Of Course, My Son Is Happy

Belated Happy New Year!  Long time no see nor hear.

I know it’s been a while since my last post.  If you are wondering what took me so long to write, you are not alone.  I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

What I do know is that my absence has certainly not been due to a lack of things to write about.  Pick any news feed and I’m sure you would agree that there has been no shortage of noteworthy things to discuss.

So Much to Say

I could have written about the gift that keeps on giving – the President and the other 535 adults who run the country like babies in a daycare – infants and toddlers struggling to make articulate sounds and who govern by primary narcissism.  Maybe I should have written about the basket of deplorable adults employed by Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics who aided and abetted a medical professional as he physically abused and permanently scarred the minds, bodies, and souls of hundreds of young women.  Perhaps I should have written about how and why it’s possible for an alarming number of Americans to find it increasingly difficult to house, clothe, and feed their families despite the incessant celebration of the stock market’s upward trajectory and the so-called tax reform.

There is so much I could say about each of those events and similar current news stories, but I thought you might prefer to read about something else.  Thus, instead of behaving like the mainstream media, at least for now, I’m going to write about something different.  I’m just going to share a recent experience.

Panera Bread. Food as it Should be.

I’ve been waiting for the chance to share with you a conversation I had a few weeks ago in Panera.  As is often the case on weekends and early evenings, I find a local coffee shop or fast-casual restaurant, like Panera, to write or plot my next steps for this journey called life.

Regrettably, outside of earning lots of Panera Rewards and drinking gallons of tea, I haven’t figured out exactly where my excursion is going or how I’ll get there.  But I digress.  That’s another story for another time.

On this Saturday afternoon, a mother and her two children sat down at the booth next to me to have lunch.  After initially making sure the seat was available, the woman and I shared polite pleasantries.

During our conversation, we discovered some commonalities – our educational background and professional experiences.  However, at least to me, our most significant similarity was that we were both parents.

Naeem and I spent an incalculable amount of time in places like Panera thus whenever I see a parent with their child in one of the fast-casual restaurants, I can’t help but feel nostalgic.  Perchance that’s why I felt compelled to share how I regularly reflect on the speed at which children grow up and encouraged her to soak in every precious second with her children.  I further expressed my personal lament regarding the rocket-like pace of my own son’s childhood by simply conveying these six simple words – “I wish I had more time”.

This is What a Great Parent Looks Like

I must tell you that she was shocked that I was offering her advice.  How do I know she was shocked?  Because she asked in a cynical way about my capacity to share parental experiences.  She was even more flabbergasted to learn that I regularly speak and write to parents – warning against losing focus on the importance of being a great parent and potentially missing out on the wonderful experience of seeing the world from the eyes of a child.

I wish that I could tell you that I was surprised by her demeanor – exasperated looks of doubt and prolonged questions of suspicion, but I can’t.  Her looks and inquiries were all too familiar.

She responded the way many people have been responding to me for 22 years.  What could I – a man, an African American man, much less, a guy wearing sweats who was camped out at Panera – know about being a great parent.

Accomplished and Happy

Having been unsatisfied by my responses, with the skill of a trained attorney, she attempted to discredit my parental experiences and parenting acumen.  I can only surmise that she figured that if there’s not something wrong with me, there must be something wrong with my child.

So, her next line of interrogatories was about my son.  What kind of student was he, was he involved in extracurricular activities, how many major missteps had he made, and the like?  When I shared his academic outcomes to date, his affinity for serving others, and the list of enriching childhood experiences, she seemed even more determined to find a gaffe in not only my son’s childhood but my ability to parent.

Her next question was the coup de gras.  Appearing infuriated and exhausted after learning a few things about my son like how he was preparing to begin a Ph.D. program in the fall, that he was multilingual, that he had lived abroad playing soccer in Brazil while his peers attended high school, and that he was a published author, she contemptuously asked “well is he happy?”

Of Course, My Son Is Happy

As I mentioned earlier, I was not at all surprised by the line of questions nor the suspicious tone. Despite all my smiles and loving exaltations expressed toward my son, sadly this conversation represents precisely who I believe many of us are as parents – unhealthily competitive, unjustifiably annoyed, and habitually petty people like the President and the 535 children who run the country.

“Yes, of course, my son is happy”, I said.  “If you ask him, he would tell you so.”  “Actually, if you asked him he would tell you that his life has been great.”

Is That All You’ve Got?

And then I asked her this question “who wouldn’t be happy being an honor student, receiving acceptance letters from 27 of America’s best colleges and universities, being able to communicate in multiple languages, experiencing life living and playing soccer abroad, establishing a foundation to help homeless teens, writing a book to encourage childhood literacy and parental engagement, being selected for one of the Nation’s top summer undergraduate laboratory internships, being on the precipice of starting a Ph.D. program in Electrical Engineering, and having a goal of improving the quality of life for all of humanity?”

“These,” I said, “are just a few things that not only made and make my son happy, but I suspect these are things that would probably make any of us happy.”  And if you guessed that was the end of our conversation, you would be right!

Moral of the Story

Why am I telling you about this encounter?  Well, I believe this encounter says a lot about who we are as parents and as a Nation – our thoughts about who can be a great parent, whose children can achieve, under what circumstances children succeed, etc.

Moreover, I’m sharing because I wanted to ask you to do something the President and the 535 adults charged with running the country and the adults at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics failed to do – think critically.  I’d like to know your thoughts about my encounter? I’d like to know what you think a great parent and a happy child look like?

I’m curious to know how you would respond if you were asked if your child is happy.

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