Christmas: Kid Gloves Removed

Cheers to anyone who can enjoy the Christmas season without a little anxiety.

Every Christmas I feel a little anxiety, but not caused from current, real-time dilemmas or holiday stress. I traced my feelings to their beginnings and ended up in my youth, somewhere between age 8 and 12.  I call it kid-worries, youthful uneasiness or anxiety lite because kids do not have much to fret about at Christmas compared to adults, unless they have not been good.  And I got a lump of coal in my stocking for Christmas once (although I did receive some gifts that year), so I know how that feels.

Let me try to explain what I mean by kid-worries.  Growing up, I have great memories of anticipating Christmas.  There were four main kid adventures to Christmas prep:  setting up the tree and hanging ornaments, decorating outside, setting up the train set, and gift wrapping.  Each was its own kid-tradition with various feats that you had to grow into in order to accomplish. The older you got, the more you could take part.

Christmas at our house was the moist, burning lint, slightly potpourri-fragrant smell of the game room in winter with our baseboard electric heaters drying mittens and shoes; the static shocks of touching everything metal; watching holiday cartoon specials; secretively planning gifts; John Denver and Kenny Rogers eight-tracks and festive radio favorites on the stereo as we decorated; the sight of everything changing.  Christmas was a transformation, a real production at our house.

So I have tried to examine why the kid-worries come back this time of year, and I am naming the source as music, more specifically, Christmas carols.  Not just any carols, but what I call adult-themed carols (not that kind of adult theme) which bring up images that concern a kid. 

For me, there are three types of carols:  religious carols (“Silent Night”, “O Come Emmanuel”), kid-friendly carols (“Jingle Bells”, “Frosty the Snowman”) and adult-themed carols (“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire…”). Kid carols were easy to learn and relate to; they were fun, fantastic and helped reinforce the magic of the season.  Religious carols had a deeper meaning that Christians could relate to; they reminded us that Christmas was about preparation for the miracle of the birth of Jesus.  Adult carols were somewhat familiar, but somewhat inscrutable as far as lyrics went; they had titles that kids understood, but lyrics that could also worry a kid.

Maybe I was an oddball, but I paid attention to carol lyrics. I think it was because I felt like they were a puzzle piece to understanding what Christmas would be like for me when I was grown-up, like I needed to know the carols for later in life to understand the significance of what was going on.

Adult carols are troublesome to kids because they hint that the holidays, which are fun and all about presents and play as a kid, get more complicated when you are grown up. I always knew I would grow up, go to college and be on my own; I trusted that growing up would be fun and not produce anxiety.  But how does a kid resolve these issues brought up in Christmas lyrics?

Let me give you four examples. “Let It Snow” is a romantic carol about being with a significant other at Christmas. Kids do not relate well to this. This brings up insecurities like how to reconcile being with a girlfriend and your family at the same time, and how would you choose between them? “White Christmas” has the line ‘just like the ones I used to know’. As a kid I remember thinking, ‘you mean there might be Christmases (with regularity) that are not white (I grew up in Pennsylvania)?’ If so, what kind of Christmas is that (welcome to Florida) and why would I have to put up with it? In “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas“, we hear “troubles will be far away”, but this only sounds like a temporary escape. Why do I need Christmas as an escape from daily grown-up life? Or “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”…‘you can count on me’. This carol seems to send the message that it takes quite an effort to get home to visit for the holidays. Why would that ever be the case?

It is not hard to see why kids could get the wrong idea about Christmas from the adult perspective. From these songs a kid could catch the Peter Pan syndrome and think:  what kind of world is the grown-up world where everything is turned upside-down, and what can I do to avoid it? Why would I want a life without white Christmases, where I have to fight to get home for the holidays, have to decide whether I spend it with my girlfriend or my family, and use Christmas as a break from my troubles? A kid cannot help but think, with sincerity: what will I have in my future life to equip me to cope with the adult world and compensate me for this wrecked tradition and unfortunate, imminent reality?

Christmas as an adult is complicated because it is not a single, solitary life anymore living the ideal Christmas fantasy. Instead, a kid’s life becomes an adult’s who is also a fiancée, a spouse and or a father or mother, where playing in the snow gives way to slogging off to work. It is too easy to get caught up in providing a memorable Christmas for others that it becomes a time of stress about how to afford Christmas, plan for travel, cook and bake ,and be mindful of Jesus as the genesis of the season.

It is easy, even as a kid, to get overwhelmed with the complexity of Christmas, both on the logistical day-to-day, and emotional levels. We must remember kids pick up on this; they can see when adults fake it. Kids need to understand that not everything is merry, and the complexity can be understood, discussed and accepted, and not buried.

As a fairly new parent I want to challenge myself, when the time comes, with reframing Christmas from the adult perspective for my child in a way that celebrates adulthood at Christmas, not frustrates it. I want to convey the magic that adults get to share in, the things to look forward to, and how my understanding as a Catholic has grown over the years to help me appreciate the mystery behind my religious roots and the meaning of Christmas.

Being a grown-up at Christmas is not a bad thing. There are days when I wonder how I got here, and I definitely am still looking for the manual that lead me to believe I could handle adulthood the way the Christmas carols depicted it. I think the key is to have a part of you that still a little boy, still believes in Santa and never grows up. And there is nothing wrong with going to bed wishing for a snow day either.

The Fine Art of Baby Naming

Baby topics are touchy subjects for parents because of the highly charged emotional environment. Somehow all parents think they are responsible for, good or bad, everything their child is and does. Well, believe it or not, they are not—and they should not be. Kids are unique individuals from the very beginning, even if they are helpless and very dependent. They will think, say and act in uncouth ways and at inappropriate times.

However, one aspect of a child the parent can take full responsibility for is the child’s name. Naming can be complicated: most parents I know want something uncommon but not wacky, hip but not trendy, respectable without being stale, something that sounds good with the middle and last names and is not easily mispronounced or misspelled, and meaningful. Whew, that is a lot to ask.

Some couples begin early, lock on a name and never share it for fear it will be stolen by someone else. We were paranoid like this. After all, this is high stakes, and when push comes to shove, the right name is golden. You may say you would not use someone’s selection, but would someone reciprocate in the pact? Because if not, everything is ruined. You cannot still use the name, even if it is stolen. It will have bad karma and remind you of that story. Stealing a name might be against parenting protocol, or at least outside friendship, but naming your kid after another kid born around the same time is worse.

Some parents don’t care. They roll from name to name, putting up smoke screens. They take public surveys and gauge interest. They practice saying it around the house; they ask their kids what they think. Parents do crazy things. They think of the formal name and an immediate nickname they would actually use—we’ll name her ‘Mattison’ but call her ‘Mattie’.  It is hard to talk about naming without reference to the hilarious chapter in Freakonomics that discusses “Lemonjello” and “Orangejello”, and there are other equally crazy name examples.

I think you could have thirteen kids and not be a naming expert; it is not the kind of activity that you can become better with repetition. My dad was a teacher so I have heard and seen a lot of kids names throughout the years. And as a sports referee, I see dozens of kids names every week when I check team rosters. I think the key is less to have an approach and more to have a good sense of what sounds good and gives others a positive (or at least a neutral) impression of your child. Without this, you may fall victim to one of three unfortunate outcomes.

1) Trying Too Hard. This is obvious when you see or hear a name, usually because someone tried to be extra creative to the point of folly. It is better to go conservatively with an established name than be too inventive.  You may end up concocting something you are not familiar with or borrowing something you don’t understand or that has unintended consequences (see Freakonomics note above). The tell-tale signs are one-off weird spellings and compound creations from two names leaving you with a word that is also a name bereft of meaning.

2) Leaning Too Pop. The problem here is two-fold: whatever drew you to it now, will likely not be important in the future, and if it is popular it will, by definition, not be remotely unique by the time your kid is in grade school.  I had four Brians in my elementary school grade and three Jasons.  That was 15% of the class right there.  Do your kid a favor and don’t name your kid based on a current media star or from a Top Ten baby name list. 

3) Going with a Theme. A theme makes sense when writing a poem, but naming kids?  I would shy away from picking a letter and giving names that all begin with that letter.  I suppose for some the task is so overwhelming they need to set up rules to narrow the task, so they pick a letter and work within that?  Lineages are also a bit tricky—Sr, Jr, III, IV—because there is family tradition, but what is being passed on?  And those trying really hard to be WASPy with Covington Spencer Williamson:  when concocting that mouthful, think about the kid learning to spell and write his name!

In our search for baby names, my wife and I subscribed to the ‘we’ll know it when we hear it’ philosophy.  You have to be comfortable because you will be using it for the rest of your life.  It is one of those permanent moves that you cannot take back.  So give it some thought, but maybe not too much, you know?

Minivans: A Happy Medium?

When our baby daughter outgrew her infant car seat and needed the convertible (that’s what they call ‘em), I thought it was no big deal. In fact I was excited because the convertible is not portable; it is made to get clicked in and not toted around. Anything that promoted stroller work and decreased carrying was fine by me.

By the way, the booster is the final in the child safety seat metamorphosis.  When there are kids nigh on age ten that still qualify for child seat use, something is amiss. A part of me thinks the booster, and the laws that govern car seat use, are bogus.

The seat we purchased did not look particularly large in the store. My wife has a Mazda Millennia, which is a large sedan. Initially, the Millenia supposedly replaced the 929 when Mazda was overhauling its line, so it is not small. However, the seat in the box could not fit in the trunk or back seat! Bad sign. I had to open the seat in the Babies R Us parking lot and put only the seat and accoutrements in, while tossing the box in a dumpster. Such shame.

We installed the seat, barely. It fits in one spot: the middle of the back seat where there is no driver or passenger seat back. I was flabbergasted—what kind of vehicles do they design these things for?! Clearly something much more commodious than ours.

Using the seat is another feat. Since it is rear-facing, and we only have a sedan, it is not easy to get our kid in without hitting her head or raking her over the padded edge of the seat. It takes a special kind of upper body strength and balance, with complete cooperation from our toddler, to not bump anything on the way in or out—something not dissimilar to an advanced maneuver from Cirque du Soleil.

For the first time I sympathized with all the expectant parents who felt the need to supersize their vehicles, at least on a base functional level. Gas efficiency is another story. Yet, I do not feel our vehicle is unsafe. Nor do I feel it has inadequate space for a small child. I do feel that baby item manufacturers are taking liberties to design with less compactness in mind. Even our stroller, which folds two different ways and both wheels can pop off, does not really achieve compactness. It does not leave much in a trunk that easily fits our luggage for a two week trip. And I thought everyone was focused on lean manufacturing these days?

Back in the 1980s of my childhood, family cars were a large market.  The family sedan was how you got the family from place to place. Believe it or not, a Chevy Cavalier was a common family car back then. Now, parents buy these, new, for their 16-year-olds to shlep around in.

Then the Ford Taurus took over the family car mantle for several years. Minivans, primarily the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, were starting to gain momentum. Then the family car was wrested away by the imports, first the Honda Civic, then the Toyota Camry. I think the family car title died with the Camry. You could argue the Nissan Altima is the closest thing to an acceptable family car these days.

In the meantime, we jumped into minivans of all shapes and sizes. Then they got frumpy, or let’s say, their dowdiness was exposed. Americans flocked to the SUV to pretend to be outdoors-y and sporty. Pure image. Now a Chevy Tahoe is a common family vehicle which, to borrow a City Slickers phrase, craps larger than a Cavalier.

What happened to the American family to morph from Cavalier to Tahoe? Back in my day, somehow we got by with our Tauruses. How did the baseline vehicle size for the American family roughly double in fifteen years? Wealth? Vanity?

Well, now look what we’ve done.  Everything is oversized and overdesigned. Seats are bigger than they need to be, vehicles are heavier than they need to be—all to haul our less-than-sporty selves around. We have lost human scale in much of our environment. As someone who works in the design field, I can say it is not easy getting designers to put their creations on a diet. The last thing a designer wants to do is cut, slim, reduce the bells and whistles. A law of design:  it is much more difficult to design minimally. Try to get Congress to pass a lean bill, and you get enough earmarking for a herd of cattle.

How do we design diet:  drastically? A step down approach, counting calories as we go? For some designers, it will take an economic paradigm shift to get through. That is what it took GM to understand, and about twenty years.

Sure, SUVs did go on a small diet to become more crossover-like and hybridized and re-acronymed to disassociate from the S-U-V and emphasize a slimmer car platform. But a spade is still a spade, especially in the gas mileage department.

For the single professional and modern empty-nesters, a Prius is plenty of space.  That is the message via Americans voting with their dollars. A Toyota Prius is a humble vehicle spacially, and frankly, I am surprised and encouraged that so many find it palatable. It means there is hope for the post-SUV diet. We are moving in the right direction, calorie-wise. Alas, a Prius will likely not hold my convertible baby car seat.

Have we come full circle to where a minivan looks like a happy medium again? I hold out hope for something with a little more space inside and decent trunk space. With the height and big wheels built into the Chrysler 300, Cadillac CTSs and their ilk, maybe the cabins will grow a bit taller without looking van-y. I will hold out hope for something a little more car-like. If nothing else, maybe families like mine can migrate to a luxury sedan. I think my babe and baby would look just fine in a Caddy or Lincoln. We are in Florida and regardless of the economy, there are only so many people out there to scarf up those landau tops.

In the meantime, I still seek the next size down, one step lower, something more minimal. This what keeping up with the Jones’ is about in the 21st century.

An Ugly Truth

Let’s get this out in the open: ugly babies do exist.

For some reason, many people deny this fact, especially parents. Blasphemy it’s not, nor is this a parent / non-parent divide. I knew it before our child was born and I still contend not all babies are cute and some are ugly.  This is not mean, just reality. Of course the baby doesn’t know and can’t help it; it was born that way. Luckily most grow out of it. I think the apparent reticence toward this acknowledgement is that because it is a child you cannot hurt its feelings. Or maybe there is a sentiment that by acknoledging a baby is ugly it means you would leave it to die somewhere in the forest or give it away. This makes no sense. We all agree there are ugly people, no?  And society does not punish them.

What is surprising is that the ugly baby phenomenon is usually a consensus opinion. Unlike the belief that each person has (at least one) person on the earth who thinks that other person is all that and a bag of chips (it is good if this person is your spouse), many who see an ugly baby immediately agree—unless you are talking to the parent. If my baby were ugly, I would have to live with that fact.  Heck, she might be for all I know and everyone has been lying to me saying she is “cute” or “adorable”.  This could be parental speak for saying a guy is “nice”, but that does not mean you find him attractive or would date him. Can a parent be objective looking at his own child and acknowledge his baby is ugly? That would take research. There might be an innate response to love unconditionally regardless of looks.  But still, if a parent heard that people thought her baby was ugly, would she be shocked, or is there an inkling of understanding deep down, ‘yeah, I know, but he’ll grow into his features.’

The sad fact about babies is all they have going for them at the beginning is their looks. There is no redeeming personality to fall back on, attractive on the inside as they say. When an ugly baby is identified, it is with unspoken sympathy for anyone who has to deal with the kid. Babies drain a lot of resources—time, attention, money—so the little reward some parent has until the babe can smile or coo is at least a Polaroid or two worth showing off. But when you don’t have that, man, you are on an island. This can shake a parent, particularly a first-time parent. First-time parents are already fragile individuals, craving any shred of validation that something they are doing is right. It is hard enough scheduling play dates and breaking into mommy cliques with a cutie.

And, sometimes it is a shock. You might know two perfectly fine looking adults that, as a couple, produce a hideous-looking kid—a real head scratcher indeed. Can nature really take all the awkward features of each of the parents and combine them into one Mr. Potato Head?  Sure can.  Genetics is wicked like that. The thing is, you have no idea when it will happen, and as a potential parent, you have to roll the dice anyway.  There is not much any of us can do. 

I think even genetic engineering and gene splicing cannot solve this riddle. In the future, you might be able to specify sex, hair and eye color, but you cannot guarantee acceptable baby looks. What we can fall back on is another baby corollary: you cannot tell which babies will be good-looking adults.  Even when you see a movie star’s baby photo, you know the baby is not ugly, but it does not scream future prom king or future supermodel.

And that is where parenting comes in.  We gave the chromosomes, but have no control how they grow or what they will look like when our progeny mature. Our job is to make the person inside, at least as attractive as the outside. The more the inside outshines the out, the better for your kid. Parent of an ugly baby is a burden for sure, but parent of an ugly adult is far, far worse. Good luck, ‘rents!

Government’s Next Buy-In Candidate?

When my daughter was born seven months ago, I did what any paranoid parent would do: I figured out how much I would need to start saving to afford college.

I found a neat calculator online that allowed me to select the college, enrollment year and number of years at school. It factored in what I have in the bank now (nothing), any projected financial aid, inflation for the tuition and interest on what I will be socking away. I am a worst case scenario type of guy, so I chose the University of Chicago for four years with no savings or financial aid. I think it assumed seven percent inflation for tuition and something slightly less for interest. After all, we are nearing the 2010s and in a recession so let’s assume the years of double-digit stock gains are behind us for a while, and bonds or treasuries are the most reliable investment vehicles available. 529s may not even be around in eighteen years, but there is a slightly better chance our government will.

The results? I do not remember the exact amount, but it was shocking: a couple hundred thousand plus more than the value of my mortgage, and the monthly amount I needed to put away, if I began seven months ago, was something like $1200+.

The government has opted to bail out the auto industry, an industry that has been failing for some time. We know why it is failing: ineffective corporate governance with unreasonable compensation packages, lack of courage in following own r&d, poor design and market understanding, overdependent supply chain, and unsustainable wages and benefits from decades of UAW kowtowing. Still Uncle Sam thinks it can somehow fix this without blowing it up and starting over via bankruptcy.  And after that, the government wants to tackle health care.  Maybe they can fix college tuition costs, too?

So what are the causes that put higher education on a health care-like untenable cost growth curve? Professor salaries, new construction, dining hall food? I think it is demand, pure and simple.

Last fall Harvard announced its endowment was approaching something like $37 billion. I read something to the effect that the interest from the endowment was enough to pay every undergrad, grad and doctoral student’s tuition and still have $600 million left over for new construction. And yet, tuition will most likely rise again next year, not only for Harvard, but every other school not tied to state legislature tuition scales.

There will be a breakdown in the system. Soon the degrees will not provide the salary or career benefit to students in comparison to their cost. We are almost there now. Students will choose not to have debt. The prices may adjust. The economy may adjust to accommodate apprenticeships and learning on-the-job.  Or university education will become, once again, only for the elite.

Let’s hope that something does happen between now and 2027 because even a parent who wants to do the right thing and save for college for their kid will not be able to. I know I can’t right now, not even 20% of what the calculator suggested.  And for now, that will have to be ok.  It will be one more thing on my list of parental concerns, but falling solidly somewhere between paying for her wedding and getting her to sleep through the night.