(25 Weeks)
It was a warm July day in the Bronx, and I stood outside Yankee Stadium with my Dad. Since he and I started going to Yankees games in the mid 70s, I insisted we arrive at the stadium many hours before the first pitch. First so I could wait outside and watch the players arrive and then to stand down by the dugout for the entire two hours of batting practice because the players were often kind enough to come over to say hello and sign autographs. My father was accommodating.
I met Thurman Munson outside the stadium that late afternoon. He was my favorite. I too was a catcher on my softball team, and he was my idol and role model. I had a poster of him in my room. He would die less than two weeks later in a plane crash. I remain grateful to my dad for giving me that opportunity and took that memory with me into my own experience as a parent.
In 1989, my car was stolen while I was working a 2nd job. The store didn’t close until 7pm so it may have been close to 8pm before I finished up with the police and called my parents realizing that my house keys had been left in the car. I was still in New Jersey. My parents had retired and moved to the East End of Long Island, so they were now at least two and a half hours away. But they did have an extra set of keys. They arrived at my place a few hours later with not only the keys but a few bags of groceries. Then my mom went right to work whipping up a home cooked meal for me and the friend who was kind enough to give me a lift home.
My parents were awesome! I wrote about them early in this series (Sixty Weeks to 60: Parental Love). I don’t know how they did it! I don’t think I’ve even come close in my parenting. I do however give myself a break because I’m sure navigating today’s kids and social media and text messaging and smart phones, etc. would have been challenging even for them. It’s probably not a fair comparison. And of course, our family dynamic was drastically different, too.
I am glad that my girl can feel comfortable talking to me about stuff I could never discuss with my parents – sex, alcohol, drugs, suicide – but they were born in the 1920s, so theirs was a very, very different experience. The only real mistake I think my parents made was not allowing me to see them argue. Seriously, not once. I have to think it’s not that they didn’t disagree on stuff, but I never – not freaking once! – saw them argue about anything. Whenever I asked to do something, there was no “go ask your dad.” They both took a “we’ll discuss it and get back to you” approach and they weighed the pros and cons and took care of any differences of option behind closed doors.
While part of me wishes Chris and I could have been that disciplined in our parenting and managing our emotions, I’m sure that observing some conflict resolution strategies is a good learning experience for a child. To this day, I still have difficulty managing conflict in relationships. While I wouldn’t think it’s good for a child to be in a house where parents fight all the time and are nasty to one another (as mine unfortunately was until she was 14), it is important for children learn to navigate – positively – a disagreement.
I fail miserably in that dept! Sometimes I can still hear my dad telling me, “count to 10 and think about what you’re saying before you say it!” And yet, at almost 60, I still struggle with heeding his advice. It’s no wonder where my daughter gets it from.
I remember not long after Chris died and she was having some sort of meltdown and I was giving her a hard time and she says, “fuck you” and I paused, looked at her all serious, and said the first thing that popped into my head: “fuck you too”. We both laughed. Tension broken. I don’t think there’s a one size fits all in parenting. I need to determine what works for me and my kid and take into account all the issues that exist in our lives.
I have found that diffusing a situation goes a lot further than a fight. Yup, my kid can be rude. She’s sassy, opinionated, assertive and won’t take crap from anyone. I am proud of who she is and the relationship I have with her in all its imperfections and messiness.
I also learned a lot from my parents about unconditional love. After Chris died, being the kind of parent they were became very important to me. I became the parent who would always drive the kids where they wanted to go. Sometimes that meant sitting in a Starbucks while they enjoyed a High School sporting event (they didn’t want me to attend the event; that would have been embarrassing). One time it meant driving back down the shore for a concert in the evening, after I had just been there to run a race early that morning. Another time it was a road trip to a concert in Maryland.
I know other parents sometimes thought I was nuts indulging my daughter like that. I may have been trying a little to make up for a parent who was no longer there. But mostly, I was just paying it forward. My parents, in all their imperfections, are still in my eyes, the best ever! They were married seventy-five years ago today (I wrote about that a few years ago).
Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.
