As a metalhead and father of two children, I found this video amusing and, occasionally, a little bit too real.
http://youtu.be/r7ZnOlVD3Ds
Father’s Day Is for Kids
A new LEGOLAND has opened in my neck of the woods, and I’m hell-bent on taking my kids there for Father’s Day. It’ll make it harder to see all the dads in my life that day, but I have good reason for wanting to do it.
Simply put, I think Father’s Day should be more about the kids than me.
I don’t want a day where I’m off the hook from my parental responsibilities. I want to celebrate being a dad by doing something my children will love.
Mood music:
That’s not meant as a swipe against dads who want to sit around on Father’s Day. There’s nothing wrong with wanting relaxation, and most of the time those dads want their kids around them. But there are also cases where the day is seen as a time for men to escape to the golf course or sleep all morning.
I’ve been particularly mindful of these things since reading a column from SI.com writer Jeff Pearlman in 2011 called “A Father’s Day Wish: Dad’s, Wake The Hell Up.”
At the time he wrote it, Pearlman was a stay-at-home dad who heard stories from moms in his community about how their husbands would never change a diaper or wake their children up for school or clean up their puke. An excerpt:
The woman started crying. I didn’t expect this, because, well, why would I? We were two adults, standing in a preschool auditorium, waiting for the year-end musical gala to begin, talking summer plans and Twitter and junk fiction and all things mindless parents talk at mindless events. Then — tears. “My husband,” she said, “doesn’t care.” She told me her husband works from home. But he never drops their daughter off at preschool. He never picks their daughter up at preschool. He never wakes up with their daughter, never puts her to bed, never takes her to a movie or a carnival or a ball game; never comes up with fun daddy-daughter activities. “All he worries about is golf,” the mother said. “Sometimes he’ll take her to the driving range for an hour. But that’s it.”
I consider myself a hands-on dad. I’ve cleaned up puke, bandaged scrapes and read to them daily until they could read on their own. I still make the lunches, and while I don’t work from home every day, most weeks I get them up, dressed, fed and off to school a couple days a week as a matter of routine.
I can’t be self-righteous about it because I’m imperfect in other ways. I remember a time early in parenthood where I preferred lying on the couch all day to actively playing with the kids. I’m also guilty of staring at a computer screen when they’re in the room.
I know many dads from my parent’s generation who were never home because they had no choice. They had to work long hours to keep the family housed, clothed and fed. I’m blessed with the type of work that allows me the flexibility to be a more active parent. That gift is what I plan to celebrate this Father’s Day.
My kids love LEGOs, which makes LEGOLAND the perfect place to go.
To Duncan on His 14th Birthday
Note: I’ve often written notes to my kids on their birthday. This was originally written when Duncan turned 1o.
An open letter to my second child on his 10th birthday…
Mood Music:
At 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, 2003, I was jolted awake by your mom shoving me in the shoulder. I had just gone to bed 45 minutes earlier, and I had had a lot of wine the night before.
You weren’t expected for a few more days, so I figured I could drink and watch TV all night. I worked the night desk at The Eagle-Tribune back then, and Sunday night was MY time.
But your mom knew you were coming. And unlike your brother’s slow entry into the world two and a half years before, the labor pains you gave your mother came on fast and furious.
This was the first time you made it clear that you were going to be heard. It certainly hasn’t been the last.
Fun fact: On the ride to the hospital, as I drove over the train tracks, Mom’s water broke. The car was still brand new at that point, and that would be the first of many messes you would make of that car. We were afraid you would be delivered in that car. That’s how intense your Mom’s labor pains were. It was the first and only time Mom let me blow through red lights. Two of them, to be specific. When we reached the hospital, I accidentally slammed Mom’s finger in the car door. She barely noticed, with the labor pains you were giving her.
You entered the world by early afternoon, and you were perfect. You still are.
Sean couldn’t wait to meet you. He had a stomach bug and was throwing up all over the living room the morning after you were born. But he wasn’t going to miss meeting his new little brother. Not for the wide world.
Fun fact: We chose the name Duncan for you early on. Your mom and I each made lists of potential names and Duncan was the only name on both lists. A lot of people think we came up with that name because of Dunkin’ Donuts. But I’m a Starbucks kind of guy and people should know better. Actually, I put the name on my list because your brother was really into Thomas the Tank Engine at that point, and one of the trains was named Duncan. As you now proudly tell people, your name is Scottish for “brown warrior.” You carry the name of a leader; a chief. It’s a name of strength. The key is to put your stamp on it. With your kind heart and strong faith (how many kids your age go to the chapel AFTER Mass to pray a little more because they WANT to?) I know you’ll do great.
You have a beautiful command of language and vocabulary, and one of my great pleasures is watching you with your face buried in a book or writing stories on the computer. You gave yourself an awesome pen name in N.R. Rennerb (Brenner spelled backwards, for those of you who didn’t immediately catch on).
You’re as brave and daring as your name suggests. It was you who talked your brother into going camping with your grandparents for the first time. You also dove into Cub Scouts and basketball without hesitating. Learning to ride a bicycle was a big challenge, but you never gave up. Who would have thought the key was simply raising the seat an inch or so?
You say things that make me laugh. Like the time you walked up to the old man in the van in front of Toys R Us and scolded him for smoking. Your exact words were, “Smoking is dumb, you know. It puts holes in your lungs. You also left your back door (to the van) open.”
You’re one of the most giving, loving souls I’ve ever met. You love unconditionally, whether you’re spending time with your cousins or sharing your artistic gifts with us. I especially love the things you can do with Origami.
I love to snuggle with you on the couch as we watch “Star Wars,” “The Hobbit” or your favorite British comedy, “Keeping Up Appearances.”
I love to take you on road trips with the rest of the family, like the time we drove to Washington D.C. and got a tour of the West Wing of the White House. One of my favorite family photos is the one where we are in the press briefing room:
As you’ve discovered by now, life can be hard. Learning to manage ADHD has been no picnic, but you’ve risen to the challenge. You study hard, take your grades to heart and got honor roll twice last year despite all the trouble you had staying focused.
ADHD hasn’t kept you back. It never will, because you won’t let it.
I can’t believe you are 10 years old. Where does the time go? I guess time flies for a Dad who is blessed with two precious boys like you and Sean.
Happy Birthday, precious boy!
We’re All Lousy Parents. The Trick Is To Not Suck Too Much
I’ve had conversations with other parents recently that highlight a fear we all share: Despite our best efforts, we’ll scar our children anyway.
Most of us can point to examples of things our parents did to scar us for life, and we’re horrified to find ourselves doing the same things.
My father could be a brutal teaser and taskmaster when it came to things like yard work and working in the family warehouse. It always seemed like my best was never good enough. Even as a grownup, I would tell him about promotions and raises at work, and when I told him what I was earning, he’d deliver these stinging words: “That’s it?”
Dad also doesn’t have a verbal filter. If you put on weight, he’ll look at you, smile, and tell you you’re getting fat.
Yet here I am, teasing my kids all the time. And though I’ve historically been the parent most likely to let them get away with stuff, I’ve hardened my stance of late. I feel like I have to, because Sean is a tween with all the infuriating attributes. So I get on him about taking out the trash, picking his clothes off the floor and being a leader in his Boy Scout troop. Meanwhile, Duncan needs a lot of guidance and patience as a kid with ADHD. I often fall short because my OCD robs me of all patience.
See our resources section for sites parents and children will find helpful.
These things used to distress me. Like most moms and dads, I always swore I’d do better than my parents did. But the older I get, the more I realize I haven’t been entirely fair to my mom and dad.
They made their share of mistakes, but they did a lot right, too. With the help of excellent doctors, they kept me from dying of childhood illnesses. They got me through school and made my college education possible. My father has helped me out of more than a few financial jams. Yeah, bad things happened when I was a kid, but they were often things beyond my parents’ control. They tried to keep my older brother healthy, but he died anyway. They tried to keep their marriage together, but it wasn’t meant to be. The fighting around that divorce was vicious, but that’s what happens when a relationship decays. Some manage a divorce better than others, but there’s no instruction manual to help things along.
Some parents vow to quit drinking and smoking when a child comes along and often fail. But addiction is a powerful slave keeper. We vow not to cuss, but if I’m a fair example of the majority, the profanity creeps back before you know what hit you.
There are plenty of cases of parents carrying on like saints or demons, but most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We adore our children and drive ourselves to the brink of exhaustion providing for them. We show them a lot of love. But we have bad days, saying and doing things that end up in their mental time capsules, which are dug up in adulthood and analyzed for signs of trauma. Most of us have emotionally scarring back stories from childhood. The trick is to keep our shitty parenting to a minimum and get it right more often than not. Sadly, we have to wait until they grow up to see how it all worked out.
Why I Skipped #ShmooCon — Again
Like last year, a lot of people have asked me why I’m not at the ShmooCon security conference in Washington D.C. After all, it is one of my favorite events.
Mood music:
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Simply put, it’s too close to the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco the week after next. Being away from home for multiple days for two weeks inside a month is simply more than my family can handle these days. Last year that realization was painful and I felt a deep sense of loss. The folks who attend ShmooCon have become cherished friends and I hate missing opportunities to see them.
But this year I don’t feel the sense of loss. For once thing, I’ll see many friends at RSA. And, this past year I’ve learned a lot about making choices, sticking with what my gut tells me to do and not being all pissy pants about it. I’ve spent a lot of time this year learning to accept that I can’t do everything I want.
Ever since I shook myself free of the fear and anxiety that came with my earlier form of OCD, I’ve had a craving for these journeys, perhaps for the simple reason that I can go through an airport and onto a plane without feeling like nails are being hammered into my intestines.
I think there’s also a high I get from going to a security show and kicking ass with my writing. Writing conference stories used to leave me harried. No more.
But that liberation has come at a cost. Specifically, since the OCD still runs hot from time to time, I have a problem with balancing my professional cravings with life at home.
I started to figure it out at the RSA conference in San Francisco a couple years ago.
Something went very wrong on that trip. Professionally everything was fine. But below the surface a personal crisis was brewing. If you look at my OCD Diary posts from that week, you could see me coming unhinged. I wrote about discomfort I felt as everyone told me what an honest guy I am because I’m not always so honest. In fact, that week a lie was eating away at my conscience.
I came home to a wife who was understandably angry with me. I was also sick as a dog, burning with fever. We worked through it, but it woke me up to the fact that I can’t do it all, 24 hours a day like I sometimes want to.
I needed to find the middle speed, which is hard as hell when you have an obsessive-compulsive mind and an addiction or four to keep in check.
I re-realized that I had to be truer to my top priorities: God, my wife and children. I can’t stop doing all the things I do. My life has evolved this way because, I think, I’m meant to give a part of myself to helping others. At the very least, it’s payment for the second chance God gave me.
But, to use corporate business-speak, I need to do it smarter, and be willing to drop it altogether for family. That’s one of the truly sick things about OCD: You know who and what you should be paying attention to, but the mental pull still drags you to less-important things that seem awfully important at the time.
That’s my blessing and my curse.
Last year, ShmooCon coincided with Duncan’s first confession, a very important event in the life of a young Christian. There was no way I would miss that. Not even for ShmooCon. Being Sean and Duncan’s dad and Erin’s husband comes first.
Next week I’ll take vacation and be with the family. Then I’ll go to RSA, kick some ass and enjoy the company of friends.
I feel pretty good about my strategy.
Meantime, I wish all my friends at ShmooCon a fantastic weekend. Bruce and Heidi Potter always put on an awesome event, and a lot of the talks are video recorded, so I know I’ll still get to lap up the content eventually.
Onward and upward.
It’s All Fun and Games Till Someone Breaks an Elbow
Duncan is sporting a pink cast on his right arm again, the result of a tumble off my bed last week. He was horsing around with Sean and took a spill over the side, landing on his elbow and fracturing it.
Mood music:
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Duncan went flying when Sean put up his hands to keep his brother from landing on top of him. Now every time someone asks what happened, Duncan points an accusing finger in Sean’s direction. Call it what you will — brothers being brothers, parental fail (I was on the other side of the bed reading, oblivious to the accident about to happen), Duncan being accident prone.
When Duncan came home in another cast, Sean felt terrible about it. He doesn’t like to see his little brother in pain and was equally upset last fall after Duncan fell off a set of monkey bars and broke his right wrist bones.
In addition, there’s a fair amount of guilt swirling around the Brenner house. Sean feels guilty because his reflexive action during a moment of horsing around caused Duncan’s spill. I feel guilty because I should have stopped the horseplay sooner. Erin feels guilty because she was a floor above us during the incident, talking on the phone.
There are teachable moments in all this.
The first is that feeling guilty is pointless; nobody conspired for this to happen. But we can be a little more alert in the future. For my part, the second horseplay starts, I can lay down the law and stop it.
The second lesson is that beating yourself up won’t change the outcome. Bad luck will always show itself in a split-second, before you’re fully able to process what’s about to happen. The tumble off the bed happened faster than the blink of an eye, and that’s the way life is sometimes — fast and sloppy.
As an OCD case, I’ve had to work at that last one. Those of us with clinical OCD are masters at second-guessing ourselves and everyone around us. We’ll replay the event in our heads repeatedly, looking for that quick moment when someone screwed up. But it never helps. In fact, it just makes matters worse because we let the obsession incapacitate us.
The best I can do now — the best all of us can do — is be there for Duncan and help him through it.
Fortunately, Duncan isn’t letting it get him down. He’s still every bit as active as he usually is, and yesterday he even enjoyed a string of bowling.
Despite the cast and sling, he won.
On to the next thing, which will hopefully be a lot less eventful.
Your Hollow “Personal Responsibility” Argument
I agree we shouldn’t count on government institutions to take care of us, that we need to take personal responsibility for our lives. But sometimes people use that as an excuse not to right wrongs. Take the case of the Methuen, Mass., student with a nut allergy.
Mood music:
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My local paper and former employer, The Eagle-Tribune, ran a story about the student in yesterday’s paper, and some of the comments were typical:
So when some kid becomes allergic to oxygen, should we all have to sacrifice? Where does it end? The new democracy. All sacrifice for the few. If I am walking down the street with a bag of peanuts should I now be afraid of being sued for injuring someones kid?
Ah, yes. The classic “where does it end” argument. The fear that if we put rules and restrictions in place to protect a few people, government will automatically take it 17 steps further and police everything from what kind of car we can buy to how far apart our legs should be when taking a piss. It’s another hollow argument.
Meanwhile, some of my readers disagreed with my conclusions. These capture the general sentiment:
Teachers are in the schools to educate, not babysit. When my daughter had to wear a heart monitor 24/7, I didn’t expect the school to cancel gym class! Maybe his parents should spend less time venting and more time educating their child. This way it’s not the responsibility of the rest of the world to create a bubble around him. It’s time for personal accountability!
Are you suggesting teachers need to be held accountable for what children eat? Was there a death in Methuen schools I missed, or an ambulance sent to a school?
That argument is off-base because:
- These parents are as hands-on as it gets. They have tried relentlessly to work with the school. They have educated their child on how to take care of himself. And they have never, ever suggested the school has a responsibility to do all the work here.
- The notion that my conclusions are “a bit harsh” because the boy didn’t die or get taken out in an ambulance is ridiculous. That’s like saying a teacher shouldn’t be fired because they only roughed up a student a little bit and not enough for an ambulance to be called in.
And the fact is that even severe allergic reactions can take 12 hours to show. The boy was taken to the hospital several times for exposure that happened at school. - The boy is on an IEP (special needs) and a 504 med plan. Teachers and staff are expected to follow those things as part of their jobs. Violations are not OK. Not now, not ever.
Most infuriating is the argument that the parents should home-school their child if they don’t like it. I’m sure plenty of parents would home-school their children if they could afford to quit their jobs and purchase all the supplies. True, you can’t always have a special needs child in the mainstream classroom environment, but this is not one of those cases.
Finally, suggesting it’s not the teacher’s job to protect the children in their classrooms is stupid. Their job is about much more than teaching from a book. It’s also to protect students for the six hours a day that they’re in charge. Parents trust teachers to protect their kids.
Think about that next time you’re compelled to whine about personal responsibility.
Fatherhood Saved Ozzy, Eddie & Me
Yesterday I watched the “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne” documentary, which focused heavily on how his addictions maimed him and his family over four decades. Though my addictive behavior pales by comparison, it still struck a chord.
Mood music:
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What hit me deepest is how Ozzy finally decided to get real sobriety after his son Jack had kicked drugs and alcohol. It took his son to show him the light.
There’s a similar plot in the recent comeback of Van Halen. Armed with the knowledge that he’d be able to make music with his son if he cleaned up, Edward Van Halen finally got sober a few years ago.
The son showing dad the light theme is an old one. It’s the whole “Luke Skywalker helping Darth Vader find his good side again” story. Only in the real life examples, the fathers get to live after having their epiphany.
In the documentary, we see Ozzy changing into a different, crazy person who continuously brings heartbreak to his family — especially his children. The daughter from his first marriage is asked point-blank if he was a good Dad. Her answer is a simple “No.” We learn — though it’s not really a surprise, given how incoherent he was in all the episodes — how his alcoholism was at its worst during the run of “The Osbournes” and how his youngest kids started using in that period. Finally, we see his son Jack deciding to clean up, inspiring his father to do the same.
Like I said, my addictive personality didn’t come close to the levels of Ozzy Osbourne or Edward Van Halen. But it was bad enough that I can relate to things like being useless on the couch when my kids needed me. I was never that way all the time, and I’ve been a pretty active Dad more often than not. But I am guilty of those bad moments.
But what I relate to most is how it took becoming a parent to drive home the need for me to be a better man and reign in my demons — the OCD and addictive behavior that was a byproduct of constant fear, anxiety and exhaustion.
It wasn’t an instant thing — Sean was almost 4 and Duncan was was barely 2 when I realized things were not right in my head — but the cattle prod was definitely my hunger to be a better parent.
So yeah, I have to say I’m inspired by these rock n’ roll stories.
For A Girl Recently Diagnosed With Crohn’s Disease
The daughter of close friends just found out she has Crohn’s Disease. She’s suffering a lot right now, and I know exactly what she’s going through. This post is for her.
Mood music:
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Hello, my young friend. I’m sorry that you’re hurting so much right now. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease when I was around your age, and spent many weeks in the hospital between ages 8-16. It stinks. But if there’s one thing I’d like you to remember after reading this, it’s that it WILL get better.
I experienced all the things you are now — the massive loss of blood, the knifing pain in the gut, sleepless nights in the bathroom, and more blood.
A couple times, I’ve been told, the doctor’s came close to removing the colon. Too much of it was under siege and they didn’t know where to start in terms of targeting it. But it never came to that.
The pain was pretty intense. I really don’t know how my parents were able to get through it. I think it would cause me more anguish to see one of my kids suffer than to go through it myself. That had to hurt. Especially since they lost another child along the way. It also couldn’t have helped that I would be in the hospital for six-week stretches in 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981.
I mention this because you should know how hard it is for your Mom and Dad to see you hurting. They’re new to this Crohn’s thing, and they will worry endlessly about what they are doing for you and whether it’s the right thing. Be patient with them if you can. But if you need to yell at them once in awhile so you can cope, go ahead. That’s what parents are for.
As you will probably soon discover, the most popular drug to treat what’s making you sick is Prednisone, which comes with a long list of side effects. Your face might get puffy and you’ll want to eat everything in sight. But you’re a strong kid and you can handle that.
A lot of people helped me survive a childhood of brutal Crohn’s Disease: My parents, great doctors, school friends who helped me catch up with my schoolwork and rooted for me whenever I got out of the hospital, and a great therapist who helped me sort through the mental byproducts of illness.
I think you’re going to get through the current attack and that you will be able to move on to a better life. Again, I lean on my personal experience.
I’m probably one of the luckiest Crohn’s patients on Earth. The last bad flare up was in 1986 and I haven’t had once since. I still go through frequent periods of inflammation, but nothing that requires drugs or hospital stays. The colon is checked out every other year to make sure the layers of scar tissue don’t run wild and morph into cancer.
Had the doctors removed the colon when I was a kid, I think things still would have worked out. I would have learned to live with it. Whatever you have in front of you, I think you can make the best of it and push through.
Be strong and keep the faith, my young friend. I hope you feel better soon.
–Bill
Strong Too Long, Or Weak Too Often?
There’s a saying on Facebook that depression isn’t a sign of weakness, but simply the result of being strong for too long. Somewhat true — though weakness does feed the beast.
Mood music:
I’m feeling it this morning.
I’ve always taken a certain level of satisfaction from my ability to stay standing in the face of death, illness, family dysfunction, depression and addiction. Sometimes, I get an over-inflated sense of survivor’s pride.
People love to tell you how awesome you are when you emerge from adversity stronger than before. The victor is placed on a 10-foot pedestal and life looks hunky-dory from up there. But it’s only a matter of time before the person on top loses balance and crashes to the ground.
I’ve fallen from that pedestal a bunch of times, and my ass is really starting to hurt from all those slips off the edge.
All this has me asking the question: How much can you blame depression on being strong too long when many times it comes back because the victim has been weak?
I don’t think there’s a precise answer. I only know this: I feel like I’ve been trying like a motherfucker to be strong 24-7. But I don’t seem to have the fortitude to maintain it, and I give in to weakness.
In the past, that weakness would involve indulging in food, alcohol and tobacco until I was too sick to function.
Today, the weakness involves getting angry and self-defensive and distant at the drop of a hat.
For all the progress I’ve made in managing my OCD, there are still moments where I go weak, put the blinders on and do some stupid things.
It’s the compulsion to keep staring at the laptop screen when one or both kids need me to look up and give them some attention.
It’s stopping in the middle of a conversation with my wife because the cellphone is ringing or someone has pinged me online.
It’s spending too much money on food and entertainment for the kids because it’s easier to me at the time than cooking the food myself and playing a board game with them instead.
I’ve been working double-time at bringing my compulsive tendencies to heel, going through some intensified therapy. The short-term result is that I’m an angrier person than I normally am.
My therapist made note of that anger at our last meeting. The trigger in the room was him taking me back to my younger years in search of clues to present-day debacles. I thought I was done with sessions like that five years ago.
But I’m learning that the road to mental wellness is not linear. It goes in a circle. It’s like driving to the same place every day for work. The drive to work and back is a loop of the same landmarks, the same traffic patterns and the same behind-the-wheel thinking sessions.
I’m learning that managing my issues is going to involve frequent trips back and forth from the past to the present. This pisses me off. But I know I have to keep at it.
I guess I’ll always have my weak moments because of the events that shaped me. But you can still be strong throughout it, learning to regain your footing more quickly and being better at the kind of discussion with loved ones that prevents endless miscommunication from adding up to a mountain of pain.
I don’t know when I’ll truly reach that level of strength. But for now I’m leaning hard on all my coping tools, including the music and the praying.
