Far from Perfect
I had a conversation today with my sister who has over the last years become very supportive of me. Sometimes, to my view, seeing me with too rose-colored glasses (though I’m growing in just enjoying this and internalizing her support versus assessing whether it is too much). As we spoke I shared a positive moment from a walk with my kids.
My children are 11 and 14. My son Kai is 14 and Sonia is 11. As we walked yesterday Kai and I were both picking up on how Sonia’s is exploring speaking with a rather sarcastic tone. She is witty and many of her comments are on point. Nonetheless, he and I were both noticing that we were reacting with a kind of weariness to her tone, her generally negative-feeling orientation. And we had mentioned it to her, particularly Kai. At one point, and I was reflecting with my sister that I was pleased with my behavior, I said something to her like this: “Sonia, Kai and I have both noticed your generally negative tone. You can keep doing it, or not. That is up to you. But you’ll have to live with the fact that your brother and I are not liking it.” I felt relieved thinking that she really could keep it up, but I was going to be able to feel differently about it after saying something about what was true inside of me, rather than focus on changing her. And, my experience was that she did access more positivity. (As I write this just now I am feeling that I may well come off as, and may well have been, a rather heavy handed father presence in this moment I’m reporting positive feelings about. Me being heavy handed has been known to happen! And will recur. Often accompanied by rather large self-satisfaction – though I certainly will aim to season these moments with growing self-awareness. And while I’m open to critiquing myself here, I’m also still owning that I felt good about what I chose to do. You can decide for yourself.)
My sister responded positively. Bless her heart. And somehow she conveyed such strong enthusiasm and support for me that she came perilously close to saying I was a “perfect” parent.
I had a need to process something from this very same walk that was so far from perfect that I was ashamed about it, so I took the opportunity to tell my sister, Claudia, that we both knew (and could celebrate!) that I am far from perfect. Instead I am human and whole. If you are reading these blogs you may well think of the reflection I had about Ash Wednesday and taking a deliberate time to openly embrace my wholeness and weakness and badness.
I told Claudia about something else that occurred later on the walk. (It is embarrassing to admit to and write about, but here goes.) Sonia and Kai were walking in front of me and Kai, referring to a running joke we were having about making bets of millions of dollars, informed Sonia that she now owed him 15 million dollars and said, “Now cough it up!” To express some of her unwillingness to accept this claim by Kai, Sonia fake coughed into his hand. (A word about the setting … we were out walking during the shelter at home times of Covid-19 and we were busy keeping 8-10 feet away from any other walkers and pulling our collars up over mouth and nose if forced to walk within 6 feet of others.) I had a reaction to her doing this fake cough. Thinking, “Oooh, that is not an appropriate gesture for this time.” A lot happens inside one in a few moments and in those few after-fake-cough moments I thought some of the following: 1) I should correct her. No, I don’t want to do that. 2) It isn’t good parenting to “let” her behave that way. But I don’t want to be so heavy handed. 3) (and this is the kicker for me) I’ll be a better parent by letting it ride without comment.
[Here an aside: I’ve been learning about myself that when I feel “noble” inside about something that is bothering me, like in this instance choosing to not say anything to Sonia about the fake cough, that I am actually giving myself an internal countdown of “three strikes and you’re out” where, like a baseball player I saw in my youth who took two called strikes without the slightest outward sign that he didn’t like the calls but who when the third identical strike was called absolutely Lost It!, that I too am giving myself internal credit for suppressing my feelings at that moment, suppressing my wholeness, considering that I deserve an emotional gold star for suppressing what I’m feeling. And the results are often HORRIBLE. I give myself license when the “third strike” occurs to behave in an entitled and over-the-top manner that I am often embarrassed by after the fact. It’s not exactly pretty, I know. I’m glad I’m getting more aware of this and I look to the days when I’m able to use the awareness to help myself not glide into this complex.]
So, back to Sonia and Kai and me. As we walked further Kai and Sonia continued with playful teasings directed toward one another and Sonia, so it appeared to me, gave a little spit into her hand and then extended it to shake hands with Kai. Again, it seemed, to emphasize her objecting to whatever agreement between them he was trying to enforce. As I write this, I now feel a respect and appreciation of my dear daughter Sonia rising up in me.
At the time, however, I fell on her like an F—king ton of bricks. “Sonia! You know, right?, that we are all working hard at honoring the guidelines for being SAFE during Covid-19, right? I’m really upset that you would even pantomime coughing and spitting at your brother!” … in truth, I know I said more, that I tend to be quite pontificating when I get in this complex. Suffice it to say, as I’m sure you can anticipate, dear Sonia was quite mortified. She walked with a dejected air, silent, stung, angry, feeling, entirely understandably, that she was being misunderstood and mischaracterized.
We walked along miserably for a while.
Then, God love me, I tried to do the best I could (have you heard the Asian comedian, married to a woman from “down’ south”, who riffs on his observation that in the south you can say anything, no matter how mean or critical, of anyone, and have it be just fine, as long as you finish it up with, “God love ’em”?).
I told Sonia that it was me who was in the wrong, not her. That I was sorry that I acted that way with her. (Now that I think of it, I wish I had also explicitly told Kai I was sorry that I put him in the position of having to witness such a situation and deal with all his feelings inside as a third party. I now intend to bring this up and explore it with him. Danger flag: Explore it! Don’t pontificate!)
This is an interesting blog in that I find I’m circling around the theme of Wholeness. I am genuinely ashamed that I acted this way with Sonia. And I feel sure that these kind of moments are damaging. It hurts to have done it. Yet, I’m noticing the “balm” (see Ash Wednesday reflection) of fully acknowledging my ashiness, my badness, my wholeness. It’s true, I acted this way. No getting around it.
And then, lo and behold, I’m not unhappy with how I responded. I told Sonia I was sorry and I took responsibility for my abysmal behavior. As we walked on she was fiercely quiet. I felt sad and responsible and at moments victimized, can you believe it?, thinking, “Gosh, I wish she would break this silence and offer us all some comfort by talking with us. Break herself out of this dark place.” But on this one, I held my peace and repeated inside of myself (unlike Al Oliver – that’s the name of the baseball player I saw Lose It after pretending to be completely unfazed by the first two called strikes): This is bearable. I can walk with my daughter angry at me, needing to be silent, perhaps, likely even, that inside of herself she is knowingly giving me back some spite for my mistreatment of her. All of this can be borne.
I was relieved and felt glad for her that after 10 minutes or so of quietness, I saw some small movements back towards spontaneity and even joy in Sonia.
After we returned home and had done many other things, I happened to have a moment with Sonia and I by ourselves. I said, “I’m really sorry, again, about how I acted on the walk.” She: “I was really angry at you.” Me: “I know. I’m proud of you that you could stay with that.”
You might well ask yourself, as I am asking myself right now, “Why share this with others? Why even blog about this event?”
I’m doing so because I felt strongly about actively processing with my sister that I am not perfect, far from it. In so doing, I could more fully realize that, as a parent (and as she and I laughed about in this conversation, as a parent I’m like most of us parents, in that I do have strong feelings at times that I best serve my children by being the perfect parent), I actually do my children a service by recognizing more and more deeply that I am whole, ashy, bad, while also good, thoughtful, loving. I’m not only those last three words. I’m all six. Including bad. In other words, human. Just like my dear children are. And the more we can all honor it, like in an Ash Wednesday ritual, the better off we are, in my view.