Mr. Spock's Baby and Child Care

Both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner turned 80 last week. Both actors took what could have been cheesy roles in an even cheesier show and turned them into iconic characters in a modern-day mythology that's been quoted by everyone from the cast of Saturday Night Live to the Beastie Boys.

Part of that iconic nature came from the way each character handled conflict.

So as a parent (and lifelong Star Trek fan), who do I turn to when advising my son on dealing with his own conflicts - kids in his class demonstrating distinctly Klingon-like tendencies (and not the warm and fuzzy Worf kind, either)?

How about a generous helping of Spock with a dash of ass-kicking Kirk thrown in for good measure? After all, any sort of violence that takes place in a school will instantly fall under the draconian (and unfairly applied) "zero tolerance" policies. Basically, the last kid seen striking a blow in an altercation - frequently the victim - is marked as the instigator and punished. So Spock-like calm and lack of emotion might be the ticket.

But who among the first-grade punk-ass set really buys that air of calm as a deterrent? Spock's advantage was always three-fold. A) He had the ability to emotionally remove himself from the situation and not do something stupid (read: human). B) He still had some tasty self-defense skills honed in those crazy Vulcan mating rituals and could lay some serious hurt on nearly anyone with a simple clench of the neck. C) If it all really went to hell, he had hyper-emotional Kirk there to open an industrial-sized can of intergalactic whoop-ass on all comers, alien or otherwise.

So how do we fold those together? Well, the boy, for better or worse, has a sense of peace and calm that right now seems to rival both Gandhi and MLK. He is not easily provoked, and as school protocol dictates would prefer to alert a teacher or his parents when he has been done physically wrong. This is a good thing, as I'm all for non-violence.

But as with any parent, I hate to see harm come to my kids in any form, and so I counsel an additional line of defense that will keep him (hopefully) out of the principal's office. The boy takes martial arts, and is equipped with the basic skills needed to defend himself, so I recommend defensive blocks followed by a hasty retreat. He's got a sense of humor like his old man, so I suggest humor to defuse the situation. Otherwise, just stay way from the kids who are problems. All very Spock-like.

But what boils up inside me all too often lately is the urge to rally for a cosmic-scale Capt. Kirk-ian ass kicking. I hear about the latest bit of grade-school thuggery and I imagine the boy administering a quick elbow the the face of his antagonist, then feigning ignorance of how his assailant ended up a sobbing, blubbering mess with a bloody nose. Was it possible for Kirk to pummel a Romulan into wetting his pants? Occasionally, I'd like my boy to find out.

But the thing that holds us all back as parents is - do we want kids who barrel through the universe (or neighborhood, as it were) shattering the prime directive and emerging sweaty, a little bloodied and with a drooping forelock after laying out an alien lizard creature (or pesky classmate)?

I think not. So for now I'm continuing to counsel more Spock, less Kirk, in the hope that nobody provokes him into whipping out the first-grade equivalent of the Vulcan neck pinch. I simply can't imagine having to explain that one to the principal.

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Explaining the Inexplicable

Friday we were running late and - in the middle of a pouring rainstorm - watched as the school bus pulled away from the stop just as we arrived. Since I had already bundled both kids into the car rather than try to make the one-block trek through gale conditions with nothing but an umbrella, we just headed on to school.

Considering the date, I should have just kept the car radio off. But to do so as we came up at just minute before the fateful time of 9:03 a.m. somehow seemed disrespectful - as if I was somehow denying the tragic events of eight years earlier.

NPR was covering the anniversary, and when the boy heard "attacks" and "towers," his first inclination was to ask what they were talking about. The best I could do without choking up was to say that eight years ago, some really bad people had flown two jet planes into some towers in New York City and a building in Washington, D.C.

There was no "why?" There was no curiosity beyond asking what the folks on the radio were talking about. And honestly, I consider that a blessing, because just saying the words I did was pretty difficult.

As a former reporter and editor who, at the time of the attacks was languishing in the throes of a recent layoff, I still bear a shred of survivor guilt that I was someplace where I was really no good to anyone. Friends and colleagues got called in to work. Others were staffing newsrooms and voluntarily sacrificed extra hours over the subsequent days to make sure coverage was handled with the respect and thoroughness it deserved. All had the benefit of being in a group, where their grief, even in the cynical confines of a newsroom, could be shared.

I watched it on CNN from my living room, feeling impotent and helpless along with furious and appalled.

But in briefly explaining the broader event to my son, the feelings that welled up weren't my own self-pity or even general grief for the event itself. They were instead the looming knowledge that not long from now, I would be called to explain to him the as yet unasked "why?"

Why do people do such things? How could someone hate another person, group, or country so very much? And how can I assure him that nothing like that will ever happen to him.

The sadness is amplified by the fact that I really don't have good answers to either question. Regarding the first question, I could give him some rote propaganda about "freedom haters" and "evil doers," but that just doesn't seem to cut it. In fact, I don't think he would stand for it, because he's been raised in a home where things are rarely cast in such stark contrast. He knows, even at five, that there are areas of gray. An answer such as "Because they hate our freedom," might work just fine for some grown-ups, but all I would expect from him would be, "But what does that mean?" Truth is, I'm not even sure the people that actually say that really know what it means.

Regarding his safety, the hard part is knowing that I, as a parent - charged with safeguarding my children -- can not genuinely guarantee his safety from people at home or abroad who want to do harm to others. "Don't talk to strangers" and "Look both ways before crossing the street" will avert the everyday dangers, but there is no way to know the Next Crazy Thing.

The Next Crazy Thing comes to us nightly compliments of the evening news. It's the random shooter at a mall or high school, the ruthless child molester prowling around schools, the little girl snatched off the street. All these sit in our parental brains, where we know they are unlikely to happen but are all too aware that they do happen, and that when they do there's no way to predict them and there are few ways to guard against them.

So I'm grateful to the boy for letting me answer him in a concise and efficient fashion without going into grisly detail he wasn't ready for. He now knows why they were talking about attacks on towers, but has thankfully left it to later to wonder why.

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Welcome!

Welcome to “… And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Cheerios,” which, barring any cease and desist orders from General Mills, will be a place where I, your humble guide, will accompany you, the reader, through this labyrinth called fatherhood.

A little about me: I’m a journalist and corporate writer who spent more than a decade as a full time member of the newspaper industry. I work from home, so could technically be called a “stay-at-home” dad. Just don’t call me Mr. Mom. My kids have a mom, and they call her mom. I’m just a dad who happens to be around all the time, doing a few more of the things I’d likely be doing even if I had a job outside the home.

You might guess the name you see attached to this bit of bloggery isn’t my own. You’d be right. When the big book publishers come calling, I might reveal my true identity. Until then, though, be one with the mystery and enjoy. By the way, all names will be amended or changed to protect the guilty, innocent and easily embarrassed.

Main characters featured in the chronicles herein include:

• Me – Your host on this bizarre journey of the mind.


• The Wife – Stunning, talented, smart, resourceful and eternally patient. I really don’t deserve her, and yet she keeps coming home at the end of the day. Who’d have guessed?


• The Boy – Kindergarten-aged first born, gregarious, precocious and sometimes exhausting. We’re expecting either his doctoral thesis or the full screenplay to his own Phineas & Ferb episode any day now.


• The Girl – Our gorgeous and fearless toddler and the second (and last – more on that later) in a set of really great kids. She is convinced she is a 17-year-old trapped in a very small but exceptionally well-accessorized body.

Since modern fatherhood means so many things, the topics discussed here will be far-ranging and will likely cover many, many bases. Unlike many parents, who seem confused about why kids act the way they do, I have found it impossible to forget my own childhood and use those experiences as constant reference points for how I treat my own little ones.

I’ll also offer my humble opinion on parenthood issues that crop up on the national and international scene from the my own unique perspective. What is that perspective? Keep up with the postings and find out.

So look around, see if there's anything you like, and as always, thanks for reading.

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