Wildhouse Publications recently hired a new publicist. I don’t know what happened to the previous publicist, but she apparently resigned shortly after the publication of The Ping Pong Player and the Professor. We hadn’t been in contact for quite some time so I assumed she had simply given up on me, which, incidentally, I thought was completely reasonable. I wouldn’t want to work with me either. But evidently, she gave up on her entire career as a publicist. Am I concerned that my social media phobias, Luddite tendencies, and abundant idiosyncrasies—what have been generously referred to as “my lovable eccentricities”—drove her into premature retirement? Yep, I am. Hopefully, though, I’m just being characteristically neurotic and insecure. For what it’s worth, she can count this blog among her accomplishments. The blog was her idea, and had you asked me a year or two ago whether I would ever write a monthly blog, I would have bet I’d be more likely to regrow the thick curly hair of my youth than become a blogger. Yet, here I am, captain of this blog space, with a hairline resembling Picard’s rather than Kirk’s.
I recently met Wildhouse Publication’s new publicist. I gently warned her that I would not be an easy author to deal with, particularly my incurable allergy to social media. Breaking into her new job with me as one of her first projects—and yes, I’ve been told more than once that I’m a project—is not something I would wish on anyone, and I accordingly extended my sincerest sympathies during our meeting. Fortunately, she possesses the naivete and enthusiasm of youth; I lost such attributes, like Samson, with my hair. She seemed unfazed by my concern for her mental wellbeing and as far as I know, our meeting did not drive a second publicist out of the business. But as one of my kids noted after I told them about the meeting, “Let’s reserve judgment on her job commitment until she fully understands what a project you really are.” Yep, fair enough.
During our meeting, the new publicist informed me of her plan to promote the parenting angle of my book. She would be reaching out to parenting podcasters in hopes of arranging an interview with me, and she would seek out blogging spaces where I could write a guest column. She also has connections at several local universities and she proposed arranging public talks about parenting during their respective annual “parent weekends.”
Needless to say, I was not terribly enthusiastic about this promotional angle, although hopefully I expressed my skepticism politely. I have expertise in many areas, ranging from kibbutzim to kvetching, but parenting isn’t one of them. I do have parenting experience, but I’m all too aware of the chasm between experience and expertise. As I admitted in The Ping Pong Player and the Professor, I’ve never read a parenting advice book in my life. Okay, I’ve never read a book on kvetching either, but I come from a tradition—Judaism—where kvetching comes naturally and has deep cultural roots. Indeed, as many rabbinic commentators have noted, even after being freed from several hundred years of Egyptian bondage, the Israelites spend much of the next forty years kvetching while wandering in the desert. One of my favorite lines in the entire Torah is a wonderful display, during their wanderings, of skillful sarcastic kvetching. Hungry and thirsty, the Israelites complain to Moses: “Were there no graves in Egypt that you had to take us into the desert to die?” (Shemot 14:11). Actually, come to think of it, I should correct my claim above about the books I’ve read. Years ago I greatly enjoyed a book by Michael Wex on Yiddish culture that may count as a book on kvetching. Its title perfectly supports my contention that kvetching comes naturally for Jews: Born to Kvetch.
Back to the point. Despite the encouragement of Wildhouse’s new publicist, by my assessment, I have no right to offer parenting advice. Zippo. Nada. Absolutely none. Yet, I am indeed a parent, even a so-called ping pong pop. And of late, as I’ve been pondering the trinity of existential questions that have haunted me since my teens—why am I, who am I, and what am I doing on this planet?—the only answer I consistently return to, which, at least for me, answers all three questions, is that I’m a daddy. Perhaps the new publicist had a point? And in truth, lack of official expertise hasn’t stopped me from offering advice in other arenas of life—I’m a wannabe hobbit, not a wannabe elf.1 Most notably, I’ve served as Eliel’s coach for years, even though I have no training as a coach, and the pupil has long surpassed the alleged master. So, although I claim no expertise in parenting, if my publicist ultimately convinces me to participate in her plans it seems worthwhile to have my thoughts on fatherhood in order. And it’s a propitious time for such mental housecleaning and organization. June, after all, is the month of Father’s Day. Moreover, now that I have a married child (one down, three to go), perhaps my kids will soon need some parenting wisdom? To paraphrase a Yiddish expression: from my keyboard to God’s ears.
Ideally, I would now describe the outcome of my mental housecleaning, offering pearls of parental wisdom. But I’ve pulled the plug, so to speak, on my original plan for this blog. When I began to organize the parenting thoughts in my head I categorized them into three areas—mirroring the foci of The Ping Pong Player and the Professor—from which I think my supposed parental sagacity is derived: anthropology, Judaism, and table tennis. I then began to jot down a list of parenting recommendations in each of these categories and fairly quickly my list had over twenty items on it. As I began to elaborate on each, presumably what was to become the meat of this blog, I struggled to avoid sounding preachy. I struggled, and I struggled some more. And then I gave up struggling and admitted defeat. Despite various revisions, everything I had written sounded like “The Ping Pong Pop’s Twenty Commandments”: Thou shalt love your children unconditionally; Thou shalt appreciate your children’s individuality and diversity; Thou shalt not embarrass your children; Thou shalt listen to your spouse and not use your children as research subjects, and so forth. Of course much of the advice I was conjuring was simply common sense, with the exception of exploiting my kids as research subjects, which wasn’t initially self-evident, although I can now see the logic. Sort of.
So, rather than preach all of my commandments, let me simply point out a few highlights. My advice, however, comes with a cautionary warning: whatever asserted wisdom I peddle below, ignore any advice that conflicts with the advice of real experts. The sum of my parenting knowledge ultimately consists of four data points, not exactly a sufficient sample size to draw reliable conclusions, especially since I wasn’t allowed to use these data points in systematic research. Nonetheless, reluctantly, and at risk of sounding preachy, here are a few thoughts.
Although I’ve never read a parenting advice book, while I was raising my kids I seemed to be a magnet for advice. Did I look like I needed help? Probably. People would tell me, “You shouldn’t sleep in bed with your newborn,” while others, just as earnestly, insisted, “It is healthiest for your child to sleep in your bed.” As an anthropologist I wasn’t surprised by the diversity of opinions, but I was surprised by the confidence in which opinions were shared with me. If anthropology has taught me anything, there is no right way to parent a child. This is not an endorsement for laissez-faire or irresponsible parenting. It is simply an observation, derived from extensive ethnographic work by anthropologists, that there are diverse ways to successfully parent a child, many of which are ‘right’ in the sense that they will generally produce healthy, independent, and morally responsible adults. The near converse of this is surely also true, and should give every parent pause: there is undoubtedly no limit to the number of ‘wrong’ ways to parent a child.
Let me offer another anthropological tidbit. Although cultures consist of shared practices, beliefs, and values, anthropologists emphasize not losing sight of the intracultural variation within the communities they study. Likewise, just as there are diverse ways to raise a child, children—even within the same family—are diverse, and that diversity should be relished. I marvel at how different my kids are from one another. And what a blessing that they are different from me! Well, there is the family resemblance, as many people note. Sorry about that, kids. Obviously, there are values I’ve tried to instill as a parent that I hope my children all share, but I suspect I am at my best as a father when I appreciate their individuality and uniqueness.
Let’s keep the anthropology discourse going and offer another of the field’s core insights: humans are cultural creatures. This means that we, and especially children, learn by watching others. Kids will often pay more attention to your actions than your words. In other words, if you don’t want Junior farting and burping when you visit grandma for dinner, you’ll need to exhibit some self-restraint at your own dinner table. This truism, unfortunately, has tragic manifestations, such as the epigenetic inheritance of abusive and self-destructive traits, or simply negligence and apathy, as Harry Chapin reminds us in his classic song about fatherhood, “Cats in the Cradle.” The father’s realization at the end of the song that he has imparted his paternal indifference to another generation—“My boy was just like me”—invariably leaves me in tears.
Anthropology also taught me about the value of ritual in structuring life and the necessity of stories to provide meanings for those structures. These are anthropological, as well as Jewish, lessons my children regularly reinforced, reinforcement that I needed. I’ve never been comfortable with rules and order, and my aversion to authority is pathological—as one of my kids correctly diagnosed, I refuse to read instructions because they are inherently authoritarian. I thrive in chaos and disorder. So, when my oldest was born I was steadfastly against bedtimes, eating schedules, and any type of regular routine. But she quickly disabused me of such nonsense. She, like most kids, needed an orderly structure, thus she habitually ritualized activities, such as book reading, saying goodnight, daddy wrestling, and even pillow fights, so that they became anticipated and predictable.
And stories were demanded—they seem to nourish her like food. Indeed. At dinner one evening, instead of eating her broccoli, she insisted I tell her a story. Actually, not just any story, the story: “Tell the story again! Tell the story again!” Unfortunately, I had no idea what story she was referring to. After some discussion—not calm and rational; rather, the all-too-common kind of parent-child discussion that involves screaming, crying, and flying broccoli—I figured out the “story” she wanted to hear. When I came home before dinner I had casually told my wife what I couldn’t find at the grocery store from the list she had given me. Not exactly a story, but evidently riveting for a two-year old. Acquiescing, I told the so-called story many times that evening, and the enjoyment never diminished with each additional telling: “Daddy walked up and down the aisles, searching high and low for the brussels sprouts, searching under the cabbage and behind the celery, calling out ‘Where are you brussels sprouts? Where are you?’… Finally, Daddy gave up his search and decided to bring home broccoli for dinner instead.” If only my lectures were half as interesting.
I assume the parenting advice books tell parents to respect their children, and if I ever wrote such a book (perhaps entitled something like Parenting Pearls from the Ping Pong Pop?), that is surely advice I would include. But I wonder if the advice books provide examples of how to do so. I recall reading an article by a rabbi who noted that when he began to serve his congregation he was surprised and dismayed to learn how many parents forced their children to give up their rooms when Shabbos guests would stay overnight. He was surprised because in the household of his childhood it was his parents who gave up their bedroom for Shabbos guests; he was dismayed because he feared the practice was telling children in his community that they didn’t count, they didn’t need to be respected. For some reason this article always stuck with me and I tried to follow the rabbi’s parent’s example. That said, by rarely cleaning our house (in our defense, we had four kids, each two years apart) and a personal tendency to hoard that limited our available living space, I didn’t have to put the lesson of the article into practice all too often, as the number of friends and family wishing to stay as overnight guests was minimal. I’m comforted to know, however, that the chaos and clutter of our house was not dissimilar to our friends’ homes. When one of my close friends asked her mother if she would be staying with them during her upcoming visit, the mother offered one of my favorite responses of all time: “Of course I’ll be staying with you—I love camping.” Apparently, I’m not the only one who would have benefited from reading a parenting advice book.
Judaism is obsessed with children, especially teaching them. While teaching has been important in my life as a parent, I think the most important thing I learned about parenting from my Jewish background is the value of celebrating with my children. Judaism is often described as a celebration of life, a description that undoubtedly applies to many other religions as well. My experience has been that all kids love to celebrate, no matter how much they may differ in other ways. In our household we of course celebrated Shabbat and all the Jewish holidays with our kids. And our birthday parties, with constructed backyard mazes, adventurous treasure hunts, and inventive games, were legendary in our neighborhood. I made an effort, as well, to celebrate other milestones, victories, and achievements, both small and large. Perhaps peculiarly, I also thought it was important to celebrate nothing in particular, just to keep life fun and joyous, as it should be. And maybe also a little unpredictable.
I should wrap up this blog before it becomes too preachy. Logically, I should conclude with things I’ve learned about parenting from the world of table tennis, but I fear if I open that can of worms I’d need to write a book rather than a blog. I guess I already have a book title, as suggested above, so maybe someday. Here, I will simply conclude by offering this: I don’t expect my children to understand what I did for them as a parent, and continue to do, until they become parents. As I noted in The Ping Pong Player and the Professor, I had no appreciation of the parenting challenges my parents faced until I tried my hand at it, and I don’t think my self-absorbed pre-parenting myopia was rare. In truth, I think that is the way it should be. As parents, life is no longer about us. Even when it is supposedly about us, such as on Father’s Day, it is not really about us. As any father knows, Father’s Day is about providing a space for your children to show their love for you, but also making sure that loving space is kid-friendly, whether it’s celebrating the day with ice cream sundaes, an afternoon at the amusement park, building Lego spaceships, or letting them beat you at table tennis while playing left handed on your knees. For me, that’s what being a daddy is all about.
1If you don’t get the reference, please reread The Lord of the Rings…and if you’ve never read it, please don’t tell me or you will crush my fragile faith in humanity.
Richard Sosis 