Five Weddings and I Have Questions

In the past five weeks, my wife and I attended five weddings. The weddings were outdoor and indoor, big and little, religious and secular. We know the families well and we were outsiders. We traveled and stayed close to home. It has been rejuvenating and wonderful to share the joy of these couples and their families. Yet, as I reflect on these weddings, I have questions. 

Planning a wedding is rehearsal for marriage. The dynamics that will become the backdrop of married life are developing for most of these couples. The event itself is a reflection of the couple and, sometimes, their parents. Some weddings are big parties, others are an affirmation of tradition, and some feel like skating on silk. 

It has been more than thirty years since my wife, our families, and I planned our wedding. It is clear there is a continuum of involvement in wedding planning for the grooms. Some sit to the side and do as they are told. I am a theatre director and English teacher. I like control. I was actively part of putting together our wedding. Most of the grooms seemed involved in the wedding, although one joked about the triviality of his participation.  

Gender roles were very much on display at these weddings – and there are things that baffle me. Of course, I want to walk my child down the aisle. I can’t imagine NOT doing that. However, in several of the weddings we saw, only dad walked the bride down the aisle. Often the groom walked down by himself. Both parents walking their child down the aisle was the exception, which surprised me. One of the side effects of this is that certain parts of each family are more visible and others slip into the background.

What surprised me more was the line at the end of the ceremony: “Let me introduce for the first time, Mr. and Mrs.” Many of these weddings finished that with “Groom’s first and last name.” So the bride was just Mrs. That felt strange to me. Twice, it was “Mr. and Mrs. Groom’s last name.” I guess that is a little more egalitarian, but not much. Twice, it was Mr. and Mrs. Bride and Groom and Groom’s last name,” so at least the bride got her first name in there. One time, the bride and groom were introduced separately, although the bride was introduced with the groom’s last name. I did not take it as a given that my wife would take my last name. We discussed it. I know so many people who do not change their names when they get married, so maybe this was not a representative sample. 

I have only officiated at one wedding. While I hope I did an okay job, I am sure that our rabbi would have done it better. Weddings feel far too important to leave to amateurs. Two of the weddings had a friend officiate. They were fine. One had someone I assume they hired. He did better with the ceremony, but it was clear that he didn’t really know the couple. This is one of myriad reasons to be part of a community. The ceremonies that I thought worked the best were led by officiants who knew the couple and were experts on how to make a wedding work well. 

Most of the couples wrote their own vows or wrote letters to each other. In most cases, they read these, although once, the officiant read them. These were universally beautiful and the best part of the ceremonies. When this part was absent, the ceremony felt far less personal. The readings in the weddings were, for the most part, traditional, tried, and true. They felt routine. The music was highly varied and included both religious and pop as well as tunes that I had never encountered. In a few ceremonies, the music felt more meaningful than the readings. 

Several of the weddings were grounded in religion while others appeared to go to great lengths to minimize religious references. I wonder how the couples who come from different backgrounds will deal with religion. Will they avoid it, as they did in their wedding? I worry when the way we deal with differences is to push them to the side. Why not celebrate our different cultures? 

I have questions about the receptions. I am not fussy about the food (but I love it when someone cares enough to worry about us vegetarians) and I don’t drink much beyond the toasts. My wife and I like to dance a little. What is important to me is being able to connect with the people who invited me. I really appreciated it when the bride and groom and their families made it a point to greet their guests. I loved being able to meet family members I did not know – often very important people in this celebration! When some of these key people were inaccessible, I wondered if everything was okay. 

The toasts were very good. None of the weddings had those stereotypical horrible wedding embarrassments. The best toasts were obviously written in advance. The impromptu toasts, while clearly heartfelt, had less impact. However, a few times these toasts were written out and still ended up an unfocused ramble. I was curious about who did and did not speak. The bride’s father always spoke, but not always the bride’s mother. The groom’s parents sometimes spoke, but often, the mother less so. The best man and maid or matron of honor spoke in all but one, yet the other members of the wedding party, especially the siblings of the couple, didn’t always speak. When some of these important people did not toast the couple, I had questions. 

At the first and last of our five weddings, no one clinked glasses asking for the couple to kiss. I didn’t know how they managed that. It was brilliant. When I heard the clinking at the other weddings, it made me question the practice. Not only did I not miss it, but it gave the bride and groom the opportunity to move around more freely. 

I could list question upon question about the choices of song for the mother-son and father-daughter dances. There seems to be one that is clearly the standard choice for Christian families for the father-daughter dance. I did wonder about the father of the groom and the mother of the bride. Why not include them? Why not invite the families up to dance with each other after the traditional gendered dancing. 

Two of the weddings threw the bouquet and garter. Like the glass clinking, I didn’t miss these when they were absent and found it a bit jarring. One of these weddings seemed to take it seriously and the other played with them in a funny and sexy way. It was nice to have an activity that called people to the dance floor, but I wondered about the unspoken message about the importance of marriage. Okay, we were at a celebration of marriage. 

None of our five weddings was for a same sex couple. None of them was a second marriage. I wonder how these parts of the celebration would be seen in other forms of unions. 

Because symbols are so important to me, and I worked in a world where implied meanings reins, I was highly conscious of the combination of all the elements during my wife and my wedding. Not everyone appears to do this. As a theatre director, I think about my audience. But a wedding is not a play. It is for the couple and their families. The audience is as much witness as participant. For some, the real focus is on the couple, their experience, and how the wedding elements help them both celebrate and prepare for their life together. Still, I have questions. 

I Will Not Be THAT Parent!

The recent college admission scandal has increased our awareness of snowplow, lawnmower, and attack helicopter parents. Parents across the nation, especially White affluent parents, are shaking their heads in disbelief and saying, “I am not THAT parent. At least I didn’t do THAT!”

In my more than thirty years in education, I have seen many parents eschew one sin only to turn around and commit another which is just as egregious.

So when someone says they never want to be THAT parent. I am not sure what they mean. Here is what I mean: I will never be the:

Puppet parent who pulls the strings and robs their children of agency. Instead, I teach my children to share control and be responsible members of our family and the community.

Ass wiper parent who does absolutely everything for their children. Instead, I will foster independence and autonomy in my children and help give them tools to solve their problems on their own.

Controlling parent who keeps their children dependent. Instead, I will teach my children how to make choices and decisions and to accept their (and my own) limits of control

Wimpy parent who just can’t say, “no.” Instead, I will play the role of adult and teach my children that actions have consequences even when they are unpleasant and that my child’s power is real and shared.

Alarmist parent who worries about everything! Instead, I will help my children take risks and push their boundaries and realize that my limits are not theirs.

Unpredictable parent who cannot be trusted or relied upon. Instead, I will provide my child with stability and consistency. My word and promise will have meaning. I will be dependable and teach my children that they can rely on me.

Needy parent who leans on their children. Instead, I will have a life beyond my role as a parent and model for my children how adults are multifaceted.

Buddy parent who behaves just like another kid. Instead, I will develop healthy relationships based on our roles as parent and child. We can have fun and enjoy each other without my child becoming my peer. I am healthy enough to have friends of my own. I will encourage and model for my child how to form strong relationships.

Indulgent parent who provides everything. Instead, I will demonstrate to my child that joy does not come from things, but from relationships and actions. I will not substitute bribes for my time and affection.

Pollyanna parent who believes everything will all work out for the best on its own. Instead, my children and I will partner to figure out problems and use reason and research to assess and act on issues and challenges.

Proxy parent who turns the parenting over to others. Instead, I will take responsibility and not farm out my parenting responsibilities to tutors, sitters, and consultants. I will need experts, but they will help and advise my family not act in my place.

Critic parent who drills their children like drafted soldiers. Instead, I will coach gently and celebrate my child’s interests and talents.

Privileged parent who disregards rules and behaves as if he and his children have no limits and are entitled to whatever they want. Instead, I will teach my children to respect others and the systems that make our society work. I will help my children find their humility and generosity and recognize that others’ needs are as (or more) important as their own.

I will check myself when I catch myself with these parental tendencies. I will not ignore my mistakes and my tendency to drift into poor parenting. Instead, I will be a reflective parent who questions his decisions and talks openly about parenting with his wife, children, and other parents – and sometimes reverses course, changes direction, and tries another parenting approach.

None of us is born knowing how to parent. None of us can do it on our own. All parents need a support network. Every child deserves thoughtful adults who ask, why am I doing this? What lessons am I teaching my children?

So we can take far more from this college scandal than the satisfaction of saying, “At least I didn’t do THAT! At least I am not THAT parent!”

Twenty First Century Fathering

As we approach Father’s Day, I think about how fathering has changed since I became a parent. I look at my friends who have children under the age of fifteen and see many following a different path than their parents. I see true parental partnering. I see dads staying at home and parents sharing the child-rearing opportunities. There is a different model of fathering for the twenty-first century.

For more than fifteen years, I called myself a full-time father and a part-time teacher. I was not going to be a “babysitter.” I was not going to be the father who left the primary parenting to his wife. I did not want my children, when difficult issues came up, to say, “I need to talk to mom.”

There are issues that mom handles better than dad. There are times when the kids know which parent is the go-to person. That is also part of the balance. I want my children to have role positive models of both fathering and mothering. My parents did a great job in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I remember being the only one of my friends whose mother did not stay at home. I remember when that changed. As my wife and I approached parenting, we consciously decided to move further down that line. We shared taking time off of work for parental leave. We alternated who stayed home with sick children. We both got up in the middle of the night. The only tasks that were assigned by were breastfeeding!

Every year, I give a presentation for the parents of freshman students at my school. The meeting is at 9:30 am, which works well if you are a stay-at-home parent. However, many parents arrive wearing the same kind of name badge ID that I wear. They left work to attend the meeting. We usually get between twenty and forty parents. Well, it is almost always twenty to forty moms. However, in the past few years, more men have been attending as well. The percentages are not high enough that I want to note them here, but the trend is moving in a good direction. Maybe someday soon, there will be as many dads as moms at the school meetings.

I am optimistic that things are changing –and changing is the key word here. I vividly recall taking my daughter to the shopping mall when she was about one year old. When it came time to change her diaper, I went into the bathroom, but there was no changing station. I went to the information desk and asked where I could find a changing station? I was told that only the women’s restrooms were so equipped. So I changed my daughter’s diaper on the counter at the information desk.

Today, there are changing stations in many men’s public bathroom. Not only would there be no changing station in my bathroom, when I was with my daughter, I could not go to the bathroom at all! I was delighted to see a baby holding device on the back of a stall door in one bathroom as well!

So out there, somewhere, younger dads are moving parenting into the future. Businesses did not see the need for changing tables when my children were young, but now they do. I hope this works both ways: parents have asked for this, and dads now access them. 

Happy Father’s Day, dads! Happy going to the meetings, changing the diapers, and being an active, intentional, and critical partner in the parenting of your children. Happy twenty-first century parenting!

College Advice from Shakespeare and Me

In the weeks (alright, months) before my son’s departure for college, I found myself giving him bits of advice. I am not the only one. It was as if everyone had the need to pack his bags.

Some of us know what we’re talking about. Some of us are out of date. Some of us are spouting platitudes and clichés. Some of us are telling him what he already knows. Then there is the question of whether this kind of advice is useful at all.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we also have college advice. Polonius, the king’s most trusted advisor, delivers a long speech of advice to his son, Laertes. While some of the advice seems reasonable and even classic, there is an issue with this scene. Polonius is a problematic character. He is closely allied with the villain of the play. He likes to spy on the younger people. He even sends a servant to secretly watch over his son while he is at school! Even his son, prior to hearing the advice, is disappointed that he didn’t leave before his father had a chance to talk to him again. Polonius is sometimes called a melding windbag.

Like the advice my son has received, much of what Polonius tells his son is common sense. In fact, much of it was trite even in Shakespeare’s time. Does that mean that the advice is less worthy? Polonius is a problematic character whom Hamlet despises. Do the words change their meaning when they come from such a person?

I do not want to be Polonius. I don’t want my child to roll his eyes when I give him advice about college. Which leads us to the question of the worth of unsought advice. Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. I can think of several examples where someone has guided me without my request and it has been critically important.

So how do we help our children navigate college without becoming intrusive meddlers or long-winded old fools? Can we share some important wisdom without the eye rolls?

Polonius starts his speech by giving his son his “blessing” (Hamlet 1.3.56) and that may be a good start. Framing our advice as a form of sharing our love and not an attempt to maintain our control may open the listening door a little crack.

One of Polonius’s first pieces of advice is “give thy thoughts no tongue,/Nor any unproportioned thought his act” (Hamlet 1.3.58-59). Listening first is a good idea. In college, students encounter new people with backgrounds different than their own. Their prejudices cannot help but show. Telling our children to slow down and think as they listen is a skill with which I continue to struggle. Listen, then think, then think again and only then speak. This is the best way to prevent athlete’s tongue.

Relationships are key in college. Learning to build bonds and reach out to peers, professors, and others is what may make or break a college experience. Polonius notes this, too:  “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,/ Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel” (Hamlet 1.3.61-62). Yes, reach out to your roommate, kids on your floor and in your classes and activities. Go further; connect to your professors, grad students, advisors, and those all important administrative assistants, administrators, RAs, and people behind desks or counters. Treat people well and take care of them!

Polonius says, in his own way, that clothes make the man  (Hamlet 1.3.71). I am not sure I agree that our kids need to focus on what they wear that much. However, I am sending my son to a university that is often called J Crew U.

Many of us have tried to find borrowed items or to get someone to pay back a loan. Polonius’s platitude of, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (Hamlet 1.3.74) may be common sense, but that doesn’t diminish its truth.

Polonius does not tell Laertes to be a self-starter. He doesn’t tell him to be proactive and make things happen, rather than passively waiting for them to occur. That was one of my most important pieces of advice to my children.

Laertes was an aristocrat and probably wasn’t real concerned about his grades. I want my children to read the syllabus and put the deadlines in their calendars and then pay attention to them!

Eating well, being able to do laundry and basic cleaning, managing time and money seem like the topics that will elicit those eye rolls. I couldn’t help myself. The Polonius in me made me include them here.

Polonius’s most famous piece of advice, and one of Shakespeare’s most often cited quotations is, “This above all: to thine own self be true, /And it must follow, as the night the day, /Thou canst not then be false to any man” (Hamlet 1.3.77-79). What does this mean to eighteen-year-olds? Do they know themselves this well? Can they be true to shifting values, desires, and majors? They try on personas like clothing (Oh, now I get it). That may be one of the most important tasks in college: to figure out who you are, what you love, how you learn, and how to make your way in the world independently.

 

Perhaps that means finding other sources of advice. Cultivating a support network of people whose advice you trust is invaluable at any age. Give those trusted people permission to tap you on the shoulder and say the things that must be said. Be that kind of person for others. Have a set of people, both peers and others, who will reach over and give you a hand when you have fallen – even if you don’t know you have fallen.

And, of course, call or text or email home. Your parents miss you. Call your father. Often.  

  

Work Cited:
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006. Print.

The Big Goodbye

I am not good at letting go. I like my children to be at home. I am happiest with a full house. Yet, I am facing an empty nest. My younger child is about to leave for college.

When we took his older sister to college, just four years ago, the goodbye was quick and unceremonious. We had finished bringing all her things into her dorm room, set them up, and then she hopped out of the car, waved to us and it was over. There was no big meal or protracted hugs and kisses. It was like dropping her off at a friend’s house. My wife looked at me and asked, “Was that it? Was that the goodbye?” I have no doubt it will be similar with our son.

I have trouble envisioning it. I have difficulty thinking about the house being so quiet and empty. I had the great privilege of going to school with both my children. For the past eight years, we saw each other in the halls, walked to school or home together, and shared a world. Now, my son’s school world will be apart from mine. Both nests will be empty.

When I went to college, I called home in the evening every Sunday. If my parents wanted more contact, they would leave a message on my new-fangled phone answering machine and I would call back when it suited me. Now, we have text messages, emails, Facebook, Instagram, and the ubiquitous cell phones. Not only can we be in touch, we can be enmeshed.  

We didn’t smother each other when we lived together, so I doubt we will do so now that he is at college. I do have moments when I just want to see his face or hear his voice. That is one reason I take so many pictures. They help. My kids make fun of me that I take screen shots of our video chats. Those screen shots prevent me from being the dad who calls too much. They are mementos of the calls that help me to breathe and relax and know that it will be all right.

Frankly, I am choked up as I write this now. What a stupid idea! Let’s visit the big goodbye ahead of time so I can feel it twice! Super! Perhaps this can be rehearsal. Perhaps this will help me not be a total mess as we pull away from the dorm and campus and start the long drive home.

Just to make things interesting, my older child is coming home to join us on the goodbye journey. She will fly out immediately after we return from dropping off her brother. Great! Two goodbyes. While I am used to living apart from her, I still miss her all the time. She and I have trouble ending video chats. They go on and on. We run out of things to say, but neither of us can end the conversation. My son is not so sentimental. Now. My daughter’s move to college changed our relationship. My son’s departure will no doubt transform ours, too. The thing is, I liked our relationship before.

I hope that, someday, they live a little bit closer. I hope that, someday, it will take less than five or six hours to see them in person. But I know that the relationship we shared before college is gone. I am going to have to make my peace with the new situation and find a way for it to be much more than an empty nest.

So this separation is training for all of us. It is a chance for both of my kids to establish their independence far enough away from their folks that, even with the use of the electronic tethers, they make their own lives.

And it is a chance for their father to learn he can do the same.