To Understand the Differences

It's not badge of honor, that's for damn sure. No child who becomes an adult looks back fondly on growing up with divisive divorce, or domestic violence, or sexual assault, or abuse, neglect, or violence of any kind. And yet, too many of us have had those traumatic experiences early in our lives (and later, too). And many of us, like my wife and I, have pledged that nothing like that would ever happen to our children. 

Growing up Generation X in the 1970's, it eventually became a social media badge of honor decades later to be proud of the fact that we never wore helmets when riding our bikes. And the fact that we stayed out past dusk without any adult supervision. And the fact that we never talked about something bad that happened to us back in those days. I didn't talk about it until I was in my early 20's. 

Again, we've pledged that nothing like that would ever happen to our children, and while we don't have control over what happens to them outside of our house, we do inside our house. So, it's hard to hear from them when they talk about some of the things some their friends go through inside their own homes. 

We empathize and talk about it with our kids, that we don't always know exactly what's happening with people, but the fact is that divorce is real, and domestic violence is real, and abuse and neglect are real, and how the ensuing stress and mental health issues are quite real.

But when more kids are willing to share the trauma they're experiencing at a much early age, or attempt to share as best they can, the new normal perception is the experienced trauma, even if it's just a subset of friends. Our kids care about their friends, but what we don't want is for them to feel bad because they haven't had the same traumatic experiences. 

In fact, while they should listen and be empathetic with friends who have experienced trauma, or are experiencing it, we encourage them to be grateful for the fact that they are not. To be grateful that they have a supportive and loving family that communicates with each other, free from judgment and shame, which in turn can help them be better friends to those who do struggle.

Even a supportive and loving family won't negate the teen angst, heartbreak, and seemingly traumatic issues our kids have struggled with, and will continue to grapple with, into adulthood. But we do want them to understand the differences we work hard to ensure they do and don't experience, and how they can help others along the way.

Reliving Teen Brain

They were everywhere. Blurring up and down the stairs, back and forth through the hallway, screaming and laughing at the top of their lungs. Throwing things at each other. Shooting Nerf guns at each other. There was even a bow and blunt arrow that my wife Amy put a stop to that led to a frown then a shrug then a search for another user-friendly weapon. All while the adults in the room, the parents, were trying to have a so-called civilized conversation with each other. 

And all the while we remembered when we were 13ish. Those dang teenagers. Some of our kids were a little younger, some were a little older, but all had one thing in common -- tween to teen brain. Boys and girls alike starting their awkward developmental journeys to adulthood. 

I kept waiting for one of them to cry out in real pain, but fortunately they all simply just had a blast. Our own daughters were in the thick of the battle cries, shrieking with laughter and unadulterated joy as they bounded to and fro. 

Actually, the adults also shrieked with laughter and unadulterated joy, and considering the state of the world, that was a nice thing to witness across the board. As us parents continued to talk about adult things, our children played and played, more like kids than teens. 

Hold onto that, I thought. Hold onto that as long as you can. When Amy and I were that age, we were doing things we probably shouldn't have been doing. Pretending to know things we didn't know. We longed to adult quickly and more frequently without knowing really what the hell we were doing. But dang was teen brain fun. And exciting. And passionate. And adventurous. And heartbreaking as all hell. 

Hold onto that as long as you can, I thought again. It goes both way, too. While we long for them to be the kids we raised the first 10 years of their lives, there will be exciting and heartbreaking things our girls will experience with teen brain that they'll never forget. Bodies are changing, hormones are raging, and we want to be there every step of the way to love and support them through the good, the bad, and the uglies. To have a level of transparent trust without judgement, more than we had growing up. We want them to share their lives with us, not hide them from us. 

That doesn't mean we won't parent the heck out of teen brain, though. Of course we will, because teen brain brings forgetfulness, emotional boomerangs, drama, lies, rebellion, broken rules, chore resistance, hidden trash, awkward romance, and so much more. Because reliving teen brain gives adulting and parenting an entirely new prescient perspective. 

Hold onto that, I thought. Mercy me.

The Gift of Actionable Hope

"As children we believed
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely wrapped beneath the tree.
Well, heaven surely knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal a hurting human soul..."

–Grown-Up Christmas List

I spoiled Christmas.

I got up before my parents, before my sister, and walked slowly down the hall to our small living room. It was still dark, the curtains were pulled shut, and our Christmas tree stood silent in the shadows. There was only a faint light that leaked in around the curtain's edge from the nearest streetlight outside.

And there in the shadows beneath the tree, I saw the outline of the Big Wheel I had asked for, and the Baby Alive my sister had asked for.

The joy in my heart completely eclipsed any fear I had being up so early in the darkness. It also eclipsed any sadness and fear we still had from the latest fight our parents had gotten into on the way home from our grandparents the night before, from our dad calling our mom some pretty horrible names, from things crashing throughout the house long after we went to bed, from the screaming and crying outside our rooms.

But here, in the quiet of early Christmas morning, there was finally some peace and these amazing gifts under the tree. It didn't matter that we didn't have much money; we never really new the difference growing up anyway, thanks to our mom.

I don't remember how long I stood there staring at the gift shadows. The smell of evergreen, cigarettes and stale beer was almost comforting in a strange way. At some point I finally turned and headed back up the hallway, but instead of going into my bedroom and waiting for the family to wake up, I went in to wake my sister, to tell her what awaited her under the tree.

That didn't go over very well. I thought she'd be thrilled. She was not. Instead, she cried. I was mortified. I had no idea that was going to happen. I tried to calm her down, to explain how great it was she was getting a Baby Alive, but to no avail. Our mom explained shortly after that how I spoiled the surprise for my sister. That she really wanted to be the one to find and see her present first.

I felt horrible. Christmas morning moved on, and so did my sister. While our mom fixed breakfast, we played with our new toys, and our father sat on the couch drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. I remember him smiling through tears as he said:

"Merry Christmas, kids. There's no place like home."

My mom cried softly in the kitchen as she cooked. That moment in time was the greatest gift we could have ever asked for, something that repelled the darkness and sadness growing up in domestic violence. It was the gift of hope. Hope that maybe everything would be all right, that maybe our father would stop drinking and being so angry and unhappy all the time. That maybe we could be a family again. Forever.

We were a family again, but not with him, so in a way, the gift of hope paid off. But I'll never forget what he said, even if I'm mixing memories, which happens as we get older. We were fortunate to have lovely family and friends who supported us and helped carry us through some tough times.

Fast forward to today – my wife and I work hard (which is thankfully easy for us) in providing emotional stability and love and an environment of personal growth and resiliency. We're also able to give them things we never dreamed of when we were growing up, as my wife had experienced some similar parallels as a child as well.

This is why we give back when we can, volunteer locally, practice Kidpower and encourage our girls to give back as well, to donate their toys they no longer play with and to save their money to give to a program that will help others. The past few years we've adopted a family via Monarch Services during the holidays, a program founded in 1977 to offer safe shelter and services to domestic violence victims. We get a list of things they want, usually a mother and her children, and then we purchase them and give them to the agency, but we don't know who they are; we'll never meet them. Their anonymity is protected for obvious reasons, especially if they're still in harm's way. We do get a thank you card from them after Christmas, and we're just glad we could give them some gifts that the mother isn't in the position to provide otherwise.

This year it's a mother and three boys and that's all we know. As we shopped for them and picked out toys for the boys, I knew these presents would be well received (who doesn't want to be a superhero encased in protective metal), but I bet I knew deep down what they really wished for.

We do these things because we can, and we encourage others who can to do the same, to support programs that help others who need it, whatever that is, throughout the year and not just during the holidays. For us, we participate in and support programs that help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and nearly half of all women and men in the United States have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8%, respectively).

That's why our wish is that atop their Christmas list is the gift of actionable hope.

With Grit and Gumption

I loved math; I cheated at math.

It was third grade. Our teacher, Ms. Evans, a small, frail woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a really big heart (and really smart), would give us speed math quizzes every week in class. She'd had out a sheet of addition, subtraction or multiplication math problems that we'd have a few minutes to complete (I don't remember exactly how long).

We completed the speed math tests at our own desks and I used my plastic purple file folder as a privacy shield. My goal was to convince the teacher and my classmates that I didn't want any body cheating off my answers. I usually won the speed tests finishing first with impeccable accuracy and longed for the praised lauded on me each week.

But what I actually used the purple file folder for was to conceal the fact that I started answering the math problems before Ms. Evans told us to "start". Always at least a 2-3 minute jump, and always I'd finish first. I craved the praise and the approval. And the more I craved, the more I kept cheating on the math tests.

Now, why I thought my teacher, or some of my classmates even, didn't see what I was doing was the foolish self-deception of a 3rd grader. I'm sure my teacher knew. Maybe she just wanted me to build by confidence, although today behavioral economics point out that low-level, incremental cheating is a slippery slope to a much bigger negative economic impact over time. Thank goodness for me it was short-lived. I was good at math and didn't need to cheat (for acceptance and approval and status).

Decades later, our girls have learned a different math than the Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) and me learned back in our day. They've learned the "new math" -- the Eureka Math -- the math where you group instead of carrying the numbers.

Bryce does okay with the new math, but Beatrice has struggled, especially when it comes to word problems, related to her reading delays. Neither seem to have the same acceptance/approval issues I did -- I'd argue primarily because when my sister and I were that age, our home life was pretty unstable due to an abusive deadbeat dad who rarely gave us supportive love (although our mother did -- the best she could considering the circumstances), while today our girls have a very stable family environment with the Mama and me.

With Beatrice, too much academic pressure shuts her down like someone flipped off her motivation switch. It stresses her out to be tested in school, especially with both reading comprehension and math, and she struggles to finish those tests with timeliness and accuracy. So it's not apathy, it's more fear and frustration than anything. Interestingly, science, art, music and related social activities she thrives in.

The Mama has done an admirable job of keeping both girls reading and practicing math during the summer and it does help (Bryce has needed a little bit of help as well). I help as much as I can and it does make a difference working with the girls and encouraging them to learn. No matter how much they protest when it's time to "get to work."

Last year during the school year we had math night at school featuring instructors and creative exercises from an organization called Mathnasium. They both loved it and the Mama thought we'd give it a go this summer for Beatrice to take classes from Mathnasium and I concurred.

At first she was livid that we were going to make her take the classes. But once she made it through the first class and realized the fun she could have by earning rewards from the program as she learning and progressed, she's pushing herself more and less resistant to her own shortcomings.

And that's what we wanted -- for Bea to build more self-confidence incrementally, to challenge herself more and more to learn and not shut down if she's overwhelmed and stressed, even if subjects like math and reading comprehension could be continuous struggles for her.

Because it's only going to get harder, and we want them both to be able to adapt and thrive with grit and gumption in more ways than we ever dreamed growing up, without compromising their values or integrity along the way. Because that's what #BhivePower is all about.

Standing Up to Standing Down

One side wants the other to stand down. To acquiesce. To rollover. To not fight the good fight. History is full of the one-sided smack, usually a government, or a corporation, or a political party, or a cultural norm, or a religious or ideological movement, or some other form of precedented mob rule dominating over the masses, especially the disenfranchised. It's masked in the stance that, if we all come together on this, if you all just do as we say and wish, we'll all be the better for it. No one gets hurt. No harm, no foul. Normalize the rising tide so the rest of us can easily look away from the bodies buried in the sand, reasonable voices eventually drowned out. For a little while at least.

But for most of us, it takes a lot of focus and energy to keep our heads just above that waterline, fighting the everyday good fights for family and community. Those good fights being led by our own subjective voices of reason for a myriad of reasons, a hopeful array of daily disarray. There are so many movements to get behind and support, and yet I always come back to one -- domestic violence awareness and prevention.

Growing up, my sister and I witnessed my mother suffer continuous verbal and physical abuse. Her own parents (our grandparents) had told her repeatedly that she "made her own bed," that she married our birth father and needed to figure out how to make it work. That latter part we didn't know until years later, and while not out of the ordinary with the way families sometimes respond, it always hurt my heart that my loving, evangelical grandparents didn't give our mother more support early on. The domestic violence only escalated from that point on until she got us all out. A single mom with two little kids, no child support from our birth father, we were always one pay check from being homeless. Although I don't know what it was then, today according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, domestic violence is the third leading cause of homelessness among families.

However, we did have help from families and friends, and our grandparents did eventually take a stand and help us as well. Not a moment too soon either because we went from one violent home to another before finally finding peace and love with the man I called dad from age 13 onward. Too many times my mom's life was in jeopardy. Too many times all our lives were in jeopardy. According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, three women die everyday in the U.S. due to domestic violence.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called on governments around the world to increase spending in areas that will empower women, help domestic violence victims, and prevent future abuse. This includes an expanded definition of violence against women and harsher consequences for non-physical violence such as stalking, harassment, emotional abuse, and verbal abuse -- something that the perpetrators of certainly want us to stand down from supporting.

Besides Kidpower, my wife (known as "The Mama" to my regular readers) has also gotten involved in women's rights issues of late due to the contentious election our country has endured. I call it "activate the Mama" in honor of her inspired activism and civic duty in support locally and nationally of the Women’s March on Washington. Their mission is to stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families -- recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country. 

Of course it's not without its critics, and the differences among the women involved are as diverse as the very nation they represent. However, they are standing up to standing down, and since we have two girls growing up in a world where civil rights may potentially be diminished, I couldn't ask for a better partner to help fight this good fight. We've even adopted a family from a local women's shelter this Christmas, a mother and her two young daughters, to give them gifts that they couldn't afford otherwise. It's a little something and every little something helps when you're struggling to live day to day.

Whatever positive movement you support locally and/or globally, get off the ground, activate your family and make a stand happen. Every little bit of positive change and sustenance can go a long, long way this holiday season and throughout the year, the special gifts that keep on giving.

To Own Their Own First Takes

Life is a series of first runs that we rerun with fragile memory. No matter the amount of fretting and anxious prep, every scene is a first take -- no do overs or over-produced multi-edits -- one take whether we're ready or not.

And most of the time we're not. But that's okay, because this reality show is the realist of them all, and one with script after script of blank pages, where the story appears as we live it, the reappearing ink full of light and shade, color and smell, taste and touch, and plenty of tears and smiles.

The first days of school each year for many children are full apprehension and fear, the pits of stomachs holding fast rabid squirrels bouncing off rubber walls. I remember my first days of kindergarten still to this date, over 45 years ago. And while most of the details have since washed away over time, the feelings I had are still quite vivid: my nervousness, my shyness, the longing for home and my mother who had just dropped me off, and the sheer terror of meeting strange adults and other children I had never met before in my life.

The years to come were filled with less and less fear and a greater social stability, one that I would enjoy well into adulthood, and continue to in my unwritten pages of today. As parents, that's one of the best things we can hope for with our children beyond the security of food and shelter.

The past few years for Beatrice included auditory processing delays and a social angst that hurt our hearts to witness. All we could do was encourage healthy responses to these transitions and do whatever we need to do to support her, and her sister of course, who continues to break stuff while dressed as a princess.

Bryce has no social qualms whatsoever, but her aggressive tendencies (i.e., hitting and kicking) are a work in progress for sure. Bryce still struggles with exotropia as well and the eye doctor still isn't sure she'll need eye surgery in the future or not. Until then her cute little pink glasses with transitional lenses rock our world, just as much as she does.

While always being "on" academically since her preschool days, Beatrice has now blossomed socially and is more comfortable than she's ever been in social situations. She couldn't wait to start second grade. Frothing at the mouth to start, those rabid squirrels driving her onward to new life experiences. She may be more "boyish" than "girlish" at the moment, but that doesn't matter to us because the only moments that do matter are those when she happily adapts and enjoys her scenes.

Bryce made the leap to kindergarten this year, and due to dropping enrollment in our district, she was put into a combined kinder/1st grade classroom. We were a little apprehensive, as was she, but what was perfectly clear on her first day was her reaction sitting at her new desk with her name tag proudly displayed in front of her -- she kissed us each goodbye and sent us on our merry parent way. No crying or fear, just ready to rock her next feature film.

We definitely have the Bridges to Kinder preschool program to thank in helping develop both girls early on. Of course I have the Mama to thank for her tireless parental guidance, Kidpowering and helping me play my best supporting Daddy role.

We know we are blessed and never take for granted our family's pivot points and plot twists, because we want our girls to own their own first takes, regardless the memories replayed again and again, and replayed they will be.

Where The Heart Longs To Be

"Kevin!"

The Mama called downstairs right after I heard the coughing, and I knew what it meant. I knew even before she called out for me what was happening. One of the girls was sick and throwing up. I reached their bedroom and sure enough it was Beatrice.

"Poor baby," I said.

The Mama consoled Bea and took her to the girls' bathroom. I immediately stripped her bedding and hauled it quickly it to our bathroom to rinse off, consciously closing off my nose to prevent that ever-present gag reflex. Of course we love our children, but nobody likes to be close to the vomit.

We got her cleaned up and mouth rinsed and back to bed while Bryce bounced off the walls. Bea's always an-early-to-bed great sleeper. Bryce is not. But on the other end Bea get's up even earlier than me now that school has started, at or right after 5 a.m., and Bryce gets up much later, around 6:30 a.m.

For now and at least the next few years they'll share a room, which has worked out fine to date, even with the growing differentiation of sleep patterns. They sleep snuggly in their own beds, safe and sound, surrounded by dozens of their favorite stuff animals, while we sleep comfortably in our own room down the hall.

All in the safety and security of our own little locked up home.

When we bought our house, we weren't going to have children. Less than two years later we thankfully changed our minds. The night before Bea got sick above, I had finished watering our backyard, something we only do sparingly these days because of the drought. When I came back inside I gazed out our kitchen window.

"I love our little house," I told the Mama. "We raised our babies here. We put that little backyard together ourselves."

"Yes, me too," she said.

I reminisced bittersweet. We made it through the lean times and I learned a lot about the rock bottom perspective. We held onto our house when so many lost theirs during the great recession (although some economists would argue we should've let ours go).

But something kept nagging at me, like when you're trying to forget something you never wanted to remember in the first place, but it's always right there in the peripheral of your frontal lobe.

The NPR article -- that's what it was. The one about homeless families in San Bernardino, CA and the fact that California ranks third in the U.S. — behind only Kentucky and New York — in the percentage of children who don't have a home, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness. (Read more about the things you never wanted to remember via the Los Angeles Times staff writer Joe Mozingo's series San Bernardino: Broken City.)

There are about 2.5 million children who experience homelessness in the U.S., which represents about one in every 30 children. And it should come as no surprise, but again according to The National Center on Family Homelessness at American Institutes for Research:

Research shows that homeless children are hungry and sick more often. They wonder if they will have a roof over their heads at night and what will happen to their families. Many homeless children struggle in school, missing days, repeating grades, and drop out entirely. Up to 25% of homeless pre-school children have mental health problems requiring clinical evaluation; this increases to 40% among homeless school-age children.

The impacts of homelessness on the children, especially young children, may lead to changes in brain architecture that can interfere with learning, emotional self-regulation, cognitive skills, and social relationships. The unrelenting stress experienced by the parents may contribute to residential instability, unemployment, ineffective parenting, and poor health.

If you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, safety and security are the second tier of the pyramid, ahead of physiological needs (food and water). Unfortunately issues like homelessness are so emotionally and politically charged that no one cares about hierarchies of the many needs. This makes it difficult to shine a light on the fact that there are solutions that really do make a difference, including safe and affordable housing as well as education and employment opportunities for parents.

I'm also not suggesting we would've been on the street or in a shelter or motel if we would have lost our house. We were fortunate and still had resources, employment and a family support system. But my heart goes out to the millions of homeless children and families in this country (and throughout the world), thousands of whom are in Santa Cruz County, for whatever reason they lost theirs.

Pointing fingers at those less fortunate and saying it's their fault because they're homeless is not a solution, especially for the children.

Bea just started 1st grade and Bryce has one more year of preschool, and for them, home is where the heart is -- and they still have years to be a kid. But for those without, a loving safe haven is where the heart longs to be.