parenting – Page 2

Difficult losses

January 15, 2014 by Billy Coffey 1 Comment

image courtesy of gamescrafters.berkeley.edu

We Coffeys are a competitive bunch. Life most character traits, that particular one has both its plusses and minuses. But by and large, our competitiveness has served us well. We are not content to be merely good at something. We have to be the best. And of course, in order to be the best, you first have to beat the best.

Which I suppose is why my son kept challenging me to games of Connect Four. You know the game, right? Big yellow rectangle on a pair of blue plastic stilts. One person has black checkers, the other red, and the winner is the first to get four of his or her colors in a row. It was under the tree at Christmas. Mostly because I played it all the time when I was a kid.

My son took to the game just as I did in my once-upon-a-time. We played a game under the tree on Christmas night, then again the night after, and then every night since. Until tonight, anyway. But I’ll get to that.

The thing about playing games with your kids is that you wonder when and if you should let them win. I’ve let my kids beat me at wrestling and boxing and Scrabble and chess. Not often, mind you, but often enough. It’s important they learn graciousness. Both when they win and when they lose. But I never let my son beat me at Connect Four. Some things needs to be a challenge. And to be honest, I like my kids to think I’m a genius at something for now. I know it won’t always be like that.

So we played. He tried, I toyed. He lost, I won.

Until last night.

My son beat me. Snuck in a backdoor diagonal of four red checkers. I never saw it. And what’s worse—what’s maybe worst of all—is that by that point I really was trying to beat him. He had homework to do, and so did I. I’d used my last move to set up my third black piece in a row, hidden from his sight on the opposite side of the board. It was a brilliant move. His was more so.

He dropped in his fourth checker and bulged his eyes.

I bulged mine.

“I win!” he shouted. Then he jumped up and crawled around to my side of the board just to make sure. “I win!”

There had to be some mistake. He’d miscounted. There were three checkers, not four. Or four, but not in a row. Something. Anything.

But. No.

“You win,” I whispered.

He danced. He screamed. He told his mother and sister. He even took a picture of it.

I was happy for him. And not. Like I said, I’m competitive. I don’t like to lose, especially when I’m trying to win and ESPECIALLY when I’m trying to impress my son with my staggering strategic intellect. That’s bad, I guess. But honest. At least I was a gracious loser. I allowed him his celebration. All three hours of it.

He was still awake when I went to bed, though barely. The excitement had worn off by then, leaving behind a sheen of quiet reflection on his face. I tucked his blankets and kissed him on the forehead, then headed for the hallway.

“Dad?” he asked.

“Yeah, bud?”

“I’m sorry I beat you.”

I smiled and told him not to be, that he’d won fair and square and should be proud because I was proud. The next morning, he said he hadn’t slept well. Neither did I.

I waited tonight for him to suggest another game. He didn’t. The box still sits untouched in the basket behind the recliner. I supposed it will be untouched for a while.

I suppose every child must inevitably arrive at that moment when he realizes his father is not the perfect man he’s always believed. That he in fact makes mistakes and misses things. That he loses. That he is a fallible, fallen person. It is a difficult moment, but a necessary one.

Both for the parent and the child.

The tension between truth and magic

January 6, 2014 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

My wife—God bless her—is a person of many virtues. She is kind. Compassionate. Faithful, to both her family and her God. And she is as honest a person as you will ever meet in your life.

It’s that last one that’s been causing all the trouble lately.

It began the day after Christmas, when my son decided to spend some quality time with his new Calvin & Hobbes comic book, whereupon he found The One. You know—The One where Calvin rushes downstairs because it’s Christmas Eve and he thinks he hears Santa. The One where Hobbes rushes down, too. The one where both child and toy discover not jolly old Saint Nick setting out Calvin’s gifts, but Calvin’s parents.
My son is not stupid. Two and two were put together in short order, leading him in a straight line to his kind, compassionate, faithful, and honest mother, who cannot bear to lie to her children. About anything. And so with our son staring up at her with two brown, saucer eyes, she had no choice but admit the truth.

Now, more than a week later, our family is still in collective mourning. Christmas vacation ending and school beginning once more has not buoyed my son’s mood. These are dark times in the Coffey home. Dark times indeed.

Good thing we have a dog. Daisy is her name. Part lab, part retriever, part crazy. A rescue from the local pound, and a paragon of many virtues herself. Kind. Compassionate. An expert snuggler. She is also quite the escape artist.

Daisy managed to finagle her way out of her crate today. The damage was minimal and upon first inspection limited to moving every chew toy in the house to my bedroom closet. When my son and I left to walk the dog, all seemed well.

A second pass by my wife, however, revealed something else. At some point during the day, Daisy decided to attack my son’s favorite stuffed animal. I suppose I can blame myself for what happened next. Upon arriving home, I asked if she had spotted any further wanton destruction.
My son flashed his brown, saucer eyes once more. I am convinced such a thing operates as some kind of parental polygraph. My wife held up the stuffed animal. She didn’t stand a chance.

As it turned out, the damage required nothing more than a little cosmetic surgery to reattach a fuzzy nose. And yet three hours later, my son is still crying over Winston The Stuffed Dachshund. You would think our dog had mauled Santa.

I haven’t said much about this to anyone else, though I did offer this bit of advice to the mother of my children:

Lie. Lie to our kids. Lie like a freaking dog.

She still can’t, of course, nor will she ever. It’s not in my wife’s nature to do such a thing, and it’s all a very large part of why I love her. But the fact remains that I have no compunction to lie to my kids when I feel the situation warrants it.

Is Santa real? Absolutely. He lives at the North Pole and has a bunch of elves and rides around in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.
Did the dog tear anything up? Nope, not a single thing. Now you go wash up for supper and ignore the needle, thread, and severed puppy nose in my hand.

See? Not that difficult. And yet…

And yet a part of me feels horrible knowing I’m spreading such falsehoods. It’s guilt and remorse and everything bad, and the only way I can feel better is to tell myself all those nasty feelings are okay because those lies are keeping my kids believing just a little while longer, and safe just a little more.

Deep down I know my wife is right. But here’s the thing—she knows I’m right, too. Parenting is compromise, after all. That is why when circumstances warrant a truth from now on, whether soft or hard, my wife will be the one to deliver it. But when situations call for a little magic, that cue is mine.

We’ll see if it works. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go arrange some Matchbox cars. My son’s still convinced they come alive at night from time to time and race around his room. Should he ask his mother about this, she’ll tell him to go ask me. Should he ask me, I’ll tell him this:

Hang on, son. Trust in magic. Because that’s the stuff of dreams.

Playing catch

October 10, 2013 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

He’s nine now, a beast of muscle weighing more than seventy pounds, but my son still jumps. Most times it’s designed to catch me off guard—when I come home from work, maybe, or as I’m walking into the living room. I’ll catch a blur out of the corner of my eye, a small, fuzzy flash, and then he’s airborne. Reflex takes over from that point; whatever may happen to be in my hands gets dropped or tossed or fumbled, and I stretch out my arms. Next comes the entire force of his body crashing into me, driving me backwards. He wraps his arms and legs around me and pauses, leaving the two of us slowly rocking. It reminds me of how Navy jets land on carriers.

I don’t ask him why he still does this. To the best of my recollection, that act remains one of the few holdovers of years now gone and never to return. My son’s Fisher Price toys are collecting dust in the attic and his teddy bears are gone and so are the Lightning McQueen footie pajamas, but for some reason jumping into my arms isn’t considered childish at all. And given the frequency of these flying sneak attacks, I’m even led to consider that such a thing is important to him. Necessary, even.

Still, I don’t ask why. I suppose some of the reason is because I’m afraid broaching the subject will somehow end things. Maybe the next time my son gets it in his head to leap from the couch and aim for my chest, he’ll think twice. Maybe he’ll wonder himself why he’s doing it, or wonder if the reason I asked in the first place is because I really don’t want him doing it anymore. It’s a complicated thing, having a son who’s nine. Those are boys who want nothing more than to be men. I don’t want to mess this up. And to be honest, I’m not too anxious to see him as a man just yet. I’d rather keep thinking of him as my little buddy for a while longer.

He told me once that he can’t wait for the day when he jumps into my arms and bowls me over. He’ll know he’s big then. I don’t doubt that, but I also don’t think that’s the whole story. I think it boils down to something deeper than wanting to have muscles like The Rock (my son says this often) and to walk around all tough like Chuck Norris (which he says just as often).

I think it comes down to faith.

He’s a smart kid, my boy. Knows more about the world than I think he does. The television is still largely off in our home, especially with regards to the current goings-on in the world, but he still knows. His friends talk at school, as do his teachers. And even if he’s young enough to still be kept safe in a small-town bubble, he knows there is a shadow over the larger world. My son hasn’t seen evil yet, but he knows it’s there. And even if he’s brave enough and old enough to have discarded the notion that there is a monster in his bedroom closet, he’s beginning to see there really are monsters out there, and that most times they look just like people.

He knows that many of the kids in his school don’t have both a mommy and a daddy, and that some of them don’t have either. He’s seen classmates shuffled in and out never to be seen or heard from again, scattered here and there through divorce or job loss or so much pain that their tiny minds simply broke into pieces. A notion like grace is still somewhat foreign to him, but he can grasp the truth that all of those kids could have been him in another life.

That, I think, is why my son still jumps. Because he wants—needs—to know that when he does, his daddy will catch him. His daddy will drop everything and stand firm and hold out his arms, and even if it’s scary flying through the air the end is always both soft and hard and full of love.

That’s what I think. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but I know this—I’ll always catch my son. Every time.

Anatomy of a good day

July 8, 2013 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

Nothing says father/son bonding time quite like throwing stuff into a creek. Rocks, leaves, twigs, dirt, leftover acorns, whatever. There are few restrictions. So long as God made it and people didn’t, it’s considered current fodder.

We’re men, my son and I. He’s only nine, but he still feels the same male tendencies as his father. Which means any talk must be done under the cover of some activity that will dull the sneaky suspicion that something is being shared.

Men are generally fickle when it comes to sharing. Tools and trucks are one thing, thoughts and feelings quite another. The former may be doled out to any and all. The latter is reserved for only those closest to us, and then only maybe.

My son lifts a rock the size of a softball and heaves it into the water. The resulting splash covered the bottoms of our jeans and most of the wildflowers on the opposite side.

“Nice one,” I say.

With bellies full of dinner and the sun yawning over the mountains, this is the time of day when a certain amount of reflection is in order.

“How’s your day, bud?” I ask.

“I dunno,” he answers, this time dropping a handful of pebbles into the water, giving the sound of a miniature machine gun.

“Didn’t you have a good day?” I ask.

“Dunno,” he says again, now plopping a twig into the current and marveling as it gets marooned in a small whirlpool.

Like I said—thoughts and feelings are not the normal male’s strong suit. Better to throw stuff and make big splashes.

Then, just as I’m about to toss another rock as well, he says, “Daddy, what’s a good day?”

What’s a good day? What kind of a question is that?

Then again, when you’re nine years old and enjoying a lazy summer of sleeping in, eating sno-cones, and throwing stuff in the creek, it’s easy to misplace the notion of what makes a good day. Because that’s what every day is.

Grow up, however, and that all changes. There are bad days aplenty. Sure, there are some who say every sunrise is cause for celebration. Every day is a good day. And to them I say bull. I’ve had some truly awful days in my life, and having the knowledge that I was alive to face them did nothing to make things better.

Still, whether a day is good or bad is not just a matter of whim and circumstance. Certain ingredients are necessary. Things we must add in equal portion and in a timely manner that determine whether our days rise or fall.

“What’d you do today?” I ask him.

“Stuff,” he says, crouching down to stare at the minnows.

“Like what?”

“I watched cartoons until Momma said to play, then I played until I tripped over my Legos. That hurt. I didn’t cry, though.”

“That’s okay,” I tell him.

“Then Momma said to clean my Legos so I don’t trip over them again, so I did. It was a mess Daddy. And then I helped her pull some weeds. Then we ate lunch. I said the prayer. And then I just chilled. Did that mean I had a good day?”

I think about that while we toss more rocks into the water.

We believe a day is good as long as it’s filled with more excellence than failure. Lots of sunshine, little rain. But I don’t think so. I think a good day is one that achieves a certain balance, one that allows us to see as big a glimpse of life as we can get in twenty-four hours.

A balance like laughing at cartoons and wincing over a stubbed toe. Because seeing the joy in life doesn’t always mean avoiding the pain. Sometimes it means crying first and laughing second.

Or a balance like doing for yourself like cleaning your room, but also doing for others like snapping some beans.

It can be a balance like playing hard and resting easy.

And both acting and praying.

Balance. Yes. That’s what makes a good day. Which I guess places most of the responsibility on our shoulders, because in the end our lives depend much more upon what we do than what is done to us.

He tosses one more rock into the creek and looks at me for approval.

“I think you had a great day,” I say.

Errant negotiations

June 24, 2013 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

My children are arguing.

Not exactly breaking news, of course. Kids fight. It’s one of those givens in life that are about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning or a hot day in July. Blame it on summer vacation. I think they’re just tired of each other.

I’m not sure what caused the conflict; I just got home from work and caught the tail end of it. Something to do with Legos, from what I gather. Or an errant water balloon. One of those. Or maybe it was something else all together. You never can tell with kids. Kids can argue about anything.

I get caught up to speed by my wife, who doesn’t really know what the conflict is about herself. She was in the kitchen fixing dinner at the time. There was just a thump and a scream, followed by yells and accusations. That was enough for her. She sent both of the kids to their rooms to calm down.

I walk down the hallway to their bedrooms to say hello and gauge the amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth and find the Go To Your Room rule broken. My son is in my daughter’s room. She’s sitting Indian-style on the bed. He stands in front of her. Both are talking. Each have their arms crossed.

These are some serious negotiations, which is why I don’t barge in, make a Daddy Arrest, and charge them with not abiding by their mother’s wishes. It isn’t often that I have the opportunity to listen in on my children’s discussions. More often then not, they clamp up as soon as I enter the room and offer little more than, “Yes, Daddy?” I get plenty of opportunities to learn about what they think and believe in my conversations with them, but most times that seems like only half the story. What you think and say when your father or mother is around is often quite different than when it’s just you and a sibling in the room.

So I put my daughter’s bedroom wall between us and listen.

“I didn’t hit you on purpose,” my son says.

“Yes you did,” says my daughter. “You liked it. I saw it in your eyes.”

“You can’t see in my eyes. And you should have gotten out of my way.”

“I didn’t want to. It’s MY house too, you know.”

I’m not going to play anymore until you say you’re sorry.”

“Well I’M not going to play anymore until YOU say YOU’RE sorry.”

“All I was trying to do was get a Lego.”

“Well all I was trying to do is get a Lego, too.”

And on. And on and on.

Rather than interrupt, I decide to let them be. My kids will work this out, they always do. And then things will be fine until the next skirmish. I suspect my home isn’t much different than any other in that peaceful times are merely those few quiet days between wars of both opinion and blame.

In the meantime, I retire to the television and the evening news. Which, by the way, is much the same news as yesterday and the day before. Still the arguing, still the blaming. The system is broken, they say. I’m inclined to agree. Especially since the people who made the system are broken as well.

A commercial appears, one of those thirty-second spots about scooters old folk can ride around in to make themselves feel useful again (free cup holder included!).

The news is back, this time given by a pretty blond rather than a non-pretty man, as if bad news could seem a little better if she is the one telling it. She wonders aloud how we fix the problems in Washington, then poses the question to an educated man in a pair of thick glasses.

That’s when I turn the television off. I don’t need to listen to a pretty blond or an educated man to know how to fix things. I already know fixing them is pretty much impossible.

Because in the end, we’ll always prefer arguing rather than talking.

And we’ll always choose stubbornness over compromise.

We’ll always strive to reinforce our own opinions rather than admit those opinions might be wrong.

Call me pessimistic, that’s just how I see it.

Because our politicians really are representative of us all, if not in political philosophy than in brokenness.

Which means the adults we send to Washington aren’t really all that different than the kids we send to their rooms.

Gums and the never ending field trip

October 8, 2012 by Billy Coffey 8 Comments

Took a day off from work a while back to do something I haven’t done in about twenty years—go on a field trip. My daughter’s class was to spend the day at a local university, and she was psyched for some Daddy Time. I was pretty psyched my own self. That goes to show you how long it’s been since I’ve been around about sixty third-graders.

Any thought that our time together would be both quiet and alone was quickly put to rest with the appearance of one of my daughter’s friends, who sat with us on the bus. The little girl’s name still escapes me, though I’m sure she mentioned it. Many, many times. Mentioned quite a few other things as well. Many, many times.

Country folk like me (the men in particular) tend to shy away from calling people by their given names, opting instead for nicknames of their own creation. There is an art to this. A good nickname is comical but not mean, and usually connotes a certain physical attribute or facet of personality. I tell you that so I can tell you the nickname I’d given my daughter’s friend by the time we hit the interstate.

Gums.

Because she never shut up.

Never, ever.

The trip began with me in the middle of a bus seat designed for two small children at the most. Ours contained two small children and one big redneck. Gums began her questions early and often:

“Are you the writer?”

“You don’t look like a writer.”

“Why do your jeans have holes in them?”

“Why don’t you have any hair?”

“Can I have a copy of your book?”

“Why don’t you shave?”

“Is that your notebook?”

“Can I see?”

That was the moment I paused and asked my daughter if she would mind switching seats. There would be more room for us if I was at the window, I told her. It was a lie, of course. But the truth was that I wanted to use her as a sort of human shield, and I couldn’t tell her that.

For her part, Gums didn’t mind. She could talk across my daughter to me just as easily. I had a headache the size of Texas by the time we got off the bus.

We made our way into a ballroom, the setting for most of the day’s activities. Seven people to a table. My daughter sidled up to me in her chair. So did Gums.

Third grade fieldtrips seem to revolve around crafts. I’m not a craft sort of guy. My little girl is (thankfully), though I still had to pitch in with the glue, the tape, and the stapler. Likewise Gums, who managed to staple both herself and me to the mask she was making before we finally got everything straightened out.

That’s how most of the day went, my arms tired from my daughter clinging to them and my ears tired from the chorus of “Daddy, look!” and “Hey Mr. Coffey, c’mere!” It didn’t take me long to realize I’d never make it as a teacher.

The ride home was interesting. Me mashed against the window, my lap filled with a ceremonial mask made out of construction paper and fake feathers and a drum make out of two popcorn containers. Mass hysteria from the seats behind me, teachers fighting the good fight to keep everything calm.

My daughter laid her head on my shoulder. I saw her smile, and I knew the day had been worth it. A smile from her is always worth it.

Gums peeked at me and made a come-here motion with her finger. I leaned in close, ready for whatever questions she had this time. She had none. Instead, she leaned her mouth toward my ear and whispered, “I wish I had a daddy like you.”

Oh my.

I didn’t mind Gums talking the rest of the ride home. And to be honest, I kind of felt bad for nicknaming her Gums (though she seemed to enjoy it quite a bit).

But I learned a lot on that field trip. Not just how to make ceremonial masks and drums, either. I learned a little something about kids, too.

About how they need something else besides food, water, shelter, and love.

They need attention, too. They need adults looking at them in the eyes and listening to the things they say. And say, and say…