Down Here...Up There...Where Are We???

Where is Stephen Hawking when you need him?

Last week Sophia asked me how the Earth started. I took a few deep breaths and before you knew it, I was dipping my toes into that soul-cleansing pool of unanswerable questions that turns even the most intelligent and well-read adults into stammering idiots.

How old is the Earth? How old is the universe? How are we here? Why are we here? How can people get to Mars? Why don't we fall off into space?

Our one-hour tête-a-tête over dinner turned out to be one of the most illuminating conversations I've ever had. I loved that my curious 9-year-old was questioning the complex machinations of our universe. Even more importantly, I was elated that Sophia, whose brain is like that of most kids— trafficking primarily in concrete facts—was entering the wondrous and shapeless territory of abstraction.

The question that took me forever to reconcile with my decidedly non-astrophysical mind was this: "How is Earth up there (pointing to the ceiling) and we're down here?" It took me a while to figure out that her image of Earth—our iconic blue spheroid, complete with continents and swirling clouds, a living ball of mass surrounded by the infinite blackness of the solar system—had been carved from what she'd seen in books and the internet, and that she couldn't figure out why we didn't see that same image from our street. How, she thought, could we possibly be on the planet yet not see it?

We spent a good hour trying to quell our twin frustrations; hers in comprehension and mine in explanation. I employed every prop I could think of, including ourselves ("You're the sun and I'm the Earth," I said as I spun around in place while also circling dizzily around Sophia and calling out "It's day, now night, now day...winter, now it's spring, summer, fall, winter, spring...") and some random objects around the house. We talked gravity and the elements and Big Bangs and God and orbits and space-time until I realized how much I simultaneously know and don't know.

So, so cool.

It was also strangely empowering to try to explain things that are not easy to explain, and to know that my kid expects me to know all this stuff. And it didn't matter what I knew or didn't. I came away feeling refreshed and exhilarated by Sophia's instinct to ask hard questions and her willingness to stretch to understand the complicated answers.

And at this time in our history, where technological advances, destruction of resources and the constant threat of terror conspire to drag us down, I would argue that self-awareness, compassion and tolerance—what truly makes us so freaking awesome as a species—are likely to remain our most potent antidotes against self-extinction. By questioning and wondering and listening and processing, Sophia has taken the first step on that incredible journey toward understanding what it truly means to be human. The possibilities of such growth are as endless and exciting as the universe itself.

And you don't have to be Stephen Hawking to appreciate how cool that really is.

It's Complicated...

No matter how much we try to shield our young children from the evils of terrorism and the continual onslaught of extremist violence, we can't. Might as well talk about it.

I was in Montreal last week when the November 13th attacks happened in Paris. Understandably, the topic came up a few times amongst my dad and mom, brother in law, and aunt and uncle, and cousins with whom I spent a lot of time over four days. My kids and my nieces were generally doing what kids do, having tons of fun, but these kinds of serious discussions filter down and I know my kids heard it.

Tanya and I decided long ago that we would try to be as honest as we could with our children when it came to introducing them to the these kinds of topics, keeping in mind the appropriate intellectual level to try to explain the horrors perpetrated by the "bad guys." So it came as no shock to me when Sophia, my sensitive 9-year-old, starting poking around.

"What happened in Paris?"

"Terrorists killed people," I answered. "A lot of innocent people died. It was terrible."

The discussion didn't last too long, but I knew Sophia heard me. Like most kids, her idea of right and wrong is monochromatic. And while real life is made up mostly of gray areas, I envy the simplicity that governs her developing brain. Being an adult—especially a parent—requires so much more.

At the airport on the way home, while I was picking up my final smoked meat sandwich before boarding, Sophia brought it up again. News channels tend to overreport these things on airport TVs, you know.

"Why do people blow up stadiums and kill all these innocent people?" she asked.

I thought for a few moments. "Terrorists try to make everyone afraid by killing whoever they want."

"Did they blow up the Eiffel Tower?" she asked.

"No," I chuckled.

"Why don't we just kill these people before they have a chance to do it again?"

"It's complicated. I think we should but...these things are complicated."

Her face was serious. "We're going to Paris next summer."

"Yes we are," I said. Suddenly, my sweet, innocent, giggly and silly fourth-grader was a different person. Fearful, anxious. "And we're going to have a great time! Mom and I REFUSE to live in fear. Okay? Our family will not live our lives in fear. If we do, that means the terrorists win."

I've been thinking about our discussion ever since. Life can be so complicated.

The First Fast

Last week, with the Jewish high holidays around the corner, Ella asked me about Yom Kippur. I explained to my curious 12-year-old what the most solemn day in the Jewish religion was really about. And fasting was the day's "signature event."

The Day of Atonement, I explained, took place 10 days after the new year and signified the day when Jews are forgiven for all of their sins over the previous 365 days, and thus get inscribed into God's "good" book for another year.

(For my gentile friends: Think of Santa's "nice" list, but instead you have to suffer through dehydration and hunger headaches while spending most of your day stuck in synagogue. And the reward is not presents but leftover brisket from Rosh Hashanah. So, just like Christmas but...totally not.)

Despite my distaste for observing arcane and outdated religious customs just because someone else told me to, my parents will be proud to know that 12 years of private Jewish education were not wasted. Translation: I understand the reasoning behind many of the traditions celebrated by what I like to call, "Christmas-Easter Jews." As such, I can make sense of them, and choose to follow the ones that actually mean something to me. This one, unlike the milk and meat thing, or the lack of bacon thing, or the let's-equate-electricity-with-work-on-the-Sabbath-thing (really, guys?), for some reason, I actually get.

No offense to Catholicism (especially with refreshingly "lefty" Pope Francis hanging out on the East Coast this week), but Yom Kippur is about much more than hopping into a confession booth, admitting a sin to some guy you can't see, being told to recite some phrases and voilà...forgiven!

No, Yom Kippur is meant to be the culmination of many days of reflection and prayer, including a concerted effort to right wrongs. (Not that I did all that this year.) Depriving oneself of food, drink and other creature comforts (archaic, but kind of cool, in a minimalist/environmentalist sort of way) is more than just a formality; it's a metaphor for improvement, in that it requires introspection to help us not only figure out why we did certain things, but to cleanse our palate of them before they can be officially erased. There's an element of rebirth in there, like an exorcism without the spinning heads.

It seems that the religious scholars of days past felt like in order to really gain a fresh start and demonstrate one's willingness to atone for misdeeds, one must not only suffer a bit, but also rid the body of whatever remnants of the past year's bad juju still remain. For us medical folks, Yom Kippur's basic premise might be likened to a colonoscopy for the soul: you can't really examine one's innards until the old stuff is gone. Bring on the bowel prep, baby.

I had made it very clear to Ella that fasting or not was to be entirely her choice, with the only requirement that she knew WHY she was doing it. If she chose to try, I offered to even do it with her. (I am obsessed with food, so this is a BIG deal for me, FYI.)

She did, and I did. Ella even texted me at lunch, asking if she could have a chocolate milk. I texted back that she could have whatever she wanted. Around 3:30 she texted again saying she had decided to forego the drink. I was impressed. She had clearly thought about it.

I was very proud of my middle schooler, not because she withstood the temptation of eating and drinking for an entire day at school. For that, I don't really care either way. As I said, I'm not into the Jewish thing much anymore. What I am into, is trying to teach my kids to think for themselves. No atonement necessary for that one.

"I love you." "Well, duh..."

All relationships are filled with subtle games and ongoing unconscious conversational tête-à-tête. For example: We all say things like "How was your day?" and "Did you sleep well?" without actually thinking about what they mean, or even awaiting an answer. In our family, one of the most frequently uttered is the "I love you—I love you, too" exchange.

I often take for granted those snippets of banter. But yesterday, as I was driving Ella to volleyball practice, something happened that made me think about it a little more.

Out of the blue, Ella says: "Dad, I love you."

"Of course you do!" I reply. "I'm awesome!!!"

"Uh," she says, with prototypical tween-dramatic-annoyance inflection, "not the response I was looking for but...okkaaayyy."

I laughed as she squirmed for a bit before reciprocating her sentiment, and also waited with breath held to see if I had really hurt her feelings. Thankfully, Ella is fully aware of my penchant for silliness and sarcasm, and is also quite adept at flinging it back to me. Nevertheless, I started thinking about what it might mean to a child to have his or her overt, unprompted volleys of love and affection returned in kind. Or not.

From what I've read and observed first hand with my own kids and others I have spent some time with, those little psyches can be fragile. Yes, it's important for them to become self-reliant and able to deal with adversity, but I think it's more important for them to first feel secure and develop a high level of self-worth. These values need to be constantly reinforced, at least until they start to navigate the world on their own.

I don't think that telling a kid we love them on a regular basis amounts to overly coddling or infantilizing them. On the contrary, it continually reinforces that Mom and/or Dad (or Mom and Mom, or Dad and Dad, whatever the case may be) thinks they are worthy of their place in the universe. Better to be loved too much—is that even possible?—than not enough. My parents did it to me and my sister, and while I admit that at the time I thought I HATED it, I realized once I hit my early 20s and then again once I had my own kids that all that annoyance and irritation was not only a genuine expression of love, but also might have been part of a carefully thought-out plan.

Of course, my little joke with Ella and her reaction brought to mind the possibility that their plan backfired, in the form of my absurdly overinflated sense of self-worth. (Inflategate, anyone?) But I doubt it. I'm probably just that awesome, and of course Ella would love me.

But I sure do love her, too, and she definitely knows it.

The Contract

I think I may have a future lawyer living in the Kensley house.

On our way home from camping this morning, the girls informed me that Ella had agreed to be Sophia's slave-slash-servant. As with most of their proclamations, I had no illusions that this grandiose situation would turn out to be any more than the usual short-lived play scenario.

Until Sophia insisted on a contract.

During our stop at Picnic Rock, a peaceful, popular play spot along the Poudre river as it snakes through the the tail end of the Poudre Canyon outside of Fort Collins, Sophia, who is 9, would have her older sister by 3 years, Ella, do something for her (get a towel, sunscreen her back, etc) and then turn to me with a toothy grin and mouth, "This is awesome!"

The 30-minute drive home was filled with discussion of contract terms, salary, and the like. I'm still not sure how this whole agreement came to be—other than the fact that Ella is happy to work for some extra cash—but I couldn't help being amazed at the ingenuity of it all. And so far, in the first couple of hours, they are taking it very seriously.

Once we got home, Sophia drew up a contract on Ella's laptop, complete with space for initials and signatures and a witness signature, and asked me to be the third party to ensure that the contract signing was legit and to help mediate so all parties were satisfied. Truly, this is the meat and potatoes of parenting that I LOVE.

Of course, Colorado Bar Association rules prohibit me from making this private arrangement public (and also, I think my kids might kill me if they knew about this blog post. If you see them, don't tell them you know...) but I would love to share a few of the stipulations, some of which are quite thoughtful:

• Ella gets a 30-45 minute lunch break and 2 15-minutes breaks, one each in the AM and PM (I helped tweak this one; the original draft didn't include lunch. I said that amounted to slave labor)
• Ella cannot be Sophia's servant while babysitting her
• If Mom or Dad ask Sophia to do something, she is not allowed to transfer responsibility to Ella
• And this is my favorite: "You can quit, but I can also fire you."

There is more, but I'm hesitant to share too much for fear of retribution from either party, even though I've clearly proven that I'm not above embarrassing either of them. And also, I'm worried they might really lawyer up and sue the shit out of me.

Oh, and as I finish typing this blog post, I hear Sophia from upstairs saying, "Ella, your break is over," right on time.

Move over Johnnie Cochran.

Life Isn't PG-13

While we were returning from lunch one day at work last week, a friend gathered all the parents around the office. "I need your opinions," she said.

Her 12-year-old daughter attended a sleepover birthday party where the invitation had promised going out for breakfast and then "watching movies." But when my friend's daughter got home, she informed her mom that the birthday girl's mother had taken the group to the theater to see "Pitch Perfect 2." You know the one: where the billboard slogan tastefully advertises "We're Back, Pitches." For a taste, click here for the trailer.

My friend was upset for two reasons. First, she was not comfortable with exposing her daughter to the crude and raunchy themes portrayed at various times in Pitch Perfect 2. But the more egregious issue was that her friend didn't bother to ask permission of her or any other parents to take their 12-year-olds to a PG-13 rated movie. "I watched the trailer," my friend said, "and I was like, what? You didn't even ask me?!"

My friend takes her role as a parent seriously and her angst was palpable. We all nodded in solidarity with her and agreed that the "responsible" parent should have cleared this decision with all the others prior to their little field trip into "Sophomoric Humor, Political Incorrectness and Oversexualized Culture 101." It's just basic protocol to ensure that plans are okayed by friends' parents before actually going. But for me, there was another issue:

Tanya and I took Ella—our 12-year-old—to see that very same movie the previous day.

The fact that I had seen the film allowed me to truly feel my friend's pain, knowing her daughter was watching numerous scenes obviously not geared for 12-year-olds, all without her consent. Some of the themes and lines even made me uncomfortable, knowing that my wholesome, innocent (so far, anyway) 6th grader was sitting right next to me while I nearly choked laughing. Yet aside from the movie-mom's lack of common sense, there's a greater discussion here.

Everyday we are forced to make choices for our kids, just as they are forced to make their own. Both parties rationalize and justify and hopefully learn from our experiences. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong, but one thing remains certain: we can't avoid making these choices. Our best weapons are to think them through and own our decisions, regardless of the result, and move forward.

Unlike the physical sciences, where facts and data can prove or disprove certain decisions and offer a high certainty that what we've done is reasonable, parenting avails itself of no such science. The results of our choices can take years to evince themselves, and even then, they've been blended with hundreds of other circumstances, so that determining cause and effect is like isolating sugar from the cake after it's been baked. In essence, though, I believe that one decision rarely makes or breaks a life. Still, we try our best, as if our every action determines the fate of the world.

Like it or not, sex and materialism and pathological consumerism are impossible—I REPEAT: IMPOSSIBLE—to avoid. Tanya has expressed many times—so very wisely—that there's only so much we can isolate our children from, so we might as well jump on board and take the wild ride with them. We can help navigate, educate, and explain so at least the discussion happens with people who understand and are willing to take the time to clarify challenging concepts. Hopefully, when the time comes for our youngsters to make their own decisions, our trust in them emboldens them with the confidence and wisdom to come out ahead most of the time.

For the record, I'm still peeved at the mom who didn't ask permission. I'd have been just as upset if another parent made a decision like that for me, and I respect my friend's conviction as a responsible, dedicated parent who's trying to do what she feels best.

But as I watch my kids grow up in a society where pop radio plays songs with lyrics that were banned by the FCC 20 years ago, and where the ubiquity of sex and overindulgence is the norm rather than the exception, I keep reminding myself that life doesn't carry a rating. But with some flexible PG, our kids might make it past 13 better equipped for the future. That might be as close to perfect as we can get.

A Soul-Binding Experience

Tanya and I caught Sophia in a couple of lies. Nothing major, but enough to warrant attention.

Like any normal kid, my 9-year-old played the Bill Clinton/Mark McGwire denial card for a while, but eventually caved when there was no more room to skate. Tanya explained very clearly, calmly and compassionately that lying will not be tolerated in our house. As one would expect, Sophia was embarrassed. There were some tears shed, some frowning, some running away, and some time taken to get over it all. Eventually hugs were exchanged to wash the incident away. We felt good.

While I was cuddling in bed with her afterward, she was still clearly shaken by the fallout. "It seems like you and Mom never do anything wrong," she said. "It seems like you guys always do everything perfect."

In nearly 12 years of parenting, including writing a regular newspaper column in the Fort Collins Coloradoan for four years chronicling the things my kids have said, nothing had punched a hole in my heart more than that line. Truly, I felt like an absolute failure.

I paused for a few seconds to gather my thoughts, and got started mending this fence. I explained to Sophia that she, like me and Tanya and Ella, is like every human being on the planet: she has made mistakes and will make plenty more, and the only negative would be not learning from them. I told her it's better to admit the mistake early and be done with it, rather than try to perpetuate it. We talked about how Tanya and I love her no matter what she does or says to us or anyone else, no matter how she behaves. There is nothing she could do to make us not love her.

I dug deep into the archives to tell her about forging my mother's signature on a detention slip in third grade (she found out and I got in some serious shit); throwing a baseball through a window at school in 5th grade; spending every penny in my piggy bank on hockey cards in the 6th grade without telling my mom; dating a girl my parents hated for a year and a half (I hated her too...not sure what I was thinking) and being significantly less than polite on many occasions when they called me on it; making mistakes at work, having to rewrite articles I submitted because they were terrible; saying thoughtless things to my friends over the years...the list goes on and on.

I found myself hugging Sophia tighter and tighter as I told her how I felt a true kinship with her. We both set our personal expectations too high, then tend to worry and internalize our feelings and get stressed out when things don't turn out as perfectly as we want them to. I've intuitively felt this way for quite some time, I told her, but only started realizing it in my thirties, and she was lucky to begin to understand it now. We are both sensitive to how others see us and depend too much on positive feedback. We're both a bit silly and don't shy from the center of attention, and we both need to be physically active to keep our minds sane. She doubted my sincerity initially, but I think she got the picture.

The whole experience—stroking her head and holding her tightly and listing all the ways we are connected—was mind-blowing. We do quite a bit of expressing our feelings in our house, and we're not shy to get emotional. But this was different. This was a soul-binding moment that I had never felt before with anyone but Tanya, the moment I realized I was mind-meltingly in love with her.

It's the rare moments like these that make me realize that no feeling on Earth could ever compare to being a parent.

But really...who's counting?

Sophia signed up for basketball this winter. Aside from making her hoops-crazy dad very happy, the benefits are numerous: regular physical activity with two hour-long practices and one game every week for six weeks, learning the fundamentals at a young age, and being introduced to the essence of sportsmanship and competition.

Uh, hold on a second for that last one.

At the last practice before their first game, Sophia's coach informed the team that per City of Fort Collins youth sports program rules, they would not be keeping score during the games. Before you go all Fox-News-The-World-is-Ending on me, keep in mind that this rule only applies to 2nd and 3rd grade games. The goals of this measure are, presumably, to encourage in the youngest cadre of prospective Lebrons and Durants the importance of skill development, sportsmanship, and having fun, not to turn us into a nation of soft-serve ice cream cones.

Behold the double-edged sword of competition and sportsmanship in youth sports in today's America.

I'm on board with focusing on skill development and getting the rules down, especially when getting on SportsCenter with windmill dunks and long-distance 3s isn't an option (yet). But isn't a large part of sports the fact that one team wins and another loses?

For the sake of this post, please disregard soccer.

In general, I'm not a fan of the "everybody-gets-a-ribbon" thing. I will say, however, having witnessed the stress created in young kids by the constant pressure to win at all costs (from coaches and parents alike), I am not in favor of promoting that ethos, either. The outcome matters, but physical and emotional health should always be the most important goals. Most people don't end up making a living at athletics so winning a game in elementary school doesn't affect our lives that much.

Basketball, being a team game, can be quite nuanced. It's not enough to learn the basics and think one will be successful in game situations. Keeping score is crucial in learning offensive and defensive strategy, and in grasping the concept of "team" first. It can take kids a long time to learn that your teammates' points are also your points, and that playing defense, sacrificing yourself to get the ball, pulling down a rebound to secure possession, or making an assist are just as important to success as hitting a long jumper. Score is important because it reflects the triumph of the team over the individual. If you don't believe me, watch highlights of the 2014 San Antonio Spurs or the 1986 Boston Celtics.

Competitive also sports teach us the ability to learn how to deal with success and failure gracefully, knowing that the outcome of a singular event should not define a life's value. When I was a young basketball player, our team was terrible and I barely played the entire season (because I, too, was terrible). I was forced to practice more. It worked because in the following four years I became a much better player and earned my way off of splinterville. Losing, on a personal and team level, drove me to do what was necessary to feel good about my game and, by extension, myself. Hard work is the only way to get better, and that's a lesson I learned as much from sports as anywhere else in life. Therein lies the key element of the zero-sum arena of competitive sports: keeping score incentivizes bettering oneself. And who doesn't want to do that?

At the 2nd and 3rd grade level, I guess it's not really a big deal. But I found it interesting that in immediate response to the coach's announcement, the team—remember, 7- and 8-year old girls wearing fluorescent shorts and pink t-shirts with flowers and cats on them—groaned uniformly and said, "Then how will we know who wins?"

Maybe the league should have asked the kids first.