So far I’d say most of our parenting strategies have developed organically.  We didn’t make conscious decisions ahead of time about many aspects of our parenting.  Rather, we dealt with situations as they arose and a methodology of sorts naturally emerged.  By and large, I think this approach has served us well.  It’s interesting, though, because only in retrospect could I really tell you what our parenting philosophy has been at any step of the way.

Given that, I always find it interesting to hear older parents – people who’ve traveled more of this road than I have – talk about their perspective on parenting.  Last week I was sitting in a  conference room waiting for a meeting to start.  I got to chatting with a colleague and she offered some commentary on one of her parenting philosophies regarding her now-college-aged kids and it struck me as interesting.

She said, “We assumed the privileges were a given.  We didn’t make the kids earn them.  They were going to get video games, cars, clothes, and so on.  But all of those privileges were theirs to lose.  We made it clear to them that their number one job was to get good grades and be good citizens at school.  And the moment those things (and others) started to suffer the privileges would be revoked until they were earned back.”

I hadn’t really thought about the chicken and egg nature of parenting before, but in this arena I think I like her tack.  I like the idea of telling a kid that the basic assumption is that his behavior will be good; that he uses good judgment and makes good decisions; that his default setting is one that entitles him to certain privileges.  I think it sends a good message.  By comparison the alternative seems to me a bit harsh.  That is, “You have to earn your privileges because it is our assumption that you might not do so.  And until you prove us wrong you have to do without.”  In the world of self-fulfilling prophecies I’d much prefer to set the former into motion than the latter.

I’m sure my parents made plenty of mistakes in their parenting, just like anyone else.  But one thing I think they did right was to impress upon me that they trusted me.  If they told me once they told me 800,000 times that I had good judgment.  I suspect that they hoped that if and when I ever found myself in a situation where I had to choose between a smart and a stupid decision that I would think to myself at some unconscious level, “I am a person with good judgment, so I will not make the stupid decision.”  I can’t say for sure if it worked, but I can say for sure that I was one of the least rebellious kids I’ve ever met.

I have wonderful kids.  That’s easy to say at this point because they’ve had very few opportunities to let me down.  And while I’m quite sure that at some point down the road they will do just that, I like the idea of parenting from a position of faith in my kids.  I like the idea that they would know that, unless they give me a reason to think otherwise, I will believe in their goodness, patience, tolerance, kindness, intelligence, work ethic, and sound judgment.  Because to whatever extent I have the ability to shape their perception of themselves, that is the perception I want to create.

IEP and Nanny on her wedding day

I’m here to follow up.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Manhattan’s niche industry of super high end nannies and mused about why some people will pay astronomical prices for childcare.  I was responding to an article in The New York Times Magazine that discussed this topic and has since gotten quite a bit of national attention.

Take, for example, this article from Slate’s Double X section in which experienced nanny L. Wood discusses why she would rather work for a rich family (specifically a rich mother) than a working one.*  Wood comments that the obvious issue of compensation certainly factors in.  But, rather, she believes it is the way that wealthy mothers manage their relationships with nannies and babysitters that makes them preferable employers.  Specifically, they don’t have relationships with their nannies – according to Wood, that is.

Perhaps I come to this topic defensively.  Except for the fact that we did go through a well-reputed referral agency (rather than Craigslist or similar) to hire our nanny  I am everything she described in a working mother.  We went through a series of awkward interviews.  We ultimately made a decision based on a gut feel.  When our nanny was new to us and we were new to parenting I’m sure that I micromanaged her more than was warranted.  And – at the heart of Wood’s position – we have a personal relationship with our nanny.  It seems we’re everything she’d hate.

So now that I’ve gotten my disclosures out of the way let me ask this: what’s so wrong with all of that?  When it comes to babysitters I can see her point.  They are there to keep your kids fed, amused, out of trouble, and put to bed for an evening here and there.  They are paid hourly and if they are reasonably experienced there is no need to go through lengthy pre- or post-game rituals with them.  But a nanny is different.  This person is caring for your children on a daily basis for long periods of time.  (I know of a family who had the same nanny for 12 years!)  Nannies are working (and sometimes living) in your house for the majority of your children’s waking hours.  What I don’t understand is why anyone wouldn’t want such an employment arrangement to come with some degree of personal relationship.

Wood argues that, “Wealthy moms know how to manage their help because they have experience hiring, managing, and firing people in their homes.”  She believes that this level of comfort with household employees makes them better employers because it affords them some degree of detachment from their nannies.  While I would agree that someone well-versed in managing a household staff is better equipped to be a good boss, I wholly disagree that the detachment that supposedly results is any kind of asset.

Any study that analyzes people’s job satisfaction tells us that one of the biggest indicators in whether or not people like their jobs is the relationships they have at work.  This usually outranks even the work itself in measures of job satisfaction.  In a professional environment the friendships and camaraderie that are built amongst coworkers are highly valued.  Yet Wood seems to believe that such relationships come as a detriment.

Taking this a step further, a nanny’s job is to help raise your kids for a portion of their lives.  Certainly she should do so in accordance with the parents’ rules, values, and priorities.  But she’s still shepherding them through life on a daily basis.  In the same way that two parents need to communicate about their children extensively, so should a mother** and her nanny.  Raising a child is a huge job and a collaboration.  If a nanny is part of that collaboration in your family then shouldn’t there be more to a mother’s return home at the end of the day than, “You’re dismissed”?

I don’t pretend that our nanny comes to our house every day out of the goodness of her heart.  She comes because it is her job and because we pay her.  Nevertheless every morning when I leave for work thank her.  And every evening when she leaves our house we thank her.  Perhaps this isn’t the way things are for most working adults.  Come to think of it, I don’t think my current boss has ever thanked me for anything.  But maybe that should be the way things are for more of us.  How much happier might we all be if our employers told us on a regular basis how much they appreciate what we do?

In my last post on this topic I mentioned that IEP was Nanny’s ring bearer when she got married last month.  I couldn’t have imagined it any other way.  And I’m pretty sure neither could she.  And I know for certain that we’re both very grateful for that.

*For the purposes of this blog post I will overlook the incredibly erroneous assumption that no working mothers are affluent, and that all stay-at-home mothers are.  Clearly she’s never heard of Sheryl Sandberg.  Nor has she, apparently, ever met a family that made financial sacrifices in order for one parent to stay home.

**I don’t mean to exclude fathers here.  But Wood limits her argument to mothers, so for the sake of practicality so am I.

IEP at Nanny's wedding rehearsal last weekend.

She knew the sign for “cereal.”  That was the thing that first stuck out in my mind about our nanny when we interviewed her more than three years ago.  Amidst versions of the same conversation about tummy time, play-based teaching, redirecting, and emergency scenario planning that we had with all of the other candidates, I remember our nanny wiggling her index finger under her chin and making the sign for cereal.  I don’t know why I keyed in on it so much, but I did.

That was when IEP was 11 weeks old.  Now he is nearly three and a half and Nanny has spent nearly every weekday with him since then.  And I’ve never questioned our hiring decision.  We went with our gut, and it was the right call.

However, the nannying industry isn’t the juggernaut here in the Midwest that it is in many larger cities – specifically New York.  Hiring a nanny in this neck of the woods was overwhelming enough to us as rookies three years ago, but nothing like it would have been in Manhattan.  I think I could have told you that based on instinct a long time ago.  But I can tell you that for a fact after having read this article about the “bizarre microeconomy”  of super high end nannies in New York.

You should read the article yourself, because I’m confident you will walk away reeling at the amount of money a very few people are willing to pay for their childcare.

Author Adam Davidson describes a $180,000 a year nanny and her cadre of skills when it comes to getting young children to brush their teeth and take their baths.  Now I’m all for a smooth bedtime routine, but $180,000?  Really?

I think anyone paying $180,000 for a nanny is getting snookered.  Either 1) they have far more money than brains, in which case I feel sorry for them because they’re in for a lifetime of snookering; or 2) they are paying through the nose for their nanny just so they can say they have a six-figure nanny, in which case they’ve made their bed; or 3) they were too lazy to interview candidates in any substantive manner and just assumed that the most expensive was the best, in which case they’re getting just what was coming to them.  But any way you slice it, they’ve been taken to the cleaners.  This isn’t to say that excellent childcare isn’t exceedingly valuable.  It is just to say that common sense ought to factor into the calculus somewhere.

Raising children is hard work.  Getting kids to eat their vegetables, brush their teeth, pick up their rooms, stop fighting over toys, and remember to say please and thank you is tiring for everyone involved.  And anyone who can make these affairs run smoothly on a daily basis is worth her weight in gold.  (Figuratively speaking, of course.  If we were talking literally the $180,000 salary would buy you a 6.75 pound nanny for a year at today’s gold prices.)  But with a little creativity and clear definition of exactly who is in charge a whole range of people can do it.  There are so many ways to skin this cat.

Getting a household with kids to run like a well-oiled machine is difficult, but not impossible.  It doesn’t require acts of God or magic.  It requires a lot of patience, a lot of persistence, a lot of creativity, and a willingness to discipline.  And there are a lot of people who are able to do it effectively.

You can show me an amazing Alexander McQueen dress in a size six and I may love it.  But I won’t buy it because I don’t wear a size six.  Just because it is exquisite and expertly crafted doesn’t mean that it fits me.  And if it doesn’t fit me I would be a fool to pay $8,000 for it.  The tricky thing about a nanny is that you don’t really know until you’ve hired her whether she’s good at her job and a good fit for your family.  The high dollar candidate may be a perfect fit for someone, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be a perfect fit for you.

I’m here to level with you.

As I’ve mentioned recently, my lovely, smiling, cooing, and altogether adorable second son SSP has one fault.  (I’m sure there will be many more in the future, but for the moment it’s just the one.)  He isn’t sleeping through the night.  That alone isn’t such a big deal.  He’s only four months old and lots of babies don’t sleep through the night at his age.  However, he has taken it a step further.  Lately he has been waking up to eat twice most nights.  Sometimes he wakes three times.  If we get through a night with only one feeding I count it a huge victory.  And since maternity leave is a dim and distant memory (sigh), I am no longer able to get my head back above water with an afternoon nap.

This means that I am a wee bit exhausted lately.  (My mother lovingly told me over the weekend, “I’ve never seen you so tired, my dear.”  Ummm, thanks, Mom…)  So, in the interest of my own sanity and that of my family, I’m going to dial it back around here to two posts a week for a while.  You will find my fresh, witty, and insightful thoughts (I’ve decided that anyone who is this tired is entitled to a bit of self-flatttery) here on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next couple of months.  And when SSP starts sleeping through the night and I start feeling like a normal human again, I will return to my standard MWF posting.

So, check back tomorrow for a new post.  Until then, have a wonderful Monday and a wonderful week.

It  all started here: an article on Huffington Post about a seven-year-old boy who proclaimed to his parents that he is gay.  A friend posted a link on Facebook.  I read the article, loved it, and reposted it on my own Facebook page with a comment that the boy’s parents were to be commended for their supportive response.  However, that is not all there was to the story.

As it was told by his mother, a significant part of the boy’s coming out had to do with his crush on the character Blaine from Glee.*  He apparently also has frequent exposure to gay and lesbian couples through his parents’ friends.  So as far as he is concerned liking boys is no bigger a deal than liking girls.  I was thrilled to learn that this kid is blessed to grow up in a family and community where such a confession at the age of seven was met with complete acceptance, but there is the question of how he came to consider his sexuality at such a young age in the first place.

Is there a chance that this boy decided that he is/wants to be gay based on a very likable character in a television show?

I thought about it and I think the Glee crush probably gave this boy the platform – context and vocabulary – to express himself, but wouldn’t have put the idea in his head. I’m sure there are lots of kids who watch Glee at impressionable ages and don’t walk away believing they’re gay.  But what if they did?  What if kids watched Blaine, with his bowties, crooning voice, and wisdom beyond his years and said, “I’m going to be like him.  I’m going to be gay.”?  What then?  Would it be the worst thing in the world?  And why do we hang the weight of the world on it?  We chalk most of what kids say at this age (“I want to be a ninja turtle.” “I want to marry you, Mommy.” “Girls are yucky.”) up to their being children and not up to permanent beliefs.  So why is this topic so different?

Unfortunately, the answer is easy: fear for our kids.  Not all kids live in environments as tolerant as that of the boy from the article.  To run around the grade school playground pronouncing your homosexuality carries risks, right?  It would have for us, certainly.  But what about for today’s kids?  They are growing up in a world with Glee on the air.  They are growing up in a world where gay marriage is legal in more than half a dozen states.  Is it really the taboo ordeal today that it would have been 25 years ago?  Or are we just projecting our own fears onto our kids?

I don’t know the answer to this question.  I’m sure it varies by region of the country, religious and political persuasions, and various other criteria.  But any way you slice it, I don’t see how this kid coming out as a seven-year-old should be a problem.

If he identifies as gay now, it’s great that he’s being supported, just the same as it’s great to be supportive of a kid when he says he wants to be a secret detective. If he decides later that he’d rather kiss girls that’s fine too. What matters most is not how he came to this identification, but the fact that he’s being given the space and support to decide for himself.

*For the purposes of this post I am entirely setting aside the issue of whether or not a seven-year-old has any business watching Glee in the first place.

This past weekend IEP was sick.  Triple-digit fever Friday night.  Phlegmy cough.  Runny nose.  A walking, talking (and yet still adorable) germ.  Lovely.  Needless to say, we operated on an abridged schedule.  To that end, we skipped church yesterday morning so that IEP wouldn’t infect the other kids at Sunday School and while the boys hung out at home I was able to squeeze in an extra trip to the gym.

As I pedaled away on the Helix machine I flipped the pages on a back issue of People and came across a story about a young girl, just a couple of years out of high school, who had entered a convent.  She spent one year at a large state university, trying it on for size, but ultimately decided that she was called to serve God in a more direct way.  It was a decision that she’d been weighing for some time.  According to the article she first felt called to become a nun at the age of five.  She spent most of her childhood and adolescent life enjoying life as a normal kid – playing sports, having sleepovers with friends, and attending her junior prom – while quietly keeping the convent at the back of her mind.

As I read the article I got to thinking about how I might react if one of my children made a similar choice.  Granted, we are not Catholic, so unless there were a conversion to Catholicism a life in the ministry would not mean the same sacrifices that it did for the girl I read about.  But let’s say for a moment that we were Catholic.  What then?  Life as a priest would entail some incredible sacrifices for my sons.  No wife.  No children.  No conventional career.  No means to travel the world.  Having attended Catholic school for many years as a teen I have some sense of what this life is like, but I still struggle to imagine it for one of my own children.

The girl in the article (I couldn’t find it online to provide a link – sorry!) talked about how she weighed the loss of a family into her decision, but still felt a stronger pull to the ministry than to anything else.  She felt that a family life wasn’t for her.  After all, it’s not for everyone.  She now sees her family eight times a year during four-hour Sunday afternoon visitation sessions on Sunday afternoons.  There is a quote on the number of letters she can write and phone calls she can make.  And she is okay with this.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t so okay with it.  Not as it related to this girl.  It’s fine for her, of course.  But I kept thinking about my own kids.  I see the joy that I find in my family and I want that for them.  I want for them the feeling of waking up next to your spouse in the morning.  I want them to see their babies smile for the first time.  I want them to know the feeling of fullness when a tiny child wants only you.  I want them to know the gut-busting laughter that is brought by living with a three-year-old.  But anyone who enters the Catholic ministry will never know these things.

The truth is, I should be okay with this.  All these things about family life that I just listed?  They bring me joy because they are what was right for me.  I would feel imprisoned in a convent.  But perhaps for someone who feels called to life in the ministry the daily life of a working mom would feel like torture.  I was given the freedom to make my own decisions and I’ve ended up in a life that makes me exceedingly happy.  And that is what I should want for my children – the ability to choose the path that will bring them joy – not that the same things that brought my joy will bring theirs.

IEP and SSP are their own people.  They will develop their own interests and passions.  Perhaps those interests will overlap with mine and perhaps they will not.  But so long as their life choices are safe, healthy, and bring them joy, it should be irrelevant to me exactly what those choices are.

As best I could tell, this young girl’s parents are supportive of the path she’s chosen.  I applaud them for that.  And I thank them for setting such a worthwhile example for the rest of us.  It can be a challenge to embrace someone’s choices when they would not personally suit us.  Nevertheless, that is just what we should do.

First off, I come to you with an interesting follow-up to Monday’s post.  As it turns out, I was (at least in one person’s opinion) way off base in my criticism of Madonna as the Super Bowl halftime act.  After reading this article I have a new appreciation for the relevance of her performance, and why it carried more weight given by a 53-year-old than it would have if given by a much younger performer.  It’s definitely worth a read.

If you hang out around here very much you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m a regular reader of The Huffington Post.  It is my first source for headlines (though I tend to then go to more substantive sites such as the NYT when I want a deeper dive on any particular topic), and I also enjoy its topical entries on subjects ranging from politics to health and wellness to celebrity fashions.  By and large I think the content is pretty solid.  So I was really disappointed when I came across this article about parenting boys.

I am one of two sisters.  My dad was the only guy in our family, and after 36 years of going it alone (happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!) we’ve pretty well indoctrinated him too.  So when IEP was born and the doctor said those three little words (“It’s a boy”) I had to start learning everything from scratch.  Thankfully, it came quite naturally – the trucks and trains and tiny football jerseys.  All these things that once were foreign became instantly familiar.

Nevertheless, as a woman who has never been a little boy and did not grow up around little boys I am always interested to learn more about the trade to which I have become the most eager apprentice – raising boys.  So I was excited when Monday’s headline article in the parenting section of HuffPo was one about the author’s experience parenting boys.  …  And then I read it.  And disappointment ensued.

My first and most immediate frustration was that author Devon Corneal went straight for the stereotypes – penis comparisons, peeing on the floor, broken windows, flatulence jokes, and roughhousing.  Yes, these are real aspects of raising boys (luckily I still haven’t been faced with a couple of them), but we all know that.  There’s nothing new in the acknowledgement of some of these down-and-dirty elements of having sons.  But there is so much more to raising boys.

This is important because my second, and more significant problem with Corneal’s position was that because of all of these male-centric traits she believes that she is effectively neutered as a parent to her boys.  She writes:

I’m slowly learning to stop myself before interfering with my husband’s parenting, because, even though the way he does things are different, sometimes they’re better. As much as I’d like to think I know it all, and as much as parenting magazines, websites and bloggers (this one included) focus on mommies, when it comes to boys, daddies might be the experts.

IEP loves it when his dad body slams him into our big bed.  He frequently runs around saying, “Daddy, knock me over!”  And GAP is a more effective partner for playing imaginary games of football and baseball.  But IEP needs more than that.  All boys need more than that.  All boys ARE more than that.

When IEP isn’t playing with his imaginary friend Ray Rice he’s giving his baby brother kisses and snuggles.  Or he’s making a grocery list and carrying it around in an old purse of mine that he pulled out of a Goodwill donation pile.  Or he’s pulling the tiny butter warming pot off of the baker’s rack, requesting a wooden spoon and whisk, and pretending to make his umpteenth batch of carrot stew.  These are aspects of his more feminine side, and they need every bit as much cultivation as his traditionally masculine traits.

It’s true, I can’t roughhouse with him as well as GAP can.  But I’m more of a conversationalist.  And sometimes GAP just can’t go the full nine rounds of talking about every street sign we pass as well as I can.  (And I’m not a half-bad infielder or tickle monster myself, and Daddy’s kisses give just as much love as Mommy’s.)  We each bring different strengths to the table, and each set is valuable.  This is what I have to give, and I don’t discount it; not ever.  I may not be a boy, but I know my boys.  And I know that they need me, my perspective, and my touch just as much as they need their father’s.  They need us both in equal measure.  And I’m sorry for Devon Corneal that she seems to have forgotten that.

If you were on Facebook at all last week (and if any of your friends are of the Mommy set), chances are good that someone you know posted a link to this article about cherishing every moment of parenthood.  It’s worth a quick read, but to summarize, author Glennon Melton states that while she is out in public wrangling her three kids she is often told to “cherish this moment” by older women whose children are grown.  She posits that this well-intentioned advice actually has an adverse effect on her, leading her to live in a state of constant paranoia that she isn’t savoring her role as a mother enough because parenting small children is an incredible amount of work.

As I read the article Melton’s words rang true to me – so much so that my response was something along the lines of, “Well, of course it’s hard!  Doesn’t everyone already know this?”  As I watched the Internet explode with re-postings of her piece what struck me most was that the article was causing such an uproar.  (It garnered more the 1,500 comments on The Huffington Post.)  Any parent will tell you that parenting is hard.  Any parent will tell you that there are days when everything seems to go wrong and all you want is for the sun to set and your kids to go to bed.  Any parent will tell you that there are moments when the only way to get even 30 seconds of peace and quiet is to go to the bathroom.  This is not novel information.  So why all the kerfuffle?

I think it’s due to a serious lack of both honesty and understanding.

The honesty problems belong to us parents.  As parents (especially as mothers) we feel compelled to address our children’s behavioral imperfections in one of two ways.  1) Don’t really talk about them at all.  Or 2) Talk about them with a self-deprecating humor that suggests we aren’t ever actually driven to our limits.  But this isn’t true, is it?  IEP (whom I love to the ends of the earth) can make me crazy faster than anyone else I know.  In a couple of years SSP (whom I also love to the ends of the earth) will fit that bill as well.  And I would wager that this is true for all parents.  So why can’t we say so?  I don’t know the answer to that question, but the mere fact that Melton’s piece created the dust storm that it did indicates to me that not enough of us are.

The understanding problems belong to the people who question us.  Just because our children can run us ragged doesn’t mean that we are in over our heads or that having them in the first place was a mistake.  In her article Melton likens parenting to climbing Mount Everest.  People don’t climb Mount Everest because it is easy or relaxing or enjoyable.  They do it because it is an unparalleled challenge, the completion of which is enormously satisfying.  This isn’t to say that parenting is merely one grueling step after another or that there is only a single, fleeting moment of accomplishment when they graduate high school.  Obviously there’s more to it than that or we wouldn’t do it.  Even climbing Mount Everest doesn’t take 18 years.

For me, though, the biggest take-away from this whole thing is that we each parent in our own way.  We each enjoy different things about parenting.  What one parent sees as drudgery another parent may see as a delight, and there is incredible freedom in that.  No one can (or at least no one should) tell us which aspects of child-rearing ought to be enjoyable to us.  For Melton navigating three kids through an afternoon’s worth of grocery shopping and other errands might be a chore.  For another parent it might be an adventure.  And that’s okay.

We can wish away the moments of the things we find maddening.  And we can relish in the moments that we love.  And we should never have to justify any of it.

I was about finished handing over my donations when he rode up on his bicycle.  His coat was brown oilcloth, worn with the collar turned up, and didn’t look to be very warm.  Behind his bike was a cart of sorts – homemade out of plywood and fastened to a single axle attached to two tires repurposed from a jogging stroller.

I waited for the Goodwill guy to get my receipt while this man got off his bike and walked up with the first of three large cardboard boxes.  Each one was literally overflowing with children’s clothes.  I saw snap-crotch onesies, tiny pink tops, pants, and dresses.  I was on my way to the gym and felt liberated being out of the house for a bit.  I decided to make some small talk and commented that it’s amazing how quickly kids outgrow clothes.

“Yes,” he said.  ”Some of them are practically disposable.  They wear them once and then they don’t fit anymore.”

As he responded he walked back to his bicycle cart to collect the second box.  I followed him with my eyes, and only as I watched him pick up the next box did I notice a tiny little girl in the cart as well.  She was somewhere between 18 months and two years old.  Her skin was fair, but pink from the chilly December air.  Her eyes were bright.  And her coat was much too big and gapped around her neck.  She didn’t have on a hat or gloves.

“Well hello, little one!” I said.  She  smiled broadly yet bashfully.   “It’s a cold one today.  Are you staying warm?”  She didn’t look like she was.  I scrambled to think whether or not any of IEP’s many winter hats might have been left in the car that I might give to her.  None had.

“Yeah, how’s your brother’s coat working out for you?” her father added, as if to imply an explanation as to why it didn’t fit her.

The father and I wrapped up our cliched conversation about how quickly kids grow and I got back into my car.  The outside temperature on the dashboard read 36 degrees.

As I waited to turn left at the light just outside of the Goodwill parking lot I saw the man cross the intersection on his bike and turn right.  As he did his little girl struggled to keep herself upright in the cart behind him.  And for the rest of the day I thought a complicated mix of conflicting thoughts about this encounter.

A man who clearly did not have a proper winter coat, or a hat, or a car was donating dozens upon dozens of articles of children’s clothing.  Presumably he no longer had use for them and wanted to see that someone else – someone who had even less than he? – could used them.  At the same time, this man dragged a tiny child out on a very cold day without proper protection against the winter weather.  He rode his bike in traffic while his daughter sat loose in the back, unbuckled and without any kind of helmet.

What kind of man was this?  A good man?  A man who thinks about those less fortunate even when he himself seems to have so little?  Or was he a careless and irresponsible parent?  Someone who jeopardizes his daughter’s health and safety to do something which, while admittedly good, was not at all urgent.  Couldn’t he have waited until a warmer day, or a day when his wife or a friend or neighbor was available to watch his daughter?

All of the above?  Is that the answer?  Like anyone else in the world I am prompted to say, “Yes, and…”

We never really know all of another person’s story.  We know only what we see in many cases.  We know what we are told in others.  But we are almost always left to fill in some of the blanks with our own suppositions.  I believe in most cases the answers to those blanks are clouded with nuance.  They are the places where the answers aren’t clear and we are forced to confront both the triumphs and the failings of the people around us.

The man I saw at the Goodwill drop-off door last week is just like most of us in many ways.  His circumstances may be vastly different from yours or mine.  But he exists on a continuum just like anyone else.  He has some very admirable qualities.  And he also makes mistakes and imperfect choices.   Is he a good man or a bad man?  He is a little of both, just like everyone else.

Last year IEP was given this terrific children’s nativity set.  At two years old he was still a bit too young to have any understanding of what it meant.  This year, as a three-year-old, he is beginning to learn about the Christmas story.

After seeing how he had arranged them I asked what the kings were doing.  He plainly told me that they were waiting for their turn to see Jesus.  (I think Santa-visiting protocol was probably an influencer here.)

Then when I asked why the animals were off by themselves on the windowsill he told me, “Barn all full.  Animals going for a walk.”  … Makes sense to me!