Somehow I'll Make A Man Out Of You: Fathers & Sons, Traditions & Legacy

On June 10th 2014, it was supposed to hit the fan. That was when my wife was due to give birth to our second child – my son. My then 4-year old daughter was ecstatic; as was my wife (the poor woman had no idea what she was in for though…).

I, on the other hand, was terrified.

Being faced with even the prospect of taking responsibility for making a man out of my son literally kept me up nights. My father wasn’t around at all when I was growing up and, other than my grandfather and great-grandfather, the majority of my male role models were my mom’s gay friends. I think I turned out just fine, clinging to what I could glean from the older men in my life. But these men built character the old fashion way – literally. Conversely, I grew up a relatively normal middle-class kid during the 80’s. There were definitely some bumps along the way, but my mother did a great job raising my brother and me, basically alone.

I wasn’t raised on a farm with siblings numbering in the double digits. Nor did I teach myself to read before eventually moving to the big city, to battle racism and segregation just to provide a decent living for a family, as my great-grandfather had. And I’m not a Navy officer with a fondness for jazz who became a college Literature professor, like the grandfather I grew up with. I don’t even have the sort of character forged from bitterness and pain that my maternal grandfather had, which was based on separation and loneliness from an early age, and eventually led to jail time for a crime he didn’t commit. I’ve had it easy compared to these men.

What wisdom do I have to impart?

I learned how to be a man from my mom. It is not my intention to discredit the great job she did in raising me to be the man I am today. But, to be completely honest, I don’t want to be the guy in the Volkswagen commercial, laughably trying to teach his son how to throw a baseball. I’ve given my daughter the gift of Godzilla and Spider-Man (of which I am insanely proud) and I look forward to sharing these things with my son as well.

It was five years ago that we found out we were having a girl and, to my own surprise, I was elated. Up until that point, I had feared the possibility of raising a girl who would eventually grow to loathe me. But the sonogram technician said “it’s a girl” and I started grinning like an idiot.

Now I realize that the joy I felt then was relief. “Thank GAWD I won’t have a son who will actually be looking to me as a model on which to base his own life!” Not to diminish the effect I will undoubtedly have on my daughter’s adulthood but, as a woman, she is going to look to my wife for inspiration on how to live her life. All I can do is hope that I provide enough of an example of how a man should treat her, for her to be able to choose a man who will make her happy.

As I am typing this, my son is 8 months old and a relatively happy child, though a bit of a malcontent at times. We don’t have the instant connection I seemed to share with my daughter, but that’s okay. We’re getting to know each other and it is going well. I still fear for the mess I may eventually make of his childhood, but I am also reminded that I had similar fears about my daughter. I had no idea what to do with a girl, but I resolved to just do the best I could and things turned out pretty well. My son also deserves nothing less than the best I have to offer and he’ll get it.

And even if I never am able to teach the boy how to throw a baseball, he will:

• Know how to tie a bow tie
• Experience the unbridled joy that is Comic Con
• Appreciate Shakespearean language
• Understand how to properly organize his book shelf - separated by genre, alphabetized by title, of course 

My son will know all these things and a myriad others that I am uniquely qualified to teach him. But most of all, I will pass on to him what I have found to be a corner stone of happiness and success – just be yourself.

Yeah, I think I can do that…

Music Does It: About Love and Sustenance

In a crowd of approximately 19,000 other sweltering, like-minded humans, most of them behind me, I am dazed and enthralled by half-naked Adam Levine swaying within my grasp, a mere arm-stretch away. There's a tiny zit on the lower left region of his abdomen, and a few red spots on his back. When he gazes to his right, the stage lights illuminate his irises, so I can see the bright, cool green of his eyes. It is a rarity to see a human so close to being perfectly proportionate and symmetric as he. Yet, this is not what attracts me to him. Or so I tell myself.

This, for me, is about being close to someone inspired, unafraid to be exactly as he is - goofy, nerdy, unapologetic, staggeringly talented, astute,  purposefully self-deprecating, with a slightly aloof exterior, but a burning heart. Someone whose being is utterly permeated by movement and rhythm. I am hoping some of it will rub off on me.

I blow a kiss to Adam-man and he notices, half-smiles, raises his forearm, points, and prances in my direction, ... while still singing.

I bounce up and down like a 15-year-old, forgetting the weight of time, excess-poundage, mundane quandaries, mental struggles, and the slithering omnipotent water dragon whom my family and I were trying to elude in my dreams last night.

Infused with lightness of heart, happiness-bound, I will claim it all boldly, unabashedly, because like other parents, I strive to unravel the walls of the daily grind stagnating my being. I am intent on staying connected to myself in, and outside, the company of my children. And what my Self needs in order to be at peace and persevere, is all-consuming music.

When you are nursing a young child, or two, or three, into full-fledged humans, you just might get lost in them. Some parents give themselves over not only abundantly, but happily. However, for the lot I know, as the children and years pile up, so does the crushing feeling that you don't know how to be away from them. It starts with sleep-deprivation, and ends with being unable to listen to the pulsating, telling rhythm of the heart. Your own, that is.

No, this is not about Adam Levine, but about what sustains me, about how I get to breathe through the difficult moments, the ones that put me on the precipice of bad parenting on an absurdly dependable schedule.

My saving grace is music. Whenever I remember to put it on at the onset of the day, and every time, and as soon as we cross over our home's threshold, children start to beam, our feet dance, faces grimace playfully, and our hearts flutter. Tears of relief, and joy spill over my eyelids. With face wet, sticky with salt, I feel cleansed and full of hope again, despite poor literal and metaphorical sustenance. Life is good, when I know I have just had a near escape with my auspicious drill sergeant Self. "Hi, mama!" my husband rolls in on a sweet melodic voice. And just like that, I feel, for a lasting, singular moment, complete.

Music does it. It propels me to the love I already have in my heart, and nearby, at arm's length. As far as mental sustenance goes, can you think of a better kind?

This Is Not Just a Story: You Could Be a Pioneer

We get to be surprised in life. For me, a most recent surprise came this summer, when I had an impromptu heart-to-heart with an old friend, whilst riding a flying dolphin on the Bratislava-Vienna route. Her parenting story is proof, that even the most together-person you might know is bound to make mistakes along the way. While those are a given, the big question is: how do we move forward and let our pitfalls empower us, rather than let them chip away at us, eventually threatening our ability to be good parents? 

My friend is a mother of two little girls. Ultimately, she wants to be a good role model for her children. She works hard at it, but sometimes the stakes pile up against you. This is an open letter to her, and to those amongst you, with whom it might resonate. 


This is not just a story I read in a book, or see in a film. It is you, my childhood friend, who possesses this tale of sorrow and anguish, uncertainty and trepidation. You live in fear, haunted by doubt and disappointment, all the while raising two young children, living in the home of your partner and his parents, working for the family business in a land freshly foreign, day in, day out. Isolated and misunderstood. Striving to survive, to keep your children's world unharmed, and intact.

Two months before your first child was born your then-husband told you to pack your bags and leave. You were 7-months pregnant with his child, and he told you to go! I can't imagine how you nursed the wounds this must have wrecked on you. Come to think of it, you had no time to fall apart and break in misery, let alone heal properly. Instead, you gathered fortitude and pulled resilience from all corners of your being to re-establish your independence. You and your baby - you built a life together, out of love, for love. It is just as Elif Safak muses in her novel Love: "Broken hearts harbor immense treasures."

But could you do it all over again? Do you have to do it all over again?

You know why I'm asking.

Two years ago, filled with hope, you took your baby and decided to start anew AGAIN: a different land, new fiancé, and soon thereafter a second child.

You are a daring one.

There is no great reward without a great risk.

So you jumped in the deep end.

And now you're drowning.

Highly-educated, career-bound, dynamic, charming, beautiful and driven, you are now in a society of people who expect you to serve your fiancé, abandon your friends, resign from being a decision-maker in your life and the life of your children. "They can barely read," you tell me of your fiancé's parents,"but they are warm, good people." They love and care for their two granddaughters.

You wonder, do they care about YOU? Or do they care about a specific version of you? Does he still believe that your most attractive quality is your independence? Or does he try to maneuver around it, stifle, annihilate it?

You tell me he forbids you from talking to your second child in your native tongue, for in his mind his daughter is Greek. You can't take her to visit your parents, even though they are a mere four-hour car ride away.

You are not at peace.

You are in a constant battle.

With him.

With those closest to him.

With yourself.

With what you think your life should be.

With what it actually is.

With your ex-husband.

With his parents.

With one country's judicial system.

Then, another.

It is exhausting, unnerving, despairing.

"I have conceded to the notion that she is not so much my daughter, as she is theirs," you breathe unto the world around you. "They tell me they could raise her on their own." I catch this with eyes wide-open, nigh-believing. Is it possible that you dare give up on your relationship with her? A mother forsaking her child? It is forbidden, this thought. Unfathomable.

But what if this line of thinking is not a sign of weakness before a hostile set of circumstances, but is rather powered by the brain's proclivity to exercise agility in the name of survival? Yes, how else could I explain a loving, capable, even fierce mother considering relinquishing her relationship with her baby. Backed against a wall, you must find a way to rationalize your fears, impending decisions, in order to make it all bearable, livable.

Of all species, we are the most adaptable ones, even to our own detriment. We might believe a situation favorable when we're in the midst of it, only to find out it had actually done us disservice, when looked upon retrospectively. Our (human) ability to *deal* with most types of climate, social, economical, political, familial, living, and kind of conditions such as they might be, while necessary, can occasionally prove short-sighted, plainly damaging in the long-term.

I can't believe the things you tell me. I can't wrap my head around them. How did you get here? You tell me that if you took the two kids and brought them back home, you'd feel like a failure. You tell me that if I returned back home with my two kids, and a failed marriage, you would think of me as a failure. I'm confused. What do they matter -- these types of general, ultra-committal generalizations of somebody's path in life? Aren't our lives ever-unfolding processes - actual living, occasionally evolving, oftentimes devolving living organisms. What is the standard you hold yourself up against? Does it raise you, or does it bring you down?

What has come to sustain you in this chaos of a madness? How will you find the answers you are looking for?

It starts with you, my darling.

I wish you would stop looking for someone or something to blame. Including yourself. I wish you would stop listening to others' complaints and self-serving opinions. Even your own. For some people, they say, it is important to find something to help ground them. I don't think that this is the case for you. If anything, you get so preoccupied with reality, and making the best of it, and as soon as possible, that it prevents you from seeing yourself and those around you, for who they are. Slow the sprint down to a jog. Allow yourself to think for yourself.

This time -- take your time. Soak everything in. Dissect it. Swim in it. Divulge it. Remind yourself that the work will never be done. You, your relationships, your children, and your life are an unfinished masterpiece. Pondered from the right angle, your vulnerabilities can empower you all. You could set the tone. Not by ordering around, nor by submitting, but by listening, sometimes compromising. Yet never giving up.

You could be a pioneer. 

Think about it, my dear. 


How do you counsel and empower a friend, whose life has become quite entangled in a number of missteps? Where do you start? Where and how does she/he begin to instill positive change? 

We Do What We Can: Re-Learning Parental Humility

Walking the bustling streets of a Black Sea resort, irritation and boredom pervade my innards. I can't shake them, not even when I watch the boys' steps gain in their characteristically happy bounce. They're dancing to the music of this town's vacation smiles, party-mindedness, poorly masked money-obsessiveness. We levitate from one habitually enticing attraction to another. They are the embodiment of beguiling sirens, the nemeses of reason. In practice, they are jungle-themed larger-than-life bouncers, bungee-rope-equipped trampolines, giant slaloms, parasailing, even jet packs promising yet another kind of flight above water. We are little fish swallowed by a whale of a creature: the beach resort.

I trudge along despondent at the thought that every choice on this path has already been made for me. I need only surrender to the inevitable. And watch the kids' minds get taken over by precisely the type of activity that irks me the most: the getting of stuff. Whatever happened to the concept of window-shopping? Why can't we, as a family, take a respite from the daily pressures of consumerism. This is a plausible case of escapism on my part. The kind I wish were contagious, the kind to propel me to something I have not seen before, the kind to instill a lusted-after freedom, even at the most trite of destinations.

Amid the noise, and en mass frivolity, I get exactly what I need. A dose of reality, a prelude to humility. It comes in the shape of a toddler. He half-lies, half-sits with arms hanging peaceably on his sides, 'most touching the ground beneath, as he slumbers on at the outlines of a wood shop. Soft, amber light envelopes his angelic vestige. It beguiles and beckons me. Then, quickly, I panic. Why is this child sleeping out here, on the floor, exposed, and vulnerable to this place and its forest of moving long-legged characters?

My glance shifts in direction of the shop. Five feet in, a man in his early 40s sits on a stool, surrounded by wood-carved boxes, family name plates, and other tokens from the land of indulgence. He appears haggard. He gazes downwards, engrossed in the carving out of his latest creation. From time to time, he steals somber glances toward the street, the child. This must be the father. But where is the mom?

At the deep end of the shop, a woman speaks seated on yet another stool. Soft-spoken, polite, with impressive command of the English language, she discusses an order with an international bunch of customers. The toddler in the front has her soft curls, high-set cheekbones.

I wonder why they brought him here? And is this decision part of their everyday? I am tempted to judge, to complain, even to tell them what to do.

Then, it occurs to me. In a land, where babysitting duty is taken over exclusively by grandmas, in their absence, parents need make due whichever way they can. And if the family's livelihood depends on their being out at night in the hustle of a large resort, then this is what they shall do. Toddler in hand, or sleeping in front of shop.

Bred from want and impasse, this decision still comes from a place of love and caring. The details of the scene were a testament to that. Starting from the noise-insulating headphones on the sides of his face, to the positioning of his make-shift bed, away from the bright light, and not quite in the sea of strangers yet, and most importantly, the sometimes scolding, always watchful eyes of his father. As passersby stopped near his most precious display, his vigilance reminded me of a wolf en garde of his pup. A tale replicated in a variety of forms and shapes.

Across distances, across species, across cultures, we each do what we can for our children.

Your turn now! Do you catch yourself judging other parents? What is your most recent encounter with parental humility?

We Shaped One Another, We Let Each Other Be

Our lives twist and turn every which way. Like the tidal waves of oceans, we absorb everything within our reach, needed or not - from technicolored shells, to treasured, incredible creatures, to belligerent garbage, aimed at our destruction. We grab it all. Hungrily, languidly. It shifts inside us, builds and changes us. Then, we spit it back out, appropriately or not, for the world to see - out of context, in character. Our audience stands amazed at the shoreline, watching it all uncover, then recede. Soon, we are alone again, just as we always were - a mysterious, entangled mass of experiences, humans, stories - bloated, and shuffling with life below the surface. 

Who gets us? Who knows us? Our authentic selves, without motive second-guessing, without an agenda. Whom do we trust? Who preserves and fights for us (even when we are not willing to do it)?

Friends, perhaps? Yes, they do. They DO! I've wondered why. I've asked how. For the benefit of my kids, I thought it worthwhile.

My childhood was steady. Relatively unique to the place and the time I grew up in, but it was steady, which also made it comforting. I felt safe. My people and I spend summers - from morning until after dark - playing, kicking up dirt, stones, then, with growing agility, sports balls. The parking lot between our two residential buildings became a bustling stage for life-or-death matches of dodgeball. The metal bar, reminiscent of a miniaturized, unforgiving volleyball net inspired hyper-intense volleyball matches, intercepted by the occasional adult, who came to dust-off the family rug at the behest of a matron. Games of hide-and-seek grew into epic neighborhood-vs.-neighborhood anecdotes of survival. We cried and laughed through it all.

Our ranks were infiltrated with regularity by strayed teenagers, there to bestow their special brand of holier-than-thou wisdom. Grandmas and grandpas took respite on their way from the "good" bakery, or the veggie market. They sat amongst us, the children, listened to our dynamic conversations and chimed in - with a word of caution, outrage, or a simple glance. From omnipotent D'Artagnan-like charismatic instigators, to soothing wise braggadocios, we saw and were moved unknowingly by it all. 

We lived in a grandiose, thrilling universe of adventures - a sphere of inter-activity and influence, which spanned approximately 500 square feet. And we got to know one another - from the speckles in our eyes, to the dreams we laid out, as spoken wishes, as dares, through the rogue laughed-about-chin hair, to the boob comparisons, and petty "best friend" rivalry, to bursts of creativity, and heartbreak. We knew each other, and knew when to push, and when to rescind away. Because this is what friends do. We chose moments to be individually crazy and purposefully isolated, but when each one of us was ready to come back into the fold, we embraced one another back IN ... no questions asked.

That is, until we were ready to answer. We were each other's Tribunal at the Hague, each other's advocates, whatever was needed, at precisely the right time. We raised one another alongside, and some times, against our parents. We shaped one another with care, trust and love. We let each other BE.

I couldn't help but wish for the same kind of freedom for my children. I couldn't help, but worry about them, when I see their friends move away to what might as well be a different galaxy, even if it is *only* a different state. Because the depth and breadth of friendship, many of us know, can only be replicated, when people spend considerable unstructured time together, for years on end. When they are allowed, by circumstances, or cosmic (maybe even parental) design to muse, idle, create, fight freely, negotiate unobstructed, enshrouded by trust, empowered by their faith in one another, interwoven within each other's psyches. Standing strong. Together.

THIS is what I want for my children.

I, The First-time Parent: Rhapsody in Blue

I am taken. Completely, irreversibly, mysteriously, expectedly, rapturously taken. I thought I wouldn't forget the moments that made up the earlier years of my being a parent. So much of it evaporated into the air. Here's what stayed.

Felt so full for awhile there. As if I couldn't take another bite of life. As if it didn't matter if I would ever see a friend again. Shades up, sporadic sunlight peering through, solitude surrounded me.

Sleep-deprivation had pushed me into another realm of self-abnegation. It was no longer important to do hygiene for myself. It was for him. I woke in the night terrified that I had fallen asleep while nursing him; certain I'd dropped him, only to find him safely cradled in his crib. I would stare: longingly, anxiously, full of anticipation. He wouldn't stir. I would drift into another pang of fitfulness. Time for another nursing. This is how it went.

I curled him in my arms in the shape of a comma. I stared at his mouth in horror. Those gums were annihilators, like piranhas to a cow. His lips would twist sideways, creating the "rooting" effect, and I would cringe, become an overly stretched string, ready to break. I would attempt to breathe, and tell myself if other women could do it, so could I. I would hold my breath and feel the hair get stuck to my neck, the sides of my face, with sweat. Panic would rush through, and then I would recall my husband's words: "Is this yet another thing you won't follow through with?!" I would push through, my comma-shaped baby would latch on, and I would bite my lip, because he nursed on open wounds.

It didn't feel like we were bonding. It felt like masochism, a self-inflicted torture with an oppressive, timed recurrence.

I would lay my head facing him and drift off to sleep, content and atwitter to see him at peace again. I woke with the push and pull of his spastic fingers at dawn. We greeted the sun in each other's embrace swaying in rhythm to Nat King Cole and Nora Jones tunes. I let myself get absorbed by his searching, partly unseen eyes, his shallow, timid inhales, his awkwardly elongated legs. Love flowed around us. We bonded. I felt elated. Until the next feeding, when terror and inadequacy tore into me.

Away from him, I would feel the push of clouds hanging low above ground, and ache for the impossibility to have been better at delivering him, at nursing him. I wept bitterly, desperately.

The days, weeks, and months dragged on. We moved to another home -- bigger, darker, remote. Comma-shaped infant was growing into a healthy, curious, lovely baby. Our nursing time improved. It was no longer an epicenter of existence. It was now only a small part of the routine. My desperation morphed into resentment: of suburbia, of the isolation, of our dependence on a car. Enamored by the mental and physical energizing a city walk of exploration would bring, I longed to replicate the same experience in the suburbs. A limited availability of sidewalks, however, meant that my son and I would loop around in parks like two mice trapped in one of those exercise wheels. It didn't achieve the desired effect - for me, anyway. I could see his fascination with every moving object, from the breeze-rustled leaves, to the darting children on the playgrounds. He looked almost always quietly content. It amazed me.

Back home I would close the door to his room and lie on the floor next to him. My eyes would close, and I would only hear the little noises he would make as he went through his little conglomerate of baby chew-ons. The sounds would be so soothing they would put me to sleep, a coma-like state that would last for mere minutes. I would come to with a start, with an abrupt onset of panic, having realized that I'd lost track of his movements. He would look just as serene as ever. So easy-going, so the opposite of me, it seemed.

The cloud would hang lower. It felt like my husband was never there. It felt as if he didn't care. I felt as though I talked to no one, but my child. A keen awareness of my need to connect with other creatures of similar headspace only led to more agony. Thoughts, emotions smashed against the confines of my ribcage. They would twist and turn frantically trying to escape. Instead I would suffocate, strangle them ardently, methodically. But they would still reside stoically in the abyss of my soul. A struggle of life and death.

Then a childhood friend came from across the pond. My heart fluttered, and new brand of thoughts sparked my brain.The clouds began to shift. A glimmer of hope shone in. I came to. Enlivened.  

What do you recall from your early #parenting days? We would love to hear below, or here.

Through Children's Eyes: #Parenting Lessons

ON SELF-CONTROL

I stood in the middle of our living room, a gaping backpack in one hand, brain spinning as my internal clock was ticking. "Where are the Bulgarian textbooks?" I asked with a hint of distress, but at no one in particular, and hoping against hope for an answer. Eyes scouring the view of our very lived-in living room, I felt my blood pressure rising. I'd just bounced the breakfast plates off the table and into the sink, but traces of food and liquid left a mark on the table that needed to be taken care of. Lunches were packed, but backpacks were still not ready, and I could just feel the longing stares of dogs waiting to go out. "I put them on the piano grand last week," I thought to myself. There was practically nil chance of discovery amongst a stack of piano and children's books, and months-worth of kid art. It had finally happened. Contrary to every care suggestion, I'd  surreptitiously turned the piano into yet another storage unit. Our organizational saving grace!  I caught sight of Ben, the 5-year-old, sitting on the floor, sneaker in hand looking around indeterminately. "Hurry up! Put your shoes on!" I barked. I knew it was possibly going to take at least 10 mins of reminders before he finally accomplished the task. Sam, the 7-year-old, steering near me, and putting on a sweater, shot a quick look in my direction, and said half as if to poke fun, half matter-of-fact: "You are about to start panicking, mama! Don't panic, because then I'll start panicking!" I froze. Nothing like your young child to call you out on a behavior you don't much like modeling for your offspring.

It is a shocking (at least for me) fact of parenthood that children proactively and spontaneously help us learn more about ourselves. They are miniaturized versions of Ivy-league-trained therapists, whose strength is in pushing us, where elegantly, where crudely, into self-improvement. I am grateful! Hopefully, also receptive of the unintended criticism for I do tend to get lost in the daily grind to the extent where I am simply led by impulse and inertia. The exact opposite of what has recently re-surfaced as a personal quest - the ever-moving target of mindfulness and self-awareness as function of contentment and happiness. Yes, thanks to advances in neuroscience we preoccupy ourselves with limiting fast-paced TV programming, and expanding activities like swimming and martial arts for the benefit of our children's executive brains, but how come no one is asking the question (if they have, please share findings): how does parenthood affect adult executive function?

Nothing has tested my self-restraint, abrupt task-switching ability, planning in the near and long-term, impulse- control and related activities more than day-to-day parenting. When we find ourselves having to prioritize between 20+ tasks, noises, and demands every half hour of each day, it might feel like we are pressured against a wall and fighting to keep our sanity within an inch of our breath. Still we are to show patience,  understanding, and optimism to our children and teach them to navigate through their own maze of conflicting feelings and know-how. We try our best, but humanly and fatefully fail to hit all of our targets. What gets us anxious is the not knowing of where we'd missed. Because if we knew,  we are sure to fix it. Or so we tell ourselves. So I tell myself.

ON SMILING MORE

We had a 10-year-old family visitor for three weeks last spring. Not unlike your typical over-achieving American-born Chinese. She is intelligent, confident, and beautiful; spews talent and charisma. Fascinated, my boys gaze at her in sheer unmasked admiration. She is a heroine, a goddess, brought to them from the skies to show them another mysterious and inspired way of being.

At night, with boys gone to bed, she unravels before my eyes and ears. She says her parents fight. They don't EVER smile at her. She can't make them happy. They don't spend time with her. The only time they engage with her is when they command her to do schoolwork, or play the piano. She doesn't share with them what goes on with friends in school, for fear of getting into trouble, for fear of being misunderstood. Her stream of words is accompanied by a flood of tears. She is inconsolable.

My mind reels.  I know her parents love and dote on her. I know they expect a lot from her, but she is their only child, their pride and joy; their whole world wrapped in one. She may know it, but doesn't feel it. She may feel it, but doesn't know it. I shudder at the thought of my children feeling alone and unheard, disconnected from the people who love them the most. I stroke her head and listen, then listen some more. I tell her what I think she needs to hear, what I know to be true. Her mom and dad love her. If she found it difficult to talk to them, she could try putting thought to paper, approach them with the wonder of the written word. I tell myself what I need to hear, what I know to be true: "Peer into your children's eyes with a smile on your face. Let them know they are welcome and embraced."

ON THE BIG QUESTIONS

In the mountain town of Bansko, Bulgaria, I sit on a bench and watch my boys play soccer. A boy from an earlier evening approaches and sits by me, an eager smile on his face. He tells me his name is Ivan. He is a kick boxer, gregarious and friendly; loves The Hobbit and Harry Potter. At the tender age of 9, he already knows he will be a world traveler and a writer. He volunteers he is the author of a comic book, which he gifted to his 2-year-old stepsister. There's an abrupt pause in our conversation before he posits the BIG question: " One thing I never understood is why my parents got a divorce!" I hold my breath. Was this for me to explain?! It couldn't be. I only just met him. Yet there he was. The air around him pulsates in agonizing anticipation. And I suspect it isn't the first time he's asked this question. Did he ever get an answer?

Preoccupied with protecting our children, we fall prey to the proposition of delaying the telling of hard truths. Thus, our children hear them from the most unexpected sources; occasionally accompanied by explanations, most of the time open to their own interpretations. It isn't a bad thing in and of itself, because it shows them varied ways of thinking, teaches them mental self-reliance and critical acuity. But when looked through the prism of our parent-to-child relationship, then the measure of closeness and trust between us is affected in the negative. More of the same follows. We all suffer ... in isolation ... from one another. Hard, indeed, some truths are. But they need telling.

Let's get the conversation ball rolling! We would  love to hear what lessons children around you have taught you, or your own perspective on any of the above.

International Travel with Kids: Credo and Guidelines

Greetings from Paris, London, Rome, Sofia, Montreal, Beijing, Vienna, Nairobi, Sao Paolo, the world! Wish you were here!  If you are anything like my husband and I -- slightly rebellious and not willing to stay bogged down, just because we have had kids -- or else, are looking forward to a time spent traveling with your offspring --  or have been wondering why it makes sense to travel with young kids -- you might enjoy, or find useful the following.

Before I get ahead of myself allow me to answer the why? question. Why travel abroad with young children? Why is it worth the added work? Being the product of a mixed marriage of ardent travelers, the answer for me is an obvious one. But for this exercise, I prefer to employ my 7-year-olds perspective. Having traveled to 13 countries on 3 continents, he revels at the idea of seeing and experiencing something new. In his own words he loves to travel to other countries, because he "gets to taste different things, play new games, learn new languages." I probe further, trying to see if there is a more depth there, and find out he thinks the exposure and experience will enable him to talk to different people, understand and help them, or be helped by them. Isn't this the essence of what we call peace and conflict resolution? 

Sure, travel is expensive. But isn't it a worthwhile investment? Shouldn't we place priority on raising children with mental flexibility, capable of layered, multi-dimensional thinking, who are truly invested in this world; who don't perceive a path to success as a zero-sum game? We have become deeply aware of the fact that the Earth's prognosis is going to need generations of children, who are daringly capable of thinking outside the box, who know how to engage and develop unlikely prospects. Some people are born with this type of genius, but for most of us, it needs to be nurtured into being. International travel in the formative years of a child is a guaranteed way of accomplishing this. 

An article in Today's Parent, titled "Kids behavior: 10 things to forgive them for (and why)," pointed to inflexibility, impatience, immaturity, lack of empathy, and meanness as behaviors we should expect our children to outgrow. It might be the case for many. For most, however, unless we prepare ourselves to take steps to challenge these behaviors peaceably, systematically, and for a big portion of the time - indirectly - they will become traits. It is similar to teaching your children to read, or to talking to them about drugs. None of the influence we hope to exert on our kids happens in the course of a few planned conversations. Whatever it is that becomes part and parcel of their constitution, they learn through a combination of organic repetitions and discoveries. Hence, the suggestion, if you want to raise kids with palpable resourcefulness, flexibility and open-mindedness, try pushing them, and yourselves, a little outside of your comfort zone.

On to the more practicable aspects of this conversation!

You don't need the financial and logistic resources of people like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to take your children along on international travel. As far as I am concerned, all we truly need is international travel documents, like up-to-date passports and (sometimes) corresponding visas, occasional vaccine shots, a healthy dose of open-mindedness and flexibility, some cash, and the rest are details that can be figured out as you go along. Still travel decision-making can be anxiety-ridden, but with the wealth of information at our fingertips, and some self-reminding to keep things in perspective, you can do it. Easy! Remember - you don't need to hear and experience the world all at once.

RESEARCH THE PLACE YOU WANT TO VISIT

Knowing basics like grocery and pharmacy hours, will prepare you for the unexpected, but almost always, mandatory trip to buy essentials at a more affordable price. For instance, in many European cities you will not be able to find an open grocery store on Sundays. In cities like London, you will find that each day offers different closing hours, but as a rule don't plan to do any shopping past 6pm.

But what happens if your child gets sick? On a recent trip to Beijing one of our kids ended up with conjunctivitis, triggered by the heavy air pollution. We went to a local children's hospital, were speedily seen by a doctor, got a prescription and were back at our home base within a couple of hours. All at fraction of the cost for its U.S. equivalent. Alternatively, many big cities in the world have clinics and hospitals that cater directly to international visitors with multiple languages spoken by doctors and staff on site. Some of these would even accept your health insurance. Generally, you might have to pay upfront and then get reimbursed, just make sure get everything in writing from doctors, and if possible in English. We have found, however, that paying-out-pocket saves a big hassle, because health care is significantly cheaper outside of the U.S.

PLAN WELL, BUT BE FLEXIBLE

It may not be needed, but if you travel via plane with short layovers, pack with a view to at least some of your bags arriving at your destination much later than you. Include a lightweight version of whatever you might need, from diapers and creams, to a change of clothes in your carryon. In addition, don't be tempted to organize luggage exclusively according to the individuals traveling on this trip. Have mixed content ownership bags, because it happens occasionally that only some of your bags will be misplaced.  If every person on your trip has their own bag, then you run the risk of not having what you need for one or two of you for some time. And we all know how this types of uneven situations get perceived as "unfair" by kids, and then in turn affect the group morale, and your ability to have a good time.

When my husband and I travelled to Paris, we made sure to pack enough diapers for our 18-month-old son to last him the entire trip. In addition, I'd packed twice as many diapers in my carryon luggage, than I thought I would need. Yet even this proved insufficient after the airline lost some of our bags for days due to a short layover in London. We'd arrived in Paris on an early Saturday morning and kept hopeful that our bags will turn up before we'd REALLY need them. We didn't even consider buying extra diapers at that point. By the time we'd returned to our hotel late at night, our bags had not been recovered. We'd missed the opportunity to purchase diapers. By the following Sunday afternoon, with stores closed and our last diaper in use, we resorted to using swim diapers, which were far less absorbent. That didn't stop us from having a blast walking the streets of the City of Lights, munching on crepes, enjoying local playgrounds, riding a donkey at the foot of the Eiffel tower. At dusk, we did end up hanging out in line for the Eiffel tower elevators with a leak and uncertain diaper prospects. We took it in stride, focused on the experience and skipped a beat only at the panoramic sight of Paris below us.

HAVE A LITTLE TRUST/TAKE CHANCES

On a trip to Italy for a friends' wedding we stayed at a family hotel in the town of LaScala, on the Amalfi Coast. The place was as picturesque as its people were hospitable. As soon as we ordered dinner, the family matron came over to gush at our boy and with expressive combination of gesticulations and Italian communicated that she was going to take our son, so that we could enjoy our dinner in peace. We laughed it off, but soon after our son finished eating, she was back smiling widely and telling us she was going to take him to play with her granddaughter. She disappeared with our son out of sight before we could say anything.

Whenever I retell this story, I see the faces of my American friends cringe in anxiety and bewilderment. This reaction is  possibly a function of our eagerness to control every scenario and outcome, a rather unrealistic goal.  If I consider the local culture and the specific setting in our situation (a small town, the family serviced our friends' wedding party), the event screams of normalcy. Our son got a rare opportunity to gain a glimpse of how an Italian family interacts and plays, without the intrusion of our analysis. Hence, the credo I travel by, have a little trust in people, even in foreign places, let them step in and be part of your experience. It will make for some great memories.

LEAVE ROOM FOR SPONTANEITY

For most of us, traveling great cross-oceanic distances is a seldom and treasured occurrence. As a result, we feel the need to plan everything to pretty minute details.

On a trip to Athens, Greece, we'd planned a number of tours over the course of a few days. By the end of the second day our children were visibly tired of this grown-up tourist regimen, so we decided to take a break from sightseeing and steer in direction of the nearest playground. Our kiddos made friends with an older child, who spoke a little English and took an interest in them. The kids were once again beaming, and batteries re-charged, ready to continue on our exploration of an ancient city. This has worked for us so well, that we have turned the hunt for  local playgrounds, and meshing with locals children into a repeated ritual.

MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS/EXPECT DIFFERENT
I have made some mistakes, mostly related to how much I think my kids can handle. On a trip to Munich, Germany, when my younger son was just short of 3 years of age, and older one 4 and a half, I made a decision not to take a stroller. In a normal situation at home, I'd stopped using them a couple of months prior, so I thought we'd be able to handle the trip without them.

Little did I know how this would drastically limit the scope of our expedition. It got to be more physically demanding after, having visited a toy store (I brought it on myself!) on our way to a park, we emerged carrying two bulky and heavy bags. Boys happy and a park filled with a myriad of beautiful ponds and birds, we made our way deep in, and got ... a little lost (shhh, don't tell anyone else, would never admit to it). Barring nap and still dealing with jetleg, the boys were slowing down the pace by the minute, and I knew I had to find our way to the train station ASAP. An hour and a half into it we stepped onto a subway train. With no seat available my little boy sat at my feet and fell fast asleep. The older leaned against me for as long as he could stand, finally submitting to the ground himself. Other passengers stared on. I strategized on how to pick up my boy off the ground. Without hurting him, mind you, while still leading the second and carrying our bags. The escalator at the station wasn't operational, so I climbed one step at a time in sheer fear of dropping a kid, or tumbling down the steps alongside the two of them. Luckily, a passerby on the left offered to help. He peeled my son diligently off my hands and I climbed the rest of the way with my remaining boy. My mind shrieked at the thought of this guy taking off with my kid into the distance, but I felt I no longer had a choice. So I quickened the pace, caught up, and we were soon back at our hotel.

Why bring this up? Had we been in Italy or China, someone would have relinquished their seat on the train, but probably wouldn't have offered to help me carry my child up the stairs. In Bulgaria more often than not, people would have helped with both.  Had expected the difference, I would have had an easier and more reasonable time dealing with it. And my kid wouldn't have had to sleep slouched on the floor. But all is well. I am grateful for that stranger; notably humbled by the experience, and better prepared for other adventures at home and abroad.

We would love to hear of YOUR experience in terms of traveling with children abroad. Are there any particular concerns or fears that stop you from pursuing this venture? If you are an international traveler, how has it helped your children grow?

FURTHER READING

Take a look at one family's incredible journey on bikes across North and South America.

Can Taking A Child Abroad Be Fun? A recent CNN article, in which a mother suggests (among other things) that for a first trip abroad with your youngsters, you might want to pick a familiar place. 

And for a parent's perspective on How to Develop Character in Your Children (And Yourself) Through Travel.

The Better Influence Against The Odds

"No man is an island, entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main."
John Donne c. 1624

Donne echoes the idea that individuals (unless forever isolated) come into contact with manifold influences, which alongside their genetic makeup, will determine the course of their lives. We rub off on one another, intentionally or not, leave a mark, and morph continually into altered, for better or worse, beings.

As parents we are expected to provide a clear reference point for what is right and what isn't for our children, sometimes it seems irrespective of their age and personalities. This would include everything from the mundane -- like table manners -- to the stuff of which character is made -- like optimism, grit and perseverance. We are expected to prepare them for the "future," for the great unknown.

Not only is this expected. Notably, we put this burden on ourselves, we live the pressure of having to know how to receive, process, and then act in any and all situations, present, impending, or completely hypothetical and unforeseen. It keeps us up at night, makes us crazy. But what happens when the answers that are built into our life circumstances seem inept, unsatisfactory, even dangerous. How do we teach our kids to surmount challenges that we are unsure of how to surmount ourselves, or better yet, haven't even fathomed?

I recently saw "Salma," a film titled after its main protagonist and subject -- a woman poet, who having grown up in a decidedly conservative cultural setting in Tamil, India, found a way (with determination and much serendipitous help from relatives and beyond) to fulfill her life's calling, despite otherwise impossible circumstances. In this particular locale of the world, upon getting their period,  girls are sequestered in basements with little to no view to the outside world until they are married off. Henceforth, they are neither encouraged, nor allowed to attend school. The isolation in which Salma found herself intensified her need to connect with the outside world. She accomplished this through her now of  global renown poetry.

Besides her writing, Salma has welcomed another calling, of reaching out to women in her community and encouraging them to pursue an education against the heavily-stacked odds. She visits homes to lend an ear to each woman's tale of adolescence and marriage and motherhood thereafter. As a film viewer, you are introduced to the same story with varying characters: "I went to school, I got my period, I was forbidden to go to school, and I was married." 

That is, until we are in what appears to be a relatively poorer home of a mother, who shares how instead of submitting to the norm, she opted to send her daughter to the nearby village, postulating the need for continued education. One might infer that this decision came from an already better-educated, enlightened mind, if you will. Instead, the woman admitted she herself had never gone to school. It left me in awe of her foresight and fortitude to withstand what must have been a constant flow of badgering glances and remarks. What prompted her to choose such an uneasy road? Why would she deem education to be important enough of a goal to risk social isolation, when she herself had never experienced the benefits of education?

There are people around us who possess a combination of natural intelligence, intuition, and drive, that are particularly attuned to picking up the cues of impending change around them. Just as they are daring, so are they inspired and encouraged by indirect influences of people of similar make. Just as Salma, the poet, was not truly a self-made story of success, so did not this mother raise her daughter in a vacuum of influences. She planned to do better, inspired by Salma, probably having been all too keenly aware of her own impossible odds. But never fully surrendering to her set of life circumstances. She is one of those of whom we call "a natural born leader," because they never got a chance to lead a school, a company, a country, but nevertheless guided us to a new, augmented understanding of the world. 

In this family's case taking a chance didn't pan out. Her daughter suffered from the  extended separation to the extent that she ended her life. She set herself ablaze, the last horrific memory her mom would ever have of her. I can't imagine the heartache of losing your only child. However, I couldn't help but wonder, were this woman to have another child, would she insist on her continuing her education again? She'd already done one heroic thing, and lost everything. Could she do it again? 

There are, of course, plenty of other more fortunate examples of the same kind of foresight. I recently met Anita Hill at a showing of Frieda Mock's new documentary "Anita: Speaking Truth to Power." During the Q&A, Anita Hill  mentioned that her mother placed a high value on education and was a driving force in her continued education. Born in the 1950s to black parents with unfinished high school careers, farmers from a small Oklahoma community, Hill did not fall on the path of a distinguished legal, academic, and advocacy career by happenstance.

In her book "Re-Imagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home" she zeroes in on the connection between her personal and professional accomplishments and her family upbringing. Hill speculates with a fair dose of certainty that despite her relative lack of formal education, her mother had taught her the value of education, hard work and independence. In Anita Hill's memory Erma Hill, her mother, displayed significant prowess "in the areas of human and fiscal resources." Erma had managed a farm and raised 13 educated and self-reliant children  in partnership with  her husband starting with the mid-1920s onwards, a time beseeched by racial and, slightly less obvious, gender segregation. Even though she didn't have an opportunity to transfer her skills onto a larger stage, she was palpably aware of the changing current of the social getup, and knew instinctively that her children would benefit from an expansion of both their intellectual and geographical domain. She sent them off to study, where she thought they'd have a fair shot at a different life. It is due, at least in part, to this awareness and adherence to a higher standard of self-discipline that Anita Hill ended up pursuing what can be qualified as a socially responsible and remarkable career.

It is an extraordinary feat to imagine a life drastically different from your own; a life that deviates or completely departs from your particular set of circumstances. The large majority of us are capable of such change, but we have to feel the hunger, we had to have either been born with it, or it had to have been instilled and nurtured in us. Plus, there had to be a confluence of external conditions, including someone to believe in and influence you into the direction you already long to go.

On the opposite end of this spectrum are generations of individuals who subsist on social welfare. Adept at what may be deemed as manipulating this intricate system of gives and takes, some people appear to be content with what life, or the state, has allotted them, in the very least,  because they don't seem bent on rising above their dependence. If you talked to the guy making my terrace door screen, you'd find out that he believes this dependence is an entrenched mode of thinking, akin to slavery. It happens to be a sure-proof way of keeping the lowest-income groups from stirring the pot, and becoming harbingers of real social change. 

When you are born in depravity, of the financial, social, and worst of all, intellectual kind, and your parents and everyone else around you genuinely believe that there is no way out, it will rub off, it will force you into a mindset of complacency, acquiescence, and general despair. There are no dreams to be had, or empowerment on a very basic level to be sought. However, if you are lucky enough to see, hear, feel, think something different, something that would feed you from the inside out, you are likely to start on a path of personal growth, which who's to say where it's going to lead you? Imagine that for yourself, for your children, and dare I say it ... for the lives of others.