The Single Event

I am always very aware of my interactions with Nicholas, mainly because I know that events averaged over my lifetime to date are much smaller than the same events averaged over his lifetime to date. I think this is the fundamental calculus that so many parents neglect. In some respects, it is quite unfair to parents that a single, negative event might get burned in to a child’s memory and hold sway over their recollection more than the aggregate of all the parental sacrifices and positive events. It is of little use to complain about this fact of life, because it is, after all, a fact of life. Taken out of the parental domain, this same phenomenon applies to other events in a child’s life - getting bullied, being ridiculed, being ignored, etc. This is, perhaps, why so many parents instinctively know that over caution is warranted when comes to their child’s experiences in the world, even as they forget that the same over caution needs to be applied to their child’s experiences with them. Of course, parents do the best they can under the circumstances they find themselves in, and sometimes these circumstances can be overwhelming, so, as children, we have to evaluate the single events that we hold on to as defining characteristics of the parenthood we were subjected to. This all boils down to awareness on both sides of the parent-child high-wire. We need to teach ourselves to be aware of what we do, and we need to teach our children to be aware of why we do.

Intermittent Differences, Enduring Similarities

I’ve seen a few comments expressing sadness about our divisions and foretelling the end of our great nation. I am not so sure, and here is why: Fake news may cause those on the polar extremes to outsource the determination of what is real to their polarized leaders, but for those of us in the middle, it should make us more independent minded and better fact checkers. Social Media may short circuit to personal attacks for those whose extreme views cannot tolerate questioning, but for those of us in the middle, it should improve our debating skills and help us to maintain our perspective on our intermittent differences and enduring similarities. Volatile issues might seem to further divide us, but such issues also divide the divided, and, like water molecules, we become more fluid. There are times when I wholeheartedly agree with and assessment from one friend that a different friend would find the patently offensive, and vice versa. In short, throughout all of these polar extremes, the middle gains momentum. We have less strife than we did during the Civil War, or the Civil Rights Movement, or the Vietnam War. We are just flexing the margins and improving ourselves to move forward with a more unified understanding of each other and the world. We should not feel grateful for this particular process, because there are better ways to achieve the same objective. We should not feel fearful either, because it is the same objective after all.