Worth The Time To Check

Our youngest Bryce came home and told us about a teacher rumor at school. I'm not going to share was the rumor was here, but I worried about its veracity. When I asked Bryce where they heard about this problem, they said it was from other students. 

"How do you know it's true?" I asked.

"Because everybody's talking about it," Bryce said.

"But that doesn't make it true," I said. "And I would be careful not to repeat it because rumors like that can be personally destructive to those they're about." 

"But everybody's talking about it," Bryce said.

"Unless you have it from a verified source, and it impacted your health and safety directly, I would not spread the rumor any further," I said. "If it is a health and safety program, then Mom and I get involved."

"No Kidpower, Dad," our oldest Beatrice said, rolling her eyes.

Our kids groan and shudder when we reference Kidpower, the organization my wife Amy works for, which is all about emotional, social, and physical safety skills for kids, teens, and adults. While they may express annoyance about Kidpower, we've empowered them over the years to be calm, confident, aware, and safe in their lives, which is the Kidpower mantra. 

This isn't directly about that, though. It's about how misinformation starts, grows, and spreads, and how destructive it can be. We all hear rumors all the time. Unfortunately, due to confirmation bias, which is our willingness to believe things because they align and reinforce our world view, means we're horrible fact-checkers. Super horrible fact-checkers. 

In today's 24/7 news coverage across a spectrum of ideological and political divides, it's difficult to ascertain balanced and objective reporting and where the real truths are. Real truths that have also been misused and misinterpreted since the beginning of time for propagandized agendas. Combine that again with today's opinion pieces sprinkled with pixie dust and threads of truth, if that, and the multiverse of what actually is, isn't. 

We've all seen what happens when misinformation is used to bludgeon us into submission or reactive division and violence. So, what can we do? Well, our rule is if we can't verify something we read or hear by at least another three or more reliable sources -- reputable news outlets (that may swing left or right, but not extremely), legal precedents, eye-witness testimony (which isn't always the best either), etc. -- then maybe it's not quite true and needs to be dismissed or investigated further.

It's a lot of work to verify what's true and what's not today. We've tried to instill this in our kids, to verify everything they hear and read about, but it's not easy and takes a lot of energy and time. And sometimes it feels like a losing battle where we're lost forever in the multiverse of what isn't. But for our kids sake, their health and safety, and their futures, it's worth the time to check. 

Breaking Out

Our youngest Bryce first performed on stage in preschool singing Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off". They looked so sweet in a white frilly dress but was very nervous while performing. Like almost going to cry nervous, which was the same reaction they had when first trying out for a theater production. 

Three productions later, and Bryce has more confidence than ever, still primarily performing in the ensemble and taking on small roles. They have auditioned for bigger-smaller roles, so maybe now with the experience they've gotten, Bryce will land one next time. 

Because there will be a next time. Bryce has got the theater bug for sure. Right before opening night of this latest All About Theater youth musical production of Urinetown, I told Bryce good luck, which they again quickly reminded me that saying good luck is back luck, and the correct expression is "break a leg". 

"Break a leg then," I said. "Love you."

"Thank you," Bryce said. "Love you, too."

The musical was a satirical social commentary about class (rich and poor) and corruption and what happens after a 20-year drought when using the "facilities" (toilets) cost money. It was really good; these kids are amazing. Including Bryce!

Another funny musical we watched recently was a high school production The Drowsy Chaperone, a story about a middle-aged, musical theater fan who, feeling "blue", decides to play for the audience an LP of his favorite musical, the fictional 1928 show The Drowsy Chaperone. It's a fun parody of a 1920s American musical comedy. 

And lo and behold, there was our oldest Beatrice working behind the scenes as part of the stage crew. Well, it wasn't a surprise, because we already knew she was helping, and now she has the theater bug, too. She even wants to audition for the next production, whatever it is!

For the past year now, Bryce's introverted love of acting, dancing, and singing has definitely extroverted and increased exponentially. That includes theater and choir. And Beatrice is now enamored with the theater as well (she also has a lovely voice and said she wants to direct, too). We all are enamored with the theater now -- watching Wicked on Broadway during our spring break was quite the experience. We're so grateful to have done that. 

Amy and I may not break out into song and dance for you, but our kids most certainly will. However, if you ever need a drummer...

Never Be Remiss About Missing Out

I didn't realize it was national competition. I only thought it was a local choral festival we were going to. It's probably better that I didn't know, since I agreed to play the drums on one of the songs for the middle school advanced (gold) choir that our youngest Bryce is part of. The song was Nanuma, a traditional greeting song from Ghana. 

It's a fairly simple repetitive beat, a welcoming pattern, which made sense since it is a greeting song. I practiced it for over a month along with my usual drum regimen nearly every night I was at home and not traveling for work. 

Halfway through that month, the choir teacher sent me an email that she had another person to drum, someone who was going to do it in the first place, so I was off the hook. Now, I could've just let it be at that point, and walked away from it. I've had enough work stress of late, so why would I want to stress about performing in front of people for the first time, including both my children, Bryce and Beatrice. Both were supportive, although Bryce might have been kind of mixed about it in the first place. Supportive, but mixed. I mean, I am Dad, and they are teen, so there's that. 

But I didn't walk away. I wrote the choir teacher back and said I'd been practicing and really wanted to do it. She replied excitedly that I should still do it; she thought I'd want to back out. Both my wife Amy and I would also help chaperone the choir event, because after the performance all the kids were going to the Great America amusement park. 

The morning we left for the choir festival, I had to pick out an acoustic tom drum, stand, and sticks from the choir/band room at school to bring with me. I play an electronic kit at home and have never really played acoustic. Acoustics are much louder and the feel is different, even though I have mesh heads at home, which have a give feel like acoustics. 

We all rode the bus to the choral performance, then came the performance itself. I set up my drum and then stood poised sticks in had. The choir took to the risers. The choir teacher hit the piano key for pitch, started waving her hands in the beat count, looked at me, and I started the song. In retrospect, I wasn't actually nervous to perform, just more nervous about being too loud. As the choir sang the lovely greeting song Nanuma, I drummed lightly until the very end when I drove it home. 

And then it was over. Less than three minutes of song overall. It wasn't a big audience, but here were family and friends and another choir in the room waiting. After I was done I sat and listened to the other two songs Bryce's choir sang, which were wonderful. In fact, our middle school choir won gold in the top 10% of schools participating at the Forum Music Festival! 

Not because of my drumming, of course, but I was still proud to be a part of it (and couldn't wait to share with my drum teacher!). Nope, you're never too old to learn new things. Never. We encourage our teens to try new things, to overcome any anxiety about trying new things, and continue to develop the new things they end up enjoying, maybe even loving, like sports, theater, art, music, and more. Just like they're doing now, with theater winning the hearts and minds of both kids (more on that soon). We never want them to be remiss about missing out. 

Imagine That

"...You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one..."

–John Lennon, Imagine

At first, we couldn't find Strawberry Fields, a five-acre landscape in Central Park dedicated to the legacy of John Lennon. Our maps application guided us near it, but not to it directly. Finally after asking a nice woman walking her dog where it was, we found it. 

This chilly spring walk through Central Park was one of the last things we did in New York during our spring break family vacation. When we found the "Imagine" memorial, there was a group of people taking selfies with it, and many others sitting and milling about the memorial, listening to a man singing Beatles songs and playing a guitar. It was lovely really. Cold, but lovely. 

We were very grateful we could again take our family on a trip like this. Our teens, Beatrice and Bryce, really wanted to come to New York again, picking out our first Broadway show Wicked to see. We again visited the 9/11 Memorial, the American Museum of Natural History, the Met, the Empire State Building, and many other NYC sites. Beatrice also helped to pick out yummy places for us to eat. The weather turned cold, rainy, and windy while we were there, but that didn't slow us down. We took the bus in and out of the city from where we stayed across the Hudson River in New Jersey. We took the subway safely to many places throughout Manhattan, and we walked the streets of New York for over 35 miles over 5 days. All the people and the hustle and bustle of NYC did not disappoint. 

As we sat and listened to the musician play Beatles songs in front of the John Lennon memorial, I reflected on one major difference in this family trip than all the others we'd been on to date: we talked with our children about many adult things. They prompted the conversations, too. Ideological. Political. Spiritual. Current events and more. It wasn't the first time we've had these conversations when they're adulting with us, but it was the first time I truly saw them as the young adults they're becoming, with more clarity than ever. 

Everything that John Lennon represented (and still represents) -- peace, love, empathy, acceptance, and especially social activism -- I see in our children (and us), which was why our adulting conversations this time were so awakening for me. His ideology isn't for everyone, but it is for those of us who want a more loving and empathic world, and we look forward to our children helping to de-polarize the dark conduits of hate today. 

Imagine that. We most certainly can. 

Let's Dance!

In a world on fire full of crazy hate, it was fun to watch high school students and teachers dance like no one was watching. But there lots of people watching -- a high school gym full parents, students, teachers, and administrators who cheered on the dancers for the "Dancing with the Santa Cruz Movie Stars" competition. We never watched the Dancing with the Stars show on TV, but we used to love So You Think You Can Dance. 

I remember when I was in high school when some of us would do funny skits during assemblies that sometime involved other teachers and even parents. 

Like the time I stood in the gym in nothing but a towel wrapped around me (I had shorts on underneath) with a few more of my football team. We were blindfolded and we were supposed to guess which girl was giving us a kiss on the cheek (or something like that). I don't remember all the context during the assembly, but that's what we did. However, the twist was our mothers were the ones who kissed us on our cheeks, and a gym full of students, teachers, and administrators got quite a kick out of it. 

There were many other fun times like these when I was in high school, but this dance show at our daughter's high school was next level. Our daughter Beatrice wasn't dancing, but she was there with her friends cheering on the competitors, including her favorite math teacher. It was only the second year of this competition, and the dance teacher who organized was another favorite teacher of Beatrice's. 

My wife Amy and I hadn't had that much fun on a Friday night since our date nights of old, pre-kids. Watching the high school "Dancing with the Santa Cruz Movie Stars" competition filled me with pride and nostalgia. Teachers or another student were paired with dance students who choreographed the dances to movie soundtrack songs from Barbie, Mama Mia, Teen Beach, Singin' in the Rain, and many others, including Star Wars. Yes, Star Wars. I wanted to get up and dance with a lightsaber, too. A student, a school administrator (who won last year), a professional dancer and choreographer, and our city mayor made up the judges. 

What was the most inspiring for us, though, was all the dancers' willingness to be vulnerable for the sake of fun and entertainment, for trying something new. No one was making fun of anyone as far as we were concerned. The packed gym was cheering on all the dancers regardless of their skill level, and some of them were pretty darn good. Most of the dancing pairs only had a few days to pull together a routine, too. Amy and I used to take dance lessons and love to dust off our moves sometimes, so this got our boogie shoes tapping. In the immortal words of Kevin Bacon's character in Footloose, "Let's Dance!"

Adulting With Us

When they were kids, we could do no wrong. We knew that wasn't true, but our kids didn't call us out on our mistakes and those poor parenting moments. 

Like cursing at other people doing dumb things in their cars while we drove near them, next to them, across from them, anywhere around them. That's me. One time in particular that has since become a family inside joke was when we were turning left on a green light. Before I could turn, I had to wait for the oncoming traffic to cross. Behind me was a guy obviously angry because he was stuck behind me until I could turn. He honked and then zoomed around us heading straight just as we were able to turn left. He mouthed something at us and that's when I flipped, cursing at him and flipping him off. He was driving a work car with some solar company name on the side. 

Mom and kids were a little taken aback. "Dad!" the kids called out. Thankfully my road-rage breakdown was short-lived, and the ongoing inside joke became "there's that 'solar guy' again following us." 

That was a couple of years ago. Now that both our kids are true teens, we find them pointing out our mistakes and shortcomings. All. The. Time. 

And that reminds me of when I used to do that with my own parents. My dad usually took it in stride, but my mom would sometimes tell me I was being disrespectful. But more often than not, she'd admit she'd made a mistake, especially as I got older and became a young adult. 

My wife Amy listened to a great podcast recently. An interview with Lisa Damour, PhD, author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. She shared it with me and I gobbled it up. As I listened, I could feel myself nodding and saying out loud, "Yes, and that, and that, and that." 

So many take aways for me, for us, and when Lisa said, "They have phenomenal acuity for the shortcomings of adults," I thought, Yes, I did then, and they do now. 

Just the other day I heard it over and over again about how triggered I get about other drivers when I'm driving and even more so when I'm not. How "judgey" I am on the road. They're not wrong either. 

However, it can hurt when we're called out by our teens about our own mistakes, mistakes we should do better owning, even when their feedback is as direct and unfiltered as it is. Thankfully they're not crossing the rubicon of intentionally trying to hurt us or sabotage us. If they were intentionally trying to hurt us, then that's a whole other ballgame of issues to deal with. 

Ours aren't, and most of the time we don't take it personally. Our teens are all up and down emotion while they individuate and find their own identities and voices, just like we did when we were their age. They model our good and call out our bad. This is also their way of adulting with us, adults they love and trust, and so their helping make us better people is a win in the raising teens column. 

To Make The Shine Glow On

"I just got lost

Every river that I tried to cross

Every door I ever tried was locked

Oh, and I'm just waitin' 'til the shine wears off..."

–Coldplay, Lost!

At first, her painting felt sad and lonely. But she actually painted it at a time when she felt good about her young life, all that was happening in it, and what might happen next.

She was very proud of her work. Is proud of it. Our oldest Beatrice is quite the talented artist and we're proud of her and her work. 

Both our kids are quite the artists actually. Are quite the intuitive feelers. This is evident as they grapple with new life and learning and frontal lobes developing in front of their very eyes. Or, more correctly, in back of their very eyes.

Whether Bea intended it or not, there is a melancholy feel in the painting. The dark forest behind her. The shadow of herself in the pond that's not a true reflection, only dark shadow. It's reminds me of the line from a Coldplay song: "Oh, and I'm just waitin' 'til the shine wears off." Waiting for the good things to fade away, leaving only darkness it it's wake.

But that's me projecting my own life experience into my interpretation of my 15-year-old's painting. It doesn't mean that teens don't have ups and downs and dark deep thoughts -- they do. Not the same life experiences as us their parents, but we're also not dismissive of their angst and encourage them to talk about all their feelings. 

What I love is that the question in her painting was actually a statement: What NOW. With NOW being all caps. Like it's a challenge to what will happen next, what life will bring. Again, I'm projecting my own interpretation here, but I feel it's close.

That's a bold statement as far as I'm concerned, but demanding the "what" to manifest itself this very second is normal instant gratification longing that both teens and adults feel. Making something positive happen is another story altogether. Too many of us wait for the "shine to wear off", because that's what we expect to happen ultimately, if we feel we've been let down before by others and/or circumstances; it's always someone else's or something else's fault. This is all emotionally hard for developing teens to comprehend, but it's especially difficult for adults who never knew how to deal with adversity in the first place. 

Encouraging our kids to experience and feel all the feels, to be able to express them verbally and non-verbally (like through art), and then to work on manifesting what's next will serve them well throughout their lives. We don't want them to wait for the next bad thing to happen. We want them to make the next good thing happen for themselves today -- to make the shine glow on.