Tag: parenting

Shaped By Our Suffering

When we lived in Colorado, I would see trees on the edge of cliffs as we drove through the mountains. The wind and weather at that elevation could be brutal. But these trees would grow thick roots to ground themselves into the earth, even as their trunk and branches were bent and battered and grew angled towards the sky to withstand the constant pressure from the wind.

I recently came across the phrase “shaped by our suffering,” which speaks to how difficult experiences can shape a person’s character, perspective, or life path. While painful and often unwanted, the idea is that suffering can lead to personal growth, resilience, and a deeper understanding of life.

For as long as my son can remember, he has had challenges. He has had seizures, memory, attention, and learning difficulties. He was isolated even before the pandemic and, even now, is often on the outside of many social situations. He had so many dreams taken away from him before he could try to achieve them.

Through it all, though, his challenges and struggles shaped him into a sweet, empathetic, resilient, and big-hearted person. Those are his roots, which ground him as a person and to this family and keep him from getting blown away by what he endures every day to be in the world.

His struggles have also shaped me, forcing me to reflect on myself, my life, and my choices and develop a greater self-awareness. The months in the hospital while the doctors, nurses, and support staff kept him alive and rebuilt what he had lost changed my view on life, gratitude, and presence. The strength and grace he shows daily in the face of his challenges guide how I think about and approach challenges in my day.

The hardship we endured as a family, which tried to tear us apart, formed deeper, stronger connections between my wife and me and in our family. Today, those roots continue to strengthen, ground us, and make us more resilient against whatever comes our way.

Like the trees I saw in Colorado, we are shaped by the winds of our struggles. The storms we face may bend and scar us, but they also deepen our roots, making us more resilient and grounded in the things that truly matter. My son’s suffering has shaped him into a remarkable person with an incredible capacity for empathy, strength, and love. It’s taught me to live with more gratitude, to be more present, and to face my challenges with the same strength as my son.

The hardships we endure don’t define us, but they shape us—and sometimes, they make us stronger than we ever imagined possible.

November 19, 2024
All the Feels

Well, that happened.

I hoped we were better. I hoped we could be compassionate and selfless enough to think beyond the issues that impact us individually and vote for the issues that affect our country. I hoped we could see past the tactics of anger and fear that have polarized us against each other. I hoped that the close-minded view that the country was meant only for people who looked, spoke, and prayed like us would bend to consider the segments of the population at risk of losing their rights and identity.

But the results spoke for all of us. Unlike the last election, there were no claims of a stolen election. There is no debate that the Electoral College doesn’t represent what the country believes like the popular vote does because, this year, they both overwhelmingly showed what our country has become.

The past week has been filled with armchair analysis and retroactive criticism about what went wrong for the Democratic Party. Each clip tries to encapsulate a soundbite to explain the rationally irrational human brain, often contradicting another clip that uses the opposite justification.

I’m not sure we will ever know the answer. It certainly won’t change what is about to happen. But I think people want change but don’t want to change. We don’t seek information that could change us because our minds and hearts are not open to change, and we bury ourselves deep into echo chambers that reaffirm our righteousness.

What I do know is that this week, I felt all the feels. As a husband, the father of a special needs child, the godfather of a teenage girl, a veteran, and a friend of beautiful humans from different countries with different beliefs and identities, I was shocked by the result, angry at who we have become, and afraid of what the world will look like for the people who I care about in the next few years and for my son when he grows up.

We may not recognize it because we’re so caught up in our feelings, but our kids have a lot of feelings about this, too. They see what is happening and hear our conversations even if they don’t understand the details. They’re trying to make sense of what is happening, too, and if we can’t do it, how can we expect them to do it?

What we can do is help them with their feelings. We can encourage them to say their feelings out loud and to ask for help when their feelings are confusing or too big. We can demonstrate this behavior by sharing our feelings with them in an age-appropriate way. We can be present, listen, and demonstrate sympathy and empathy for them and everyone who needs it now more than ever.

Last year, my wife published a children’s book called “And” about feelings and the permission to feel multiple, conflicting feelings all at once. We use AND a lot in our house, as do our friends and readers. I think it’s such an important message, especially in these challenging times, and especially for our children, that we’re offering a 50% discount on the book to share the message and help as many children and families as possible.

To claim the discount, visit our store and use the code “ALLTHEFEELS2024” for 50% off through November 2024 when you order directly from kettlepot press.

Take care of yourself and your family. And let’s take care of each other.

November 12, 2024
Repeating History

In case you haven’t heard, we have a big election coming up in the United States. To be fair, many countries are seeing their politics follow the same loud, divisive, truth-adjacent bullying trend that was made popular by the success of one of our “candidates” in 2016.

It’s even worse this year.

It’s also terrifying to think this is the world my son will grow up in.

Candidates are being elected and staying in power by peddling fear and hate for the “other.” The easy group to target is immigrants. Falsehoods about their choice of protein and taking over small towns across the country continued to spread long after they were disproved. But it’s a slippery slope to go from immigrants to those who support immigrants to any group that is different or believes differently. History has not been kind to people like my son, for example. People with disabilities were lumped into the “other,” the inferior, and the unworthy of life.

Too many people believe and repeat the blatant lies coming from these candidates, either because they align with the way they want the world to be or because we have lost the ability to think critically, question what we are told, and discover the truth for ourselves. Even when all the data and science support a particular fact, if it goes against what they want to be true, they’ll lean into their doubt. They’ll claim the other side and media are biased for saying the same thing (e.g., facts), and they’ll listen to the pundits in their echo chamber because surfacing “alternative facts” makes them “unbiased.” They think their doubt makes them clever. They’re mistaking cleverness for ignorance.

They think their doubt makes them clever.
They’re mistaking cleverness for ignorance.

Single-issue voters are willing to look the other way and ignore the unpalatable aspects of a candidate as long as the candidate holds (or says they hold) the same position on a specific issue. “Sure, this candidate is a felon, racist, sexist, fascist dictator, but they’re pro-life, which is the only thing that matters.” Worse, they’ll combine their logic with the doubters above and try to justify their position by convincing themselves that the other labels are misunderstood, out of context, or “just politics.” They can’t believe someone who agrees with their position on a key issue could be a monster, even if the candidate only claims to agree to get enough votes to push a much more dystopian, self-serving agenda.

This includes people who believe that our political system is broken and that bringing in an outsider is the way to fix it. If one candidate represents the establishment, regardless of their policies or fitness to lead, they won’t get the vote. Even in a crisis where the country would benefit from someone who understands the system, and even if the non-establishment candidate is unqualified, a criminal, incompetent, and dangerous, they believe that voting for and electing an outsider will make the country better.

When I was in history class, we read about World War II and asked how a country could elect a party and a person who would ultimately commit such atrocities on the world. I couldn’t understand how millions of people could minimize or normalize the extreme rhetoric, the hate, and the violence. It seemed so unfathomable that anyone could look the other way or fully support their country’s direction.

But here we are, nearly a century later, repeating history. People are spreading the idea that our country has lost its way and that we need to go back, that outsiders are a threat to our national identity, and that the other side is what will cause our country’s collapse. Fear, hate, us versus them—it’s the same playbook. And the party and its people are going along with it because it’s more important to win and be in control than to be good and do good. When you’re willing to win at any cost, humanity loses.

It makes me wonder if, 100 years from now, students will sit in a history class wondering how we let this happen. They’ll have the benefits of time and hindsight to see the similarities between parties trying to make their countries great again at any cost because they were too focused on looking back at what they thought their country was instead of looking forward to what it could become.

October 29, 2024
Breaking the Cycle

When our son was seven years old, after he had mostly stabilized and we had left the hospital, we began teaching him how to ride a bike. Or, rather, we began to reteach him how to ride a bike. The motor skills he developed riding a balance bike when he was three and then a bicycle with training wheels were wiped away and replaced by imbalance and ataxia during the early years of his seizures.

We brought his bike to a city park and found a quiet corner near the grass. I got him on his bicycle and ran behind him, pushing from behind as he found his footing on the pedals towards my wife further down the path. After he found the motion, I would slow down, and he would continue under his own power until he reached his mom, who would help slow him down and repeat the sequence to send him back to me.

I learned to run a bike the same way. My mother and grandfather pushed me on the street in front of my grandparent’s house for hours until I could ride alone. My mother probably learned the same way from my grandfather, who probably learned the same way from his parents. In many ways, parenting is a hand-me-down exercise where we learn how to be a parent from our parents.

But what happens when the approach or behavior that was done to you is not what you want for your child? Whether it’s because new information invalidated an outdated approach or times have changed, the techniques may not apply today. Or, for many people, we’ve learned what was done to us is considered abuse and is not a legacy we want to pass down to our children.

In those situations, our references are tainted. What we know is unusable. The only option we have is to figure it out for ourselves.

Figuring it out is the scary part. I’m constantly afraid that I’m not doing the right thing as a parent and that I will end up doing it worse than my parents did.

But maybe the fear is a sign that we’re on the right path.

It shows that we’re not just blindly repeating the past but actively trying to do better. Learning to parent without a perfect roadmap is daunting, but we are making progress every time we break a harmful cycle or approach our children with more empathy and understanding than we were given.

We may not have all the answers, but we have the ability to grow, adapt, and create a new kind of legacy—one built on love, effort, and the determination to raise our children with more care than we received.

And in the end, that might be what matters.

October 22, 2024
What Matters is the Repair

Hello, Hindsight, my old friend.
You’ve come to talk to me again.
Because a mistake I made today
Left its mark and pushed someone away
And the shame that was planted in my brain
Still remains
With the sounds of silence

On more than one occasion, my response to an action that my son did was out of proportion to the action itself. Usually, it’s because he repeated the same action, and there is an escalation of consequences. But sometimes, it’s driven by my trauma, insecurities, and fear about my son’s future.

A few weeks ago, there was the Chocolate Bar Incident that I wrote about in a previous post that involved him lying about sneaking candy. The candy wasn’t the issue; the lying was, and it triggered a knee-jerk reaction to take away his electronics “for I don’t know how long.”

I was so frustrated with his lying, and I didn’t understand why he was doing it. I had a hard childhood, and I feared that he was lying the same way that I lied because he felt unsafe like I did. I was also afraid that it was because of his impulse control and executive functioning issues. I needed to shock him with extreme consequences to change his behavior and stop him from lying. Otherwise, how could he go out into the world?

Like I said…out of proportion.

After I had time to cool off, I felt terrible. Yes, he struggles with impulse control and executive functioning, but so do a lot of people. Also, teenagers lie. It’s normal and doesn’t necessarily reflect on his future possibilities.

I thought about how I responded and how I should have responded and felt like an asshole. Feelings of guilt and shame washed over me, and I feared that my response would be what stuck with him about this situation and that it would affect or define our relationship.

I went in to apologize. I shared why I had my reaction, explaining how I was afraid he was having the same childhood and experiences that I did. That fear and projection about his future triggered my response because I wanted to change his path so that he didn’t have to endure the same challenges that I did. But I understand that wasn’t what was happening; it just looked the same. I told him I was sorry, and he accepted my apology like the sweet, kind, empathetic boy that he is.

That, I am learning, is what will define our relationship. What matters isn’t the mistake. What matters is the repair.

We all make mistakes. As much as we wish we could be perfect in our relationships, we’re human, which means we’ll stumble, say the wrong thing, or make a bad choice occasionally. Whether it’s a moment of lost patience, a misunderstanding, or a decision we wish we could take back, mistakes are inevitable. But here’s the thing: what matters most isn’t the mistake itself—it’s what happens afterward. The repair is what truly defines the strength and depth of a relationship.

When we mess up, there’s often a sense of failure or shame that comes along with it. We worry we’ve damaged trust or created distance in the relationship. But the reality is that the most meaningful connections aren’t the ones that never face difficulty. They’re the ones that grow and evolve through those moments. It’s the repair process—the act of acknowledging the hurt, making amends, and working to rebuild trust—that ultimately makes relationships stronger.

At the end of the day, it’s not the mistakes that define us—it’s what we do after them. We all face moments where we wish we had done things differently, but those moments can lead to greater understanding and intimacy if we approach them with humility and care.

Our children don’t need perfect parents; they need parents who are real, who are trying, and who are willing to own their mistakes. Children learn more from our willingness to grow than from our attempts to be flawless. When they see us apologize, try again, and love them through the messy parts of life, they learn resilience, empathy, and the value of authentic connection.

October 15, 2024