by Brian G. Daigle There are a few lectures I’ve given over the past few years where I start, “This is the kind of topic that has such importance, that I want to make sure I state at the beginning my personal commitment to it, for it is one of those things that I have realized if I do not give my children, I have failed them immensely.” I have prefaced such presentations whether they are given to students, teachers, school administration, corporate executives, or just friendly conversations. As a parent with eyes open, there are perhaps many such topics to which we are committed, for our children look to us for more than we could ever realize. They rely upon us, even in our failures. They delight in our growth as parents, even in our slow progress. They are sustained by what we give them, even in our omissions. We were the same with our parents. As I am guided by this river of fatherhood, and as I further reflect on what my own parents gave to me, as my list of parenting priorities has grown, been polished, and been put into practice, that list has in some ways grown and in some other ways has remained very stable. My convictions for some things have become more solid, and my consideration of others has come more into focus. What are those things I have placed at the forefront of the repertoire of doing what I can to raise wonderful humans? For now, there are ten, in no particular order, that I ensure are ever-present, ever-rotating in balance and depth, in how we spend our fleeting days: 1. Decorum.
Cicero defined decorum (or propriety) as “that which is fitting and agreeable to an occasion or person.” To go further, Cicero says that “In oration, as in life, nothing is harder than to determine what is appropriate…let us call it decorum or ‘propriety…’ The universal rule, in oratory as in life, is to consider propriety [in omni parte orationis ut vitae quid deceat est considerandum]…” There is no place in my child’s life where decorum does not matter. In fact, nearly every lesson a parent tries to teach a child has something to do with decorum. Manners. Lessons in “Yes, mam” and “No, mam.” Not putting feet on the dinner table. Whether cuss words are allowed and where and when. What to wear to the funeral. What to wear to Church. Whether they should apologize to their sibling. How to behave in class. School dress code. Eating one’s vegetables. Not running in the restaurant. The list never ends. During professional presentations on Cicero’s passage concerning decorum, I often say “Put me in any school or any company or any institution, and I can show you that the problems therein somehow relate back to decorum, a fracture or imperfection in propriety.” This is why, especially with my children, when they ask me a question, I ask them one back, often times something like, “What do you think is most decorous?” And then we talk about it, and I let them work out the details and deliberate in their own minds, using what young knowledge and limited life experience they have to make wise decisions. If I do not do all I can to give them an ability to handle the word decorum, and the nuances thereof, I will have kept a great treasure from them, and I will have lost sweet opportunity to grow in the same. 2. Unhindered laughter. There ought to be nothing in our lives that stops laughter altogether. Life is too comedic, too miraculous, too much of a gift, for that kind of fatalism. There are times at night, when I pray with my children, and Charlotte (6yo) gets the giggles. They are uncontrollable, and as I try to be “QRS” (quiet, reverent, and still), I cannot help but start laughing too. I do not get upset with Charlotte, and I do not get upset with myself, no matter how stoic and serious I am trying to be, because it is now getting late and I am quite tired myself. Emery chimes in and starts laughing as she sees me try unsuccessfully to hold back. Benjamin follows suit. We are then engulfed in a cycle of giggles. I’m sure in a complex way their little bodies (and perhaps mine too) are getting rid of energy so we can all sleep well; I also think the sweetness of our evening “Our Father” and Gloria Patri together make for a little girl with a happy heart, who then transfers that giddiness to each of us. I don’t stop the laughter; that kind of wave cannot and should not be stopped. And so I giggle with them, and try again, and sometimes again, to get through the prayers. Eventually things settle and we do get through them. I want for myself and for my children a joy that is infectious, that bursts through even the darkest clouds. I want a laughter that is unhindered. And so we laugh often, and we work at laughing at the right stuff and at the right times. And we don’t laugh at another’s misfortune or calamity. We laugh at real humor, and we laugh with one another. When they are adults, and as they are children, we do not want laughter that can be stopped by pain or change or social acceptability or fear. We want unhindered laughter hitched to the true joys of being human. 3. A well-rounded education. Education means more than schooling. Yes, we ought to give our children the best schooling we can, the best academic training we can access for them. However, education means a whole host of other important matters regarding human formation. This includes what we do after school, what we do on the weekends, what we do during summer and holiday breaks, and what we do in the mornings before school. Education is schooling plus the rest of a child’s life, in its entirety. A well-rounded education must include a lot of healthy time outdoors, especially in nature. It must include reading aloud to your children, conversing with them in a focused and sustained way, participating in art which cultivates in them a pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. It must include forming their imagination by stories and healthy relationships with peers and family members. It means not doing for a child what they can do for themselves. It means participating with them in the range of human emotions, and guiding them on what to do with those emotions. It means athletics and music and movies and bedtime rituals. It means dinner habits and memorable travels, if only through the woods on a snowy day. A well-rounded education, like a well-rounded diet, gives a child all the emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and relational nutrients they can handle, given in a way that is most beneficial. A well-rounded education means passing to them a tradition that will raise them to the highest heights, even if to the outside world is looks quite lowly. 4. A delight in and familiarity with music and art. Our children, like us, will always be surrounded by man’s creation or God’s creation. Those are the only two options. One of the foremost artifacts of being human is music and art, which encompasses nearly everything: buildings, literature, music, clothes, movies, city or neighborhood design, home décor, cars, food, etc. If I want my children to live well in the world, both when I am here and when I am gone, I must teach them to be good art critics, good art students, and good at discerning what art is worth their time and attention and what art is not. And so, we dance a lot. We sing a lot. We memorize pieces of art. We watch movies and discuss them. We listen to a wide range of music genres. If they hear a profane word, we discuss it. If there is a beat or rhythm they like and yet lyrics that don’t sit quite right with them, we explore it. If there is a cinematic or literary villain who really gets under their skin, we hold up their portrait and look closely at it. Sometimes, when there is a mood in the air that needs to be changed, I simply make a brief rule that for the next twenty minutes, if anyone wants to say anything, they must sing it, me included. And so we do. And laughter ensues. I want them to be as thoughtful about art as they are about food. Where did this come from? Who made it? Is it any good for us? Was it worth the price? You may not like it, but why not? What if this were our steady diet, how healthy would we be? Do we want to try this again? If I could make this, would I, or is there something more beautiful and healthier I want to emulate and recreate? My car is named Vivaldi; the kids know why. Growing up in a family from south Louisiana, I am ever-grateful for the peculiar posture these people and this land have toward music, art, and food. There are few things as humane and edifying as a right understanding and celebration of these gifts. 5. A religion I love. This one did not make the list because there is an evangelization ploy happening. Not at all. This one is here to stress the importance of religion in our children’s lives and development. Religion deals with the transcendent, the habitual, the ethical and moral, that divine reality (whether you admit it or not) which sits above, and within, and over everything else. For myself, my theological journey has been storied, and hopefully I have landed where I most believe truth, goodness, and beauty originate and are fulfilled, where all my fears, insecurities, questions, gifts, joys, strengths, sins, and restlessness will be properly dealt with in this life and the life to come. But whether or not you are where I am, religious communities, rhythms, practices, creeds, and art are necessary to bind our children to important things beyond themselves and beyond us. Sure, not all religions are created equal, and just as education can be treason, so can religion. Nonetheless, if I have a religion and I do not pass that to my children year by year, with great conviction and seriousness, no matter how imperfectly I may do so, I will malnourish some of the most human and consequential aspects of who they are and will be. I have many friends from a variety of religions that are not my own, and I can say unequivocally that there is a real cost to being human in the wrong religion. However, there is an even greater cost to not loving any religion and not passing on that loved religion to those who need it the most: our children. So, pick your imperfect religion; I have picked mine, or perhaps it has picked me. And pass it to your children with ever-maturing knowledge, fidelity, and consideration. 6. Happy memories in the car. Contemporary Americans spend a lot of time in the car. This is not unique to us. People in most industrialized nations spend lots of time in the car. And this means we spend that time often with our children, and that means many of their memories when they are older, and much of their formation now, happens in the car. How’s that going for you? What are they learning about you there? What are they learning about themselves? What is the tone? What are the topics of conversation? Is there conversation? Are they glued to a screen there too? Where’s your phone? What about the music? Are there games? Food? What has your minivan society become? Are you the ruler? What kind of ruler are you? When will that mess get cleaned up (whether it is the fries smashed into the seat or the emotional tone smashed into their ears)? My kids will look back and remember a whole lot about our car rides, even short ones. What will they remember? As we get into the car, time and again, no matter how tired I may feel, I remind myself: give them happy memories in this car. 7. Listening eyes. Children call for our attention more than sometimes we want them to. “Dad…dad…dad…dad…dad…” In my worst inner thoughts, it is just a nuisance and I have more important things to think about. I’m thankful those stay inside and that I wrangle them quickly and adjust what needs to be adjusted to turn my head to the needy child, to give them my eyes, and to give them my attention. May they always know a dad who would put down things he loves for the more important things, who would turn his attention and body to ensure they not only were heard, but more importantly felt heard. “I’m listening,” my eyes say to them, as I put down my phone or computer or book or to-do list and turn my body and attention to them. “Thank you,” says their delight in saying whatever is on their mind. What else could listening eyes mean? They mean there are times when I choose to strategically default to my child’s preference, where my child feels heard and that their preferences do matter, because they do. It means there are times when I could—perhaps because I’m older, or wiser, or larger than my children—squash the preferential request and move on. But I shouldn’t, and I don’t. Just this morning, as I was writing parts of this article at Le Madeleine’s, my son (4yo) asked if I could pass him his apple sauce pouch that came with his meal. One came with each of his sisters’ meals as well. But he asked for the “one with the fish on it.” And his sisters didn’t put up a fight about it. I didn’t have the fish one in my hand; I handed him the one that was in my hand. Plus, I didn’t quite know what he meant. They looked like the exact same pouches to me. I could have easily held my ground and said, “They are the same food, buddy. Just enjoy that one and be thankful.” And yet he knew the difference, and he was adamant he wanted the one with the fish on it. To be sure, he was adamantly respectful and took a true interest in enjoying the one with the fish on it. The only cost to me was that I actually listen to him, I slow down, I humbly reverse course, and I grab the other one on the plate. I then would need to reach across the table and trade with him. And that’s what I did. For me, it was an exercise in listening to him, on something that was a preference, on deferring to his will as a human, on something that wasn’t that big of a deal. That matters to a four-year old, especially a boy with two older smart and competent and strong sisters, a boy who sometimes feels like he can’t get a word in. Listening eyes mean taking the time to truly listen to the human that is your child, their will, preference, interests, questions, curiosities, concerns, fears, and even changing course because of who they are. By no means does this mean a child “gets what they want” and becomes spoiled. It means that as humans, it is often the case we do get what we want and even what we need and that we have to learn to live well in society, communicating both our preferences and our principles at the right time, in the right ways, and to the right people. And we would hope those right people would listen. Truly listen, even if we don’t end up getting what we want. It is easy to not have listening eyes with children. Adult lives are busy. Our children’s problems seem so menial to us, especially compared to our own problems. We know if we do not listen they will move on and the demand on us will be over, and we will be able to return to the real things that matter to real life. But children never forget adults who ignore them. It deeply becomes a part of their self-understanding, part of how they think society does or should function, part of their ability to communicate well, to both deliberate in their own mind and dialogue with their neighbor. Parents who don’t learn to have listening eyes will raise children who don’t know what to do with their thoughts and voices. And that can lead to a myriad of destructive choices, the foremost being a child who is quite comfortable with readily dismissing and ignoring their thoughts, wishes, preferences, desires, and ideas. 8. Regular walks. A few years ago I wrote an article called “The Walking Man” wherein I took the position that walking is an inherently important, human, and religious endeavor, and that the more a person takes an interest in the right things, the more they would naturally take an interest in going on a stroll. Around that time I had also committed to going on at least one walk a week with my children. I have continued that practice to this day. There are few things as simple, inexpensive, and profound as simply walking alongside someone, talking or not. There need not be an agenda; there need not be a timeframe. Just walk. Not all children will enjoy walking equally, but all children will come to love and respect the time a parent takes to walk alongside them, within the boundary of a path and yet amidst the freedom of the open air. There is something deeply emotional and enjoyable about going on a walk with someone, and children feel that too. This is because there is something deeply religious about going on a walk, and children long for the good things of religion, and they long for parents next to whom they can learn to pace their feet, focus their eyes, and head the same direction. If the previous section showed the importance of listening eyes, regular walks show the importance of present feet. 9. Freedom to ask questions. Children are curious. This is natural and good. They are trying to figure out what to make of themselves, the world, and nearly everything you and I take for granted. The other day my daughter was asking how food goes through our bodies. As I was explaining what I could, she said, “But if it passes by the heart, why doesn’t it hurt the heart?” Several times a week I am peppered with questions about how clouds are made, why something was one way and not another, what this word or that word means, if giving birth to a child hurts (out of my pay-grade), if the message the brain sends to move a muscle is faster than lightning, why I tossed the book onto my desk when I have a rule that we should not throw books, if I am stronger than God, if I would be upset if they tried to steal my car in the middle of the night to go get ice cream but wrecked it, if…why…how…but. I am not peculiar in this experience; humans bear humans who have needs and have questions. If I feel exhausted by such an onslaught of childish questions, I should not then be surprised why children need so much sleep: the questions a child asks a parent are but a fraction of the questions the world presses minute by minute onto their imaginations and curiosities. Additionally, children think out loud. They learn to speak and think by audibly processing and talking out loud. Often times, telling a child not to talk is equal (given their experience in the world) to telling them not to think, not to explore, not to imagine. If I want to raise wonderful, imaginative, articulate, curious, thoughtful, and intelligent human beings, I must give them the freedom to ask questions, and I must continue to grow in patience, creativity, and sometimes longsuffering with such questions. Furthermore, I ought to give them freedom to explore and be who they are, even if they are not me, even if sometimes I don’t love who they are, or if I would have been curious about different things as a boy. This is not license to vice; it is raising a human who is not you, to live a life that is not yours. I have learned in the classroom and at the dinner table not to be afraid of a child’s questions, whatever they may be, for the only alternative is a child’s silence, and that is often times far more disastrous and concerning. 10. Conditional love. We live in a human condition at all times, and so the idea of unconditional love, though I understand the concept, is quite impossible. We must love in and with conditions or we must not love at all. A song that has captured my imagination the past few months is “Front Porch” by Joy Williams. Take some time and read the lyrics. Those are the conditions in which I want my children to always know my love: there is a front porch, the light is on, take the longest and muddiest road you need, no window stays closed, you may need to call for me so I know you are there, but come on back, if ever you leave. And that front porch is conditioned for your stay, or your return. And I want to be conditioned, as your father, in every condition of life, to meet with you on that front porch, to invite you back into these walls, and to provide for you the food, the roof, the regular walks, the music and dancing, the freedom to ask questions, the listening eyes, the religion I love, the unhindered laughter, and the decorous friendship. Ever since I was a boy, I was keenly aware that the gravity of death will both defeat and surprise my bones. And this sense has only increased as the years pass, as the children grow in inches, and as my hairs leap from my head, apparently bent on joining the dirt before the rest of me. As if our bodies are writing its preface to the grave, things fall out and sag as we get older. “Here is what’s ahead! You will follow us there soon enough,” our skin, hair, and youthfulness say. We even get shorter as we get older, a clear indication that we cannot help but shrink back to the dust from whence we came. “Gravity has her sovereign effect slowly, if not very suddenly,” says Old Age. What must I give my children with my remaining days, with whatever youth I have left? What must I ensure I plant in them, and plant them in, with the time and talents and treasures I have remaining? With what will I nourish their memories, imaginations, and desires? Life circumstances are often so far out of our control; and even the ones most closely in our control are mysterious and complex in their origin and effects. I do not know the experiences my children will have as they age, as they go through their own lives, their own stories, and ride the human rollercoaster. Is cancer in the plot? Will they lose a child or spouse? How many times will they change jobs? What addictions or fears or villains lie in their chapters ahead. I do not know the joys and pains ahead for them. Who could know such things? I do, however, know that there are certain competencies, certain ingredients, certain memories and shapes I want for their hearts, souls, minds, and bodies that no matter what lies before them on the path, they will encounter it with these ten companions, at least. I also know these ten companions will take particular shape in each child, though I do not exactly know how. My own father could not have foreseen what affect his humor, love of story-telling, and personability would have on me. He was who he was; he is who he is, and he had the courage to give us good things and trust those would have their way in and with us as God intended for His glory and our good. And all of this to occur in sometimes crooked, painful, and hard seasons of life. He persevered. I do not know how my own children’s’ personalities and particular gifts will converse with and highlight or diminish these ten companions, but if they are not around and within them now, the odds are they will never be, and these ten important companions will be lost to them and their human experience forever, or at least pushed too far back in the crowd. Furthermore, it is at least an exercise in honoring my own conscience that I ought to give to them the things I love and see how those companions may do for them what they have done for me.
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