Discovering a Connection in a Disconnected World

I think about writing here very frequently, but somehow there is a lacking of time and motivation.

But I think what I have to say is important, at least for later reading or posterity.

The election win for Donald Trump caused a lot of insomnia last night. I didn't want to wait for the final results, just sought some degree of communal comfort from Facebook as the agony dragged on beyond midnight. I can't tell why it bothers me so much, but I am certain it's understandable.

But then, last night, as the clock approached two, I suddenly desired to read from the parenting book that Evi had been wanting me to read. The section I was reading on and off was about connection.

How to connect to your toddler. Signs of connectedness and lacking thereof.

Why? On a political level, a social level, I am responsible for bringing up children who won't turn into a Donald Trump, someone deeply insecure of himself, whose real motivation for the presidency is power, but more immediately, the feeling of conquest. It helps that it is in part done through manipulating people also in perhaps equal measures insecure about themselves, lost much hope for their lives, and grasping for voice of comfort regardless of any substance that backs it.

This world is full of people feeling disconnected. And that starts from infancy, perhaps even before birth. Most parents can't afford, financially or emotionally, build a connected relationship.

I know because I often can't find the energy and motivation.

Reading the book about connectedness is hard.

Writing in this journal about my connection to the two boys is hard.

And I can see it in my father, who is interested in helping us more by doing chores than by spending time with the children. He doesn't know how, really, and is afraid to do it. I suspect he never knew how. It's easy to take care of children when they are well-behaved, but when they are not, adults would rather walk away, even though, according to the book, those moments are the true opportunities for connection.

The lofty goal of creating the antithesis of a Donald Trump only occur to me later, next day, after sleeping only four hours at most. The immediate realization was something more personal. I saw my helplessness in the election. I prayed to the North Star on our way back last night from casting our votes that Hillary would win. And when the probability meter on the New York Times was starting to point to Trump as the evening dragged on, I prayed in my secular ways that a miracle would happen, that the algorithm they used was flawed. I call it a miracle because I know enough about algorithms and statistics to know that the probability of such error was what a miracle warranted.

That feeling of helplessness must be felt by half of the country now. There is this feeling of frustration that there wasn't anything we could do to change the outcome.

But then it occurred to me while reading about connectedness: I could focus on what I can change in life. I can recognize what was within my control, at least compared to the presidential election. What I had a much greater control in was how I raise my children. The world is very complicated and very big, and I could, like many parents, try to pursue paths in it that are very much outside of our control. But I need not look that far. Close by are two kids presented difficult challenges that are more meaningful and obvious to me than what happens now that Trump has won. I felt already closeness to them as the realization started to settle down. Their future would be slightly affected by Trump, at least I hope. But it is much more likely to be influenced by my decisions as a parent.

I found comfort, even some replenished empowerment, in this knowledge.

I wanted to be a father because I wanted a legacy, that what makes me happy and love about the world can continue on in the incarnation of my children even after I physically no longer exist. But now I have another reason: Connection to a special set of human beings. Unlike connection to adults, this connection I have much more control over, and how I shape it gives an added desire to see yet another day. I don't mean to control my children; I mean that I can steer the ship of connection in a much more meaningful way with my children than with anything and anyone else.

And that makes me feel more human, a little more fulfilled too.

Observing Father

Today the toddler screamed at my Dad for the most unexpected and mundane reason: the old man separated out the stack of pots the boy put together. It wasn't like an hour-long task, the stacking. Lately the boy has been screaming at the most bizarre things at the most unexpected moments.

But my Dad got quiet.

And he was quiet for the next two hours. The boy not only screamed but ran upstairs looking for a Mommy that had just left. The tantrum lasted a good fifteen minutes.

What was going through the grandpa's head? He felt guilty even though he had done nothing wrong. It's hard not to feel guilty when your action resulted in such stress. It's even harder when you don't have the propensity to try to understand the stress but rather simply reacting to the connection between the action and the outcome.

So he got quiet, listless, and eventually fell into his nap for the next two hours.

Besides the possible guilt, he might also be feeling anger. Where he came from such child would have been smacked. Not sure at 2.25 years old how physically abused he would have been. But where the grandpa came from, such behavior was not acceptable.

And that's an interesting mix. On the one hand, he might feel guilty, and on the other, angry. Even angrier that he didn't understand why we seemingly never discipline the toddler. It's true, we don't "discipline", not even "down time", let alone beating. Not even shouting. Our strategy is to empathize with the emotional outburst without simply either giving in to the demand (in this case, the toddler wanted to run out of the house to find Mommy) or make him feel bad for something he didn't understand. Either way, we believe, simply shuts off his emotions thereby stunting the growth of "emotional quotient", the capacity to recognize one's own emotions.

But none of this I can explain to my own Father, not the least the language barrier, but even without that barrier, there is the cultural barrier, the generational barrier. Many parents, perhaps most parents, in this American culture, would not agree with us. Our own pediatrician encouraged us to give the toddler "time out" as a beneficial means to his growth, quite the opposite of what we think time out does to a child.

I also saw much of myself in my Dad's behavior. That helped to retrain me from becoming impatient with him. Yes, I was a little annoyed. I wanted to tell him he was lowering himself to the level of the child being so petulant. He was seeking attention at this moment of distress he was himself going through. He should know better that what the boy was doing had nothing to do with him.

But I also understand that because of where he came from, the things people did to small children, he might not have the level of emotional quotient to fully separate his own feelings enough to rationally assess the situation. In this case, it was a case of sympathy. Not long ago I would have, in his place, behaved similarly. And because I am the father, I can act out more visibly. I remember in many occasions I would lower myself to the level of the toddler (or maybe the infant), becoming petulant, angry, and feeling guilty for whatever I did or didn't do that had the immediate result of the child behaving badly. I would want someone to come rescue me, not the child. I would not want to talk to the child, ignore him. I don't remember having a single moment to reflect how whatever had happened might not have been his fault.

That's the perspective as a Father for this entry. I was able to guess what my Dad was going through because I went through something similar. I never thought about hitting the boy, but beating and yelling are just points on the same path of irrational behavior.

A thought after two years

It's difficult to write an entry here. It's not because I have no time, but because I don't know how time flows. Is it a rapid or a trickling stream or the ocean before or after the storm?
Now finally some time but still brief.
I looked at my newborn son juxtaposed next to my first born. They were both naked; they had similar features that convince me they must be brothers. One wasn't quite moving much except the constant swinging of the fists into thin air while the other is jumping even while lying down. The first won a mental medal for starting to make cooing sounds while the latter is formulating sentences in three languages now. So much suddenly seemed to have happened in the two years between their births.
There was a noticeable, perhaps just an iota of, feeling of accomplishment, of pride. It is however overshadowed by this never-ending fatigue. It is almost as if it were the salty residue of the briny water that is time, moving in this way that I said earlier I couldn't describe. It seems that as long as time flows without fully connecting to my senses, that it seems constantly to be slipping through my fingers, I carry this ever greater deposit of fatigue crystals, salty, ugly, and omnipresent.
Still, I felt that tiny glitter of pride that after two exhausting years I could see what we have done for a new human being. Maybe that gives me a slight bit of enthusiasm to move forward, a tiny bit of hope for how this path of fatherhood will manifest itself.

Negotiation

Today Yeshi blabbered the words "Orange juice", "Smoothie", "Restaurant". Actually, he pronounces them something like "Ajus", "Moofie", and "Shaba". But they weren't random. He also added his version of "Zähnli putze", Swiss German for "brushing teeth". Orange juice and Restaurant are currently the reasons he is allowed to have a smoothie before sleeping. We're trying to discourage him from having too many smoothies since it is very sugary even though we don't add sugar. But Smoothie is the reason for him to have to comply to teeth brushing, except when there are reasons to skip smoothie.

So he hadn't forgotten the reasons for brushing teeth, nor the exceptions to that reason. just turned 2 years plus a month!