Today ended up being a pretty good day. I came home and was speaking with Lena about her day at school and I heard her speak and thought, "Wow, she speaks so well for a girl who has only been regularly speaking English for just over two years." During her retelling of today’s events she got on the subject of her English class and told me how she only got one answer wrong on her quiz about nouns, verbs, and adjectives. And I immediately felt a strange mixture of pride and guilt – pride that she did well on a second day of school pop quiz of something I didn’t think she could even pronounce (the word adjective. I’ve never heard her say it correctly and today she didn’t even pause in her story when saying that) much less identify among a list. And guilt because I’m pretty much the meanest dad in the world.
Those that know me well know that I regularly call myself “the meanest dad in the world” in jest when I make my kids do something awful like setting the table, emptying the dishwasher, and other times when I forbid them from drinking gallons of soda, playing in traffic, or jumping off the deck railing. But in this case I’m quite serious because while today ended on a good note it started off terribly. It started with a continuation of my and Lena’s battle from last night over homework. Again this morning I reminded Lena that all her stalling and sitting at her desk and staring at the paper “pretending to try” last night was for nothing. That if she had only done the simple task I asked her to do, summarize a note from her teacher – like I have showed her a hundred times, she could have spent the evening playing instead of sitting at her desk crying. If she would only try, instead of “try not to try” we wouldn’t have these kinds of fights. After our talk Lena stormed off teary-eyed to school but as angry as I was about Lena’s behavior I was proud of myself. Not once in all of my lecturing and ire did I raise my voice in anger, which is a new goal of mine. Success! But the problem with my attitude and my little speech is…
It’s complete and utter bullshit.
Lena lived in an orphanage until she was ten and we’ve come to find that what other parents who adopted older kids said is true: That each year a child spends in an orphanage can equate to two years of unlearning some of the socially-unacceptable, yet completely necessary for survival in a Lord of the Flies atmosphere, behaviors they developed there. And one of the behaviors that Lena learned was to stall until the teacher went away. However, I’ve discovered that whether that behavior was learned or just something that evolved from an undiagnosed learning disability Lena does not do this consciously. Again: Lena does not freeze up, become physically incapable of proper speech and unable to repeat even the simplest of sentences of her own free will. It has taken a while to wrap my head around this but it is true. This maddeningly frustrating behavior that causes both me and my wife to turn into unhinged lunatics is not from her conscious effort. The truly shameful thing about my actions with Lena is that I know full well that the problem is actually my approach since all her teachers seem to be able to educate her of things that I am clearly incapable (see that word “adjective”? Yeah…) without causing her to freeze up as happens with me. Despite my previous observations, my learned knowledge, my previous testing of this theory, my 15 years of formal pattern analysis experience, my 10 years of experience in leading all manner of Soldiers in all manner of situations, and 32 years of knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus… I still found it in my heart to berate, belittle, taunt, and chastise my daughter. Then I got a night of sleep to think about what I had done and come up with a way to apologize and do my job as a parent better. And then I woke up fresh this morning and berated, belittled, taunted, and chastised my daughter.
Again.
I am the meanest dad in the world and yet in my time of darkest self-hate and well-deserved self-flagellation I am reminded of Jesus’ compassion. I was adopted into Jesus’ family at the age of five and it took the requisite 2 years for each year of being an orphan for me to shed all my institutionalized behaviors. But by the age of 15 I was a model Christian and I’ve lived life beatifically and in the same manner of Christ ever since. I am always kind to the people around me, I help them, do kind things for them, love them unconditionally, and dispense wisdom when offering answers to their questions… except, of course, when I verbally assault my daughter.
And yet despite being shown the right way to be like Christ a hundred times, reading of His example a hundred times, and seeing Him modeled in others a hundred times, I still don’t get it. I daily fail miserably in every way imaginable – even with my own kids – yet Jesus does not berate, punish, or withhold grace from me. Furthermore He has never belittled me nor taunted me and has only gently chastised me in the most loving of ways. Jesus still loves me. In the 32 years since I’ve accepted the shocking fact that I am a sinner and that He died for my sins, Jesus has only heaped blessings upon me.
I was a poor kid from a farm town and He gave me a glorious house, in one of the most expensive areas, in one of the most expensive countries, in the world. I grew up a tongue-tied goofball, had a mullet until I was 19, and couldn’t get a date to save my life in high school (I believe there were 17 consecutive rejections at one point) yet He gave me this most beautiful and intelligent woman who after 14 years is still proud to call me “husband.” I sucked as a squad leader, platoon sergeant, got fired as a platoon leader, and almost left the Army but Jesus’ grace allowed me to work through my issues and make a comeback, do a fantastic job as a Commander and become respected by my peers, seniors, and most importantly my subordinates as a leader. And finally when I, at the age of 32, conflated the compassion, love, and grace of Jesus and the people that surrounded me with my own sense of self-accomplishment and told a father who was working three jobs in order to have enough money to earn a college degree that he should “just work harder and you can get to where I am”… Yes, I did... And Jesus still loved me enough to work through that completely unwarranted view of His gifts.
Then He blessed me with a desire to be more compassionate, more loving, and more graceful and to change. He encouraged me to truly empathize with those around me and then used me for a positive purpose. The biggest part of that transformation was my decision to adopt and even though I have admittedly and obviously mucked that all up on many occasions He still hasn’t treated me the way that I treated my daughter last night and this morning. He continues to shower down more love, more compassion, more empathy, more grace, and more forgiveness and for that I am forever grateful.
So this afternoon when Lena asked me to help her with her homework I told her no. As she stormed away I demanded that she return to me and obediently she did. As I realized that I was setting the wrong tone I paused… reflected… and started over. I started with the words, “I’m sorry,” and continued on to tell her that I was sorry because I truly was the meanest dad in the world and that it was absolutely not her fault. I explained that I’m not kind enough or compassionate enough to help her with her homework without being mean, and that is why I can't help her with her homework. Then I asked her to forgive me and because maybeI don’t completely suck as a dad, but definitely because Jesus still continues to bless me even though I don't deserve it, she did. And then she told me about her day and how in English…
