic relationship. They dangle fleeting dopamine bursts with hugs or cute mannerisms, just enough to keep you from leaving while systematically destroying your life.
But really, they’re more like exercise. You don’t always feel like it, yet you never regret it. Those highs are fleeting because endorphins aren’t supposed to last forever. What’s meaningful is the work, love and commitment toward nurturing someone you’ve known their whole life. And over time, you realize the pain resulted in outsized gains.
What changed for me? Certainly they got older and I got older, which of course makes a difference. But it’s not just a matter of being out of diapers. Teleporting to this stage wouldn’t have had the same effect. The years to get here counted for something.
To stick with the money analogy, investing in kids yields increasingly larger returns over time. Einstein is said to have called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world, and it really does seem magical when looking back.
For example, I’ve invested many short spurts of furious energy into reading to my kids. My goal is to inspire a love for books before they discover TikTok. So I fire myself up for every performance in hopes of getting them fired up.
I go for Morgan Freeman enunciation with Jim Carrey animation, sometimes wearing my retainer and trying not to spit everywhere while also translating in real time to Chinese, even though I don’t speak Chinese well, and desperately laboring to get to the next sentence before being interrupted by another challenging urgent question from the audience like why a particular snake is green.
My 5-year-old has an intense way of rapid-fire interrogation, as if our collective well-being depended on an immediate answer. His favorite time to start one up is during superhero stories or when I’m trying to make a left turn on Hillcrest during rush hour. His tone gets more demanding with each successive question, or repeat question if more than two seconds elapse while I try to figure out how to answer.
The ritual shortens my breath, and I notice anxiety tightening my chest. Sometimes I feel at risk of an aneurysm while simultaneously trying to explain why Bowser pulled Luigi’s mustache and not get in a car wreck.
All of this seems like nonsense in the moment, but it adds up in the long run to greater than the sum. Because when I hear them tell their own stories — vocabulary stretching to keep up with racing imagination, putting together sentences they haven’t before, applying same concepts to different scenarios — I feel like time lurches to a brief standstill in my little corner of reality and it’s so beautiful and marvelous.
I don’t care to dig up all the times I ridiculed parents who over-celebrate unremarkable developments in their children such as speaking, but I acknowledge my flip-flop. I am so proud of my kids, and I will always be proud of them as long as they don’t dip too far below average.
My younger one can’t possibly grasp the concept of a calendar, but every time he announces in Mandarin the new “Jurassic Park” season comes out Oct. 17, I want to submit his early application to Northwestern.
My older one lobbed a couple of left-handed forehands over a miniature net, and I almost collapsed on the ground with outstretched arms like a Wimbledon victor. My boy is going to be the next Nadal, or top out as manager of the Liberty High tennis team, or somewhere in between.
Vaaaaaamooooss!
The best payoff over time, even better than watching their minds and bodies grow, is legs on the lap. I got this from Scott Galloway’s wide-ranging podcast “The Prof G Pod.” He’s a millionaire many times over who’s had an amazing life, yet frequently muses in a non-cheesy way how the best part is simply his kids. I think he estimated 70-80 percent of his fulfillment comes from them. It’s a weird thing to measure, but upon reflection the ratio seems right to me.
Galloway described his feeling of contentment whenever one of his teenaged boys slings his legs onto his lap while watching TV on the couch just because he can. It was like a 15-second digression in the episode that stuck in my mind forever.
My kids do the same thing. They even do it to their mother at the dinner table. It’s partially a power move showing they own you, but also rooted in a kind of sweetness because they want to connect and feel so secure and close. You get 80-ish years in this life and a short list of people whose legs can go in your lap and vice versa without so much as a thought.
I love it. I love my kids, I love the life they’ve given me, and I love being their dad.