Archives for June 2015

On becoming what you need…

For as long as I can remember, my brother wandered. He never sat but paced back and forth, so it made sense that he followed his sense of wanderlust. Yet, I secretly knew he wasn’t just someone who loved to travel and see new places. He also didn’t possess the naiveté of a tourist, who shared photos of their journeys, and allowed yearly vacations to fill photo albums. No, he was moving, pacing, thinking and trying to outpace his desire to change his past – but he knew all too well there was no way back.

My brother’s father died when he was three. When you lose a parent that early you lose a piece of yourself as well. It’s not just the isolation of knowing that your friends have two parents but the knowledge that you will never share an ice cream cone with your Dad, have him teach you to ride a bike or have the chance to stare at his angered face when you dent his car. The years of adoration, rebellion and gift of loving acceptance were never an option for him. The senseless arbitrary unfairness of life ushered him to keep moving. This roving, sensitive brother of mine became my idol and in an ironic twist a second father. I saw the missing piece he yearned for, very early on, as he shared his love of books and reading and mocked my taste in music.

Ours was a little universe of broken pieces. After his father’s death, my mother married my father and my twin sister and I were born. Ten years our senior, he was a babysitter and antagonized us with endless tickling. Years later, he brought me on my only college tour and advocated for me to make a better college choice. He took my sister and me to museums and the beach and although he sometimes forgot to feed us he nourished us with the outside world. He somehow knew what we needed and threw pillows at my sister and let me browse through his books. When our family suffered the untimely death of my mother when he was 21 and we were 11, he left for graduate school in California. Postcards filled us in on his travels which led him to cities across the U.S. and ultimately Europe. He traveled forward and in the past, finding long lost relatives and becoming the keeper of memories and old family photographs.

An aunt once advised me that there was too much pain for him here and he felt the need to flee but I knew, at the ripe age of 11, standing in his room weeping at my concurrent losses, and gazing at his Don Quixote poster that he possessed what he was searching for. He had already gifted it to me and when he had his children the light went on again. As a new father, he balanced sensitivity with warding off worry. He was a kind and gentle father to his children when they were young but avoided hovering, knowing all too well the need to build resiliency. He lovingly continues to share his love of travel, photography, food and life. Fathers come in all shapes and sizes and though he was my brother, he was a beacon of light for me – precipitated by the light that went out for him too early in his own life.

This is for all the folks who have rejected my children, whether deserved or a biased assessment, I’d like to express my gratitude.   My kids accuse me of bragging about the hoops I jumped through during my childhood and though it was a different world theirs is far too easy sometimes. To truly develop skills to become an adult, rejection is a necessary evil. Starting as early as grade school through high school, here are some rejections I’m thankful for:

• The Dreaded Cut – Thanks for allowing my child to see that sometimes you’re just not good enough or sometimes you should make the cut but for reasons beyond your control the spot was not yours for the taking. Picking up the pieces is what life is all about. Most kids are able to assess their performance honestly and this is a prime time to “talk.” I once heard one of my children say, “What can I do, sometimes life isn’t fair.” A great and necessary lesson to which I added, “One person does not define you.” There’s so much value in acknowledging you may have to work harder, accepting that the tides won’t always go your way or choosing another path.

• The Friendship Dump –  I’ve found that friendships that last are often developed in middle or even high school. Hanging out with your friends’ children may work but beware kids often move on and develop their own friendships. Don’t be surprised if your child is dumped or your child does the dumping. I’ve witnessed this with both my children.  I worried but in the end I’d like to say thanks. When you lose friends, you become more empathetic and open-minded to others. This is also a prime time to teach sensitivity.

• Losing & Failing – These are not textbook rejections, but still disappointments that make kids feel inferior. If your child is winning all the time, that’s a problem. My sister and I played cards often when we were growing up and she was always won. It was irritating but it was just not my thing. Losing allows you to learn about yourself, your capabilities and skills. Let’s talk about grades. First of all no child should have their self-esteem tied into their academic performance or any activity. Secondly, you don’t want them to fall into the trap of expecting perfection all the time. So what if your child always earns a 100? Praise them for their hard work and find appropriate challenges for them. Believe me this child won’t always achieve perfection and you don’t want their world to implode when it happens.

I’ve been thinking about the importance of rejection because the focus on performance in my suburban town is seismic. I’ve also been reading stories of college suicides. These are students blessed with outsized talent who feel stuck in a maze of high performance. These actions represent a small percentage but there’s a larger majority of teens, college students and young adults who face disabling anxiety because they are in a race to keep up with unrealistic standards.

Don’t swoop in to fix every taxing situation your child faces.  I say bring on the rejection, the nepotism, the losses, and failures – and once again thanks to those for those rejections!