The Honeymooners, Revisited?

I want to preface this article by saying that my wife is a wonderful woman.  The very fact she has remained with me is nothing short of a miracle.  I’m an idiot – an erudite and charming, not to mention handsome idiot but one nevertheless.  However, I think I’m standing on some firm ground when I say that there are some issues I must point out about my wife in particular.  Let me be clear, there are plenty of silly things about men but this is about my lovely bride.  I don’t understand her.   

First of all, she is very busy.  I’m not speaking of work.  I’m speaking of time at the casa.  She is buzzing around the house like a Messerschmitt and she makes me nervous.  I try and tell her to sit down and relax but she continues.  She does it so much, she makes me self-conscious about sitting down.  Now, I will ask her if I can help and she will clearly and succinctly say “no.”  However, the way she says it suggests that “no” is not an acceptable answer for me to take at face value.  I try to help despite her initial answer and we begin snipping at one another like we are kids.  What began the tiff?  Me feeling guilty, her not alleviating my guilt and ultimately, the two of us getting into one another’s way.  To make it worst, we are intelligent individuals.  We are both college educated.  We both have masters (though, to be fair, mine was more challenging).  Still, we end up acting like children.   

Secondly, the way we process information is so different, it is amazing we are able to make any decision.  Our current decision we are wrangling with is whether I should pursue a doctorate degree.  I want to pursue the doctorate for purely altruistic reasons however, I’m not so dense as not to see that more was needed in my argument.  Therefore, I brought up the increase in salary (sadly, a doctorate does not earn one that much more in the teaching profession).  I brought up the increase in prestige.  I also mentioned that the jobs I could qualify to do would increase exponentially.  Sure there is a cost but more education is never a bad thing, right?  The major complication is our consideration of starting a family in the not-too-distant future.   

My wife began her side of the discussion by saying that she did not want to stand in the way of my dreams and she wanted to support me as much as possible.  At this point of the argument, somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, there is another shoe to drop but I brush it aside and think, “Hey, she is with me on this one.”  However, the “but” does arrive with concerns of dealing with a new-born child alone and the amount of work that would fall upon her.  She is worried that she might resent me and my jaunting off to college to learn the intricacies of 20^th-century nationalistic movements in Asia and Africa.  Despite the worthiness of my pursuits, I’m flummoxed as to what to do.  My wife has brilliantly spelled out her wishes for me and her reservations.  Yet, her well-balanced argument has left me wondering what I’ve been allowed to do.   

Lastly, beyond the use of guilt and the circuitous thinking, she has a knack of removing an argument from my concerns to that of others.  A couple of years ago, I caved and bought a cell phone.  I did not want to do it but there you go.  I now feel empowered to get rid of mine once and for all – in a ceremony, officiated by a priest, complete with a hammer and then some fire.  For a little irony, we will record it and put it on YouTube.  I never wanted a phone and have no use for it now but my wife suggests that to do so would be a large imposition on my friends and her.  What I thought was a stance of self-determination and self-actualization on my part has turned into a thoughtless and selfish gesture after speaking to my wife.  She is so adamant, I’m starting to doubt myself but wait…I’m a grown man.  I was making my own decisions for years before I met her.  Surely I can do this on my own.  Yet, in one conversation after another, I’m beginning to wonder. 

Above it all is the creeping thought that she might be right after all, I just don’t understand why.  It is like being at a party and hearing people talk and laugh about something of which you have no idea.  We’ve been married for nearly a decade now.  People at the wedding probably thought it would never last.  However, despite the fact that she’s from Venus and I’m from Mars, or whatever, we make it work.  So, in the confusion of our conversations and discussions sometimes, perhaps it does not matter because we are so good together.  However, I’m still pretty sure I’m right.  I just have to figure out how.

A Son's Reflections on His Father

As a child, I looked and acted like my father.  In many ways, he provided me a moral compass and created a paradigm that I took into adulthood and has done much to define me.  Oddly, his own moral compass went awry and while at times, he was the best of men, at other times, he was the worst of them.  However, I cannot focus on one part of his life but must take him as a whole because much of what I am, much of what I believe and espouse comes from my father.  Today, I stand as a professional and as a man because of what my father was and was not.  For that, I love and appreciate him. 

One of the first characteristics that come to mind when I consider my father is toughness.  My father was intimidating.  He would shoot a glance at me and today, he is the only man whoever intimidated me.  Yet, in his toughness, he had a practicality that allowed him to address things and act with a measured response.  As a professional, faced with classrooms filled with high school students, I’ve addressed them in ways that make the most sense.  Like my father, I am angry only when it calls for it and at times, also like my father, I affect emotions to get what I need from my students.  It might sound an awful lot like manipulation but in my father’s mind, it got the job done.  He was a believer in corporal punishment and I was on the receiving end of that philosophy more times than I can recall.  However, it was not done lightly or often and it was always followed by a conversation.   

A second characteristic that I think of with regards to my father is his commitment to learning and reading.  His scholarship as a minister was an inspiration and while it took some time to take, my home office and library is an extension of him.  To my parents, the pursuit of knowledge was not to be found solely in universities though those institutions have something for the eager student.  However, my father taught me to seek out knowledge in books – to know something, one must not just hear it but must read and consume it.  Like my mother, my father was always surrounded by books and it was through books that I found my own way.  Eventually, it led me to a university and my father’s commitment to scholarship was something I took with me.     

Lastly, my father represents a way to view life and he did so through two favorite sayings.  One, “it is important to let people know what you stand for but equally important to let people know what you won’t stand for.”  As my wife and colleagues will attest to, this paradigm makes me difficult to deal with.  When I see something wrong, I tend to say it, regardless of my position.  I do so respectfully but I do register my disapproval.  For my father, he would have said that my profession requires a duty to the students and not to their parents or my bosses.  So, my actions must have their interest, their long-term interest at heart.  Sometimes, it might cause immediate failure or disappointment but in the long-term, it will help.   

Second, “no one outside of this family cares about you or your problems so seek your own way.”  This might sound a bit Draconian but my father, if I can speculate, wanted me to exist outside the opinions and attitudes of others.  The vast majority of people dispensing advice are not doing so to make your life better but theirs.  Therefore, one must trust in oneself to find the way and deep down inside, we all do know the right way.  Inherent in this advice was for me to trust myself and trust my instincts.  I don’t believe he meant to discount all help for surely, at some point, we all need it but we must be extremely selective in asking for such help.  

Like most father/son relationships, we’ve had difficulties.  And, I’ve not always been the best son.  Yet, I cannot look in the mirror and discount what he has done for me.  When I was in the first weeks of boot camp, I was writing these horribly morose letters, powered by home sickness.  After a few of these letters, he wrote back that if I wrote another letter like that home again, he would never write me in the future.  He told me to grow up, stop crying and accept the responsibility that I took on.  I like to think my life has been defined by the independence that letter demanded – a demand for toughness, independence and commitment to knowledge and to my profession.  In the process, I believe I’ve become the best of my father.