The Good Parent

As  a parent we want to do the best for our children. We want to make sure they are well suited for dealing with the world, that they are good people, happy, well-adjusted, follow the rules, care for others, that they will contribute to society...essentially we want them to go out and prove that we did a good job parenting them!

And yet what is good parenting? How do you learn to be a good parent? Go into any book store and you will find shelves filled with parenting manuals. Here are some actual titles:  The Happiest Baby on the Block (no pressure there!), 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children (Hmmm, what happens when you reach 4 and they still aren't listening?) and my personal favorite, Toilet Training in Less Than a Day (bwa-ha-ha!!!). These books seem to promise that there are easy, natural solutions to parenting that you're just too dumb to figure out on your own. 

But it is oh so tempting to believe that this is the case; that the issue you are currently working on with your child has an answer.  Find it and all will be well. 

The problem is that every child is different. So what works for one will be horribly ineffective with another. Then there are also other factors to take into account such as the time of day, how much sleep the child has had (or even more important, how much YOU have had) and not to forget where the child lies on the sugar rush continuum. Truth is, never have I felt more unskilled in life as I have at being a parent. I'm not saying that I think I'm bad at it... it's just that my sense of how good I am at it is as stable as Taylor Swift's latest relationship. 

Being a psychologist doesn't help either. In fact, I think it makes things worse! I was always second guessing myself and imagining my grown child maligning me to their therapist that I was a horrible dad cause x, y or z. I remember a story from my family (I won't name names, but you know who you are) where a cousin had to write a biography of her childhood for an education class. She wrote about how she hated the ice skating lessons her mother sent her to. She dreaded them and was glad when they were done. Cue in Mom reading this years later having thought she was doing something wonderful for her daughter only to realize that her loving gesture was setting her daughter up for a peptic ulcer.

I've now come to terms that no matter what I do, no matter how many books I read, how many Nanny 911 episodes I watch, that I will still screw up. It's inevitable. As a therapist I see client after client talking about their parents. Too authoritarian and they rebel and feel unloved. Too loving (yes, that's possible) and no limits, the client feels insecure in how to be in the world. Yes we can aim for that golden mean, but we will still do something that will scar a child for life. I myself have flashbacks to the time my father pushed my face into a bowl of chocolate pudding for a laugh. So even the most innocuous gesture will have an impact, be it skating lessons or three stooges humor. (I am happy to say that I am over my pudding-phobia. It was very short lived.)

So what do we do as parents? Knowing we are going to screw up doesn't give us carte blanche or let us off the ropes of our responsibility. What we do is understand that we do our best. We get over ourselves and our need to prove how good we are to other parents ("No, I have the happiest baby on the block!!") and we work to give our children what they truly need. I'm currently doing a training in an approach to therapy that focuses quite a bit on our early childhood experiences and how they shape us. Developmentally there are certain messages and experiences we need as children to feel safe and good about ourselves. These have become my guiding principles and they are in fact what we as parents need for ourselves too. (Being a good parent means also being a good parent to yourself , but that's a different post).

So from a book called Body, Self and Soul here are the "good mom" and "good dad" messages. The great thing is that anyone can give these to a child so they are simply "Good Parent" messages.

• I want you.
• I love you
• I'll take care of you.
• You can trust me.
• I'll be there for you
• It's not what you do, but who you are that I love.
• You are special to me.
• I love you, and I give you permission to be different from me.
• Sometimes I will tell you "no" and that's because I love you.
• My love will make you well.
• I see you and hear you.
• You can trust your inner voice.
• You don't have to be afraid anymore.
• I have confidence in you. I am sure you can do it.
• I will set limits and I will enforce them.
• If you fall down, I will pick you up.
• You are special to me, I am proud of you.
• You are beautiful and I give you permission to be a sexual being.And you get to choose who you love.
• I give you permission to be the same as I am AND the permission to be more than I am AND the permission to be less than I am.

Courage

 Something I’ve heard often when I’ve shared with people that I’ve adopted children through youth protection services is how “courageous” I am. To be honest, it’s something that doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t take it as a compliment, though they mean it as one. I’ll tell them that it’s not courage that led me to adopt a child. In fact, as a gay man, adopting with youth protection is the only option available to me unless I’m willing to lie in order to adopt internationally or spend thousands of dollars on a surrogate (Elton John or NPH I am not) . So not much courage there, just a loss of other avenues. 

But they’ll go on and insist that I am indeed courageous. That it must not be easy to love someone else’s child, that the fear of losing them if their parents came back would be too much for them, etc. At this point I’ll mumble an uncomfortable thanks just to end the conversation. 

I’ve turned this over in my head many times as I keep hearing this word to describe my choice to adopt and the same malaise comes over me. Why? What could be so wrong with hearing that my choice to adopt is seen as a courageous one? Why can’t I swallow the compliment?

One day it finally came to me. The reason why people think it’s courageous to adopt is because they are afraid to open their hearts and homes to a child from youth protection, but why? Having done so myself (twice) I don’t see the fear involved. I see the joy that comes from building a family. Yes, the difficulties that come with working on attachment are there, but they’ll be there for any family. So why this situation in particular? 

The problem, I finally realized, is that people are afraid of the children themselves. And this is what is hurtful to me when I hear them talk about courage. What I hear is how afraid they are of the children I have taken into my life. How they would never be able to do so themselves and my mind goes to how many children the system will continue to fail and not place into permanent, loving homes due to this fear. And this is all based on ignorance and misinformation.

Of course, there’s tons of misinformation about adoption in general out there. When I tell people my two sons are adopted they ask what country they are from. I tell them they are from Montreal. They are incredulous. “I didn’t know you can adopt from here.” They kind of light up as they say this, thinking of themselves or other couples they know looking to adopt. “Yes,” I say, “through youth protection”. “Oh.” And that light in their eyes diminishes. 

In Dan Savage’s book “The Kid” which recounts he and his partner’s ordeals in becoming gay fathers he explains how he opted out of adopting from youth protection as he termed these children as “damaged goods”. 

Damaged goods. Good God, these are children we are referring to who have been failed by parents unwilling or unable to step in and take responsibility for providing a safe, nurturing home for them. Children who long for someone to care for them and are hurt and hurting and wounded. Children who continue to hope and yes, eventually lose that hope after too many adults have failed them. But what is truly damaged here? 

And in this mindset of damaged goods children who are somehow too tarnished to love, beliefs are created about how damaging, violent, aggressive, etc. they are. These beliefs create the need for courage in order to adopt them. These beliefs fuel the questions to me such as “if it doesn’t work out, can you send him back?”

“Shit, no, I lost the receipt.” 

And so it hurts me to hear that my choice to love my children is courageous. What I hear is your ignorance and inability to see beyond your limited belief. I hear you say things like how lucky I am that it worked out. That my children are lucky to have me. I’m seen as some form of saint. 

I’m not. I’m just a gay man who wants a family. And maybe because I had to overcome negative beliefs about being homosexual I’m more practiced at seeing through how hurtful and how false negative beliefs can be. I’m willing to challenge them.

What I am working up to here is a call to greater awareness. A call to overcome fear in order to respond to the needs of children living here, right here in our community who need homes. Maybe believing these children to be monsters helps the guilt for failing them? That it’s too late anyway?

Don’t let it be.

Daddy Diary 7 - Month 3 (March 2009)

Well, it's been a while since the last installment, mostly cause K.'s naptimes have been fluctuating this past little while. Some mornings he's passing out at 10 am, others around noon, and sometimes he's down for 2 hours and other times just 40 minutes (then there's the 40 minute nap in bed followed by the 45 minute nap on daddy's lap on the couch after he insisted he was ready to get up). I'm never quite sure how long a break I'm going to get, but this morning should be good. We went to Ikea where he wolfed down a huge second breakfast, tried out almost every sofa in the store, painted a green shamrock in the kid's section and then raced up and down the aisles in the self-service section. His head dropped the second I put him in the car. Heh. Daddy has his tricks too.

It's hard to believe that it's been already 3 months since he's joined us. Time is going by so fast, and it's also amazing to see how much he has changed since he first joined us. He definitely grew taller, and has attached himself to us enough to now decide he wants to be independent about everything. Yup, the terrible twos have arrived 2 months early. As of last week, K. has added a new word to hisvocabulary: "no". This is usually paired with a emphatic shaking of the head (or a face plunge to the floor). So now diaper changes are again being refused, turning off his videos creates a monster, and telling him that the cat is not a squeezetoy also brings out the devil in him. I tell ya, parenting is really all about learning patience.Some days are better than others for both of us... but I'm slowly becoming immune to the ear piercing shriek (or pretending to) and just letting him cry it out.

But, as he is a Gemini, everything does have two sides. Two other words

he picked up are: Dada and Papa. Never mind that he mixes them up, it's music to the ears to hear the little guy call us.

As for keeping busy, K. and I have been doing some outings. We went to a place called Zig Zag Zoo in Vaudreuil which is basically a giant hamster cage for kids. He enjoyed the slides until he discovered the little carousel ride (you know the kind they have in the malls). They should call these things tantrum machines, cause whether you put the loony in or not, you're going to get a scream at some point. Whether it's cause you didn't give him the ride, or cause at some point you have to take him off, it's inevitable. We got lucK. one day though. As there are 3 horses and K. showed up just as a set of twins was getting on, he mooched 2 rides. Then a dad brought his little girl and he let K. get on too.... the little girl shrieked as soon as it started and got off, so K. had a free ride on his own. I wonder, is there a proper etiquette to these things? I wasn't sure if I should hand the dad a loony, but in the end, didn't. All in all, he got 4 free rides that day. So I'm raising a successful little beggar. lol.

Yesterday we went to the Aquadome in Lasalle. They have a great area for kids, complete with miniature slide and huge water fountain. The water is nice and warm, but we don't want to think about that too much. K. had a great time splashing around and I have to say, he cuts quite the figure in his speedos and diaper. What I find amazing though, is how much bigger he is than the other kids his age. He's going to tower over everyone in playschool. It's funny cause all the mom's (and their kids) ask, is that a BABY? Yup. All 40 pounds of him.

And though he's growing up fast, as I said before, vocab-wise, he's taking his time, but we did see some progress in the early stages of potty training. We bought him a potty and a seat for the toilet and of course they all have cartoon characters on them. (Gives new meaning to the show "Go, Diego, Go!".)  We did have success one night after his bath and celebrated like fools. But we're taking it one step at a time for now. Though not changing diapers would be a welcome treat for me I think we'll wait till he's two and it's warmer for him to parade around in his skivvies.

Otherwise life together has been good. Though most of my time is spent accompanying K. through his many discoveries (like him discovering the grain in the wood floor that he thinks he should be able to rub off) K. has graduated to playing a bit more independently now, so when I'm cooking he'll play on his own. One toy he loves, but is quite tiresome is his globe that talks to him and speaks out the names of the countries when he pushes a button. But since K. is more interested in pushing the button repeatedly, it sounds like a geography lesson from Rain Man. "Ant-ant-an-an-an-ant-a-a-a-a-ant-Antartica"

Anyhow.. that's about it for now. All the best to everyone, and will store up a few more adventures for the next installment.

Daddy Diary 5 - One Month Already! (Jan 2009)

Hope the New Year has been going well so far for all of you. As for our little family, we've reached the one month anniversary of K.'s placement with us. Seems like it's been longer in some ways (can't remember life without him) and shorter in others (incredible how quickly he has adjusted to being with us). What has been great is that each day there is a new discovery, a new challenge and something to make us smile.

In terms of discoveries, K. comes up with them daily. He continues to develop his vocabulary and he has the words "hot" and "down" down pat. Though the word "hot" basically means anything that might be dangerous or anything that he can't touch. So Papa's computer is "hot". And as for "down", he helps make sure that the cat gets off the table if it ever jumps up - one day my head was turned and K. pointed his finger at the table and yelled, "down!". Sure enough, the cat was on the table and jumped down, suitably chastised... so at least we know that despite his limited vocabulary, K. is able to speak with other species.

Another discovery K. has made is all of his body parts and one in particular (one guess). He also has discovered that Daddy and Papa have the same body part and likes to make sure it's still there, especially when we're wearing our pyjama bottoms. This led to our discovery that K. needed his nails trimmed. :-) As for discoveries on my side, I guess you can say that I've been learning how to adjust to being the house husband with a toddler. It was rough finding things to keep him occupied until I realized that I could also go about my day and that he would just have to tag along. So he now watches as I do laundry, wash dishes, and cook (I made chocolate chip cookies and apple bread just to find something to keep him busy - I am sooo a Stepford Fag!). He also watches all my other activities that up until this point had been fairly private. So now when I shower I have a little face peeking in (and I do get flashes of Psycho when the shower curtain rustles) and K. is very much intrigued by the mechanics of elimination. I guess you can say that his potty training is beginning through modelling. Though I wish his observation wasn't quite so up close.

In terms of challenges, they are actually getting better overall. The tantrums have diminished and have downgraded to whining. Kind of like how a hurricane gets downgraded to a tropical storm. It's a relief, but you still have to board up the windows and sit tight. We are working on this though, and through Batshaw we have a parenting educator that comes in to give us advice from time to time. Some of it is useful, but other times it's like having a nagging in-law tell you how to parent your child. Our response has been to smile and nod and use what we feel works as best as possible. So far, it seems to be going well. We even had a few nights where K. waved goodnight to us from his bed and didn't howl as we left his room. (That was short lived though, the past two nights we are back to having to drop him back into bed after each time he climbs off of it). In fact the howling is so commonplace that when he is quiet we know he is up to no good (like climbing up on a chair and emptying all his drawers). And since he has trouble with sleep, we've had to make sure that if we drive back from an outing towards his bedtime, we have to keep him awake or else if he falls asleep in the car and is moved to bed, we'll have an hour of shrieking (as opposed to>the normal 20 minutes). So this saw me one time in the backseat next to him singing, "If you're happy and you know it shake your foot", and me shaking his leg repeatedly until we got home. Good times! heh. I'm now realizing the things parents have to do to get some peace. (So I can kind of forgive my mom for drugging my sister and I with Gravol so we would pass out on a very long car trip.)

As for things that make us smile, what I love is that he has a dance he does when I start my espresso machine in the morning. He sings along as the coffee beans are ground and shakes back and forth to simulate the grinding. Again, limited vocabulary,  but if you ever need someone to do a sound effect for a coffee grinder, he's your man.

In terms of the placement, we are supposed to have a meeting scheduled at Batshaw with the birthfather and all the social workers this week.This is for K.'s social worker so that he can file a complete adoptability report. We hope it goes well, but aren't quite sure what to expect. In the meantime, we're still having a visit from a social worker at least once a week. They will probably taper off to one visit every few weeks as they all have seen how well he is fitting in. K. has also gotten to meet extended family and little cousins and has managed to charm them all.

So all in all, life is going well, one month of parental leave already gone. 8 to go. Not missing work yet. (colleagues yes, but not thework) Though there are moments I would rather be sitting in a 3 hour advisory meeting rather than watching the wiggles for the umpteenth time. (oh, the good news is that K.'s tolerance of Barney the dinosaur is about as great as mine. 5 minutes in and he's already waving bye- bye to the screen!)

Anyway, want to say thanks to all who have been writing back and glad that you're enjoying these little moments when I have a chance to breathe.

Daddy Diary 1 - K.'s introduction (Dec 2008)

So as you all know, we're into transition week with K. and  everything has been neatly scheduled to allow us some time to get to know each other, learn his routines and have K. get ready for his move  to full-time living with us for Monday the 15th. All went according to  plan on Monday. We met at foster mom's place at around 10 am (with our  brand new car-seat <Thanks C&D!! ) so that we could go on an outing together. What better place to head for an outing but Angrignon mall!  Luckily he was more interested in the floor tiles than all the stuff  at Sears otherwise we might still be there. :-) The goal of our outing was to head to a pet store so that K. could get accustomed to the animals we have at our place. No worries there. All the puppies were sleeping, but K. encouraged their waking up with some taps on their glass dividers. (I think Phoebe (our dog) is going to be napping the same time as K.!) He also loved the fish and would have loved to dive in with the Koi in their giant pond. Luckily dad was there to provide a restraining arm (one that will get used, many, many times I think!)

We went to the food court next for a snack. He's really into the next age/size bracket cause it was next to impossible to fit him into the high chairs they had at the mall. K. preferred to sit on Greg and feed him french fries dipped in a lake of ketchup. Did I mention that Greg looooves Ketchup? <sarcasm  And the oscar goes to Greg, for the most believable "mmmmm!".> K. then decided that he wasn't all that hungry and thought that walking around the food court in circles would give Daddy Marc some much needed exercise. This became even more fun when K. began to wave at everyone and they waved back. How many laps did we do? All I know is that some of the faces became very familiar by the end of it.

Then it was time to head back home. At this point K. was happy to get  into his new stroller and get pushed back to the car. He was also happy to get home as K. has an aversion to 5 point restraints. This was just in time for nap time for foster mom to deal with the crankiness as Marc went home to busily clean and baby proof the house for Tuesday and for Greg to go to work.

And then Tuesday. Ah, wonderful snowy Tuesday. The plan was a 3pm-7pm visit with Foster Mom coming over to our house and leaving after an hour so that we could show him his new digs. The one hour visit with foster mom happened mostly on the Decarie autoroute. It was backed up from end to end. So K. was very happy to finally see his new place (even if it would have been a shack, all he cared about was getting out of that @##$ car seat.) Foster mom stayed for a bit and K. walked in circles (I sense a theme) and was thrilled with his new stuffed animals that actually moved (aka the pets). With all the stimulation he didn't notice the christmas tree too much yet. So far it's still standing.

I then drove foster mom to the metro while Greg continued the visit. Part of the tour was the bathroom where K. discovered the tub and a whole bunch of cool toys So when I got back from the drive, K. was ready to dive in. He puts on quite a water show and I think this will be his favourite time of the day. Then we got him all dried off and we were off to supper (ham and macaroni, yum... dads finished the left overs, brought us back to recipes from our youth). Then we were supposed to drive K. back home, but the Decarie was still jammed up. After 5 minutes in his car seat in a stationary car, we made an executive decision (and a ear-drum saving one) to head back home and we called foster mom and the appropriate authorities to okay his stay over night. Luckily Greg's work friends had bought some pj's so we got him dolled up and got him ready for bed. K.'s nighttime ritual involves lots of snuggling (which we love) and many big yawns in our ear, but for all that he fights sleep. So Daddy Marc got some more exercise walking 40 pounds of huggy-buggy K. in a circle until he was ready to lie down in his new bed. (Picture how a koala bear hugs on, and that's the right image). Of course Greg and I are already in love so the hugs just keep making it better. So aside from waking up around 11pm for some more snuggling (and a cleaner diaper) he went out for the night. Can't say the same for us. Each little grunt and sniffle kept pricking our ears up, so that Greg and I shared 2 hours of sleep altogether. But what a way to stay up, cuddled next to this snoring angel. We didn't miss the sleep one bit (until we had to actually function the next morning, heh).  

At 8:30 it was time to get up, breakfast and totter in circles around the kitchen island while being chased by Phoebe who was very interested in the piece of toast K. had in his hand. This is when the reality of how slow time can be when you are trying to think up of new ways to keep a todder occupied. (Yay, this new thing kept you busy for 30 seconds, now what?) But playing with blocks was fun, especially the dumping them out of the box and putting them back in to do it all over again. Then as the plan had originally been to keep K. for day, that got modified. After K.'s nap in the morning, we went back to foster mom. The transition back to her was a bit tough and he went straight back to us for more hugs before being okay to go back to his foster family. So all in all, the attaching with us seems to be going very well. He has no problem coming to us for comfort. That'll be a different story once he realizes that foster mom won't be around, but after our first night together (and many emotions) we now have a taste of some of the ups and downs we'll have at the beginning. All the rest will be regular toddler craziness

 So there you have the last few days. I'm learning quick though. I now know that coffees get cold quickly when you forget them cause you're chasing a little guy around. Also, don't bother making yourself a lunch, cause you're just going to eat his leftovers anyway. And finally, yes, you will do gross things when it is your own kid. ;-)

  More news to come! And thanks again for all your warm words of welcome for K. and all your support.
 

The (Gay) Daddy Diaries - uploaded

Hi Everyone,

For those of you who were fortunate enough to be part of my select e-mail list, you'll remember that back in 2008 I documented the journey of K. into our family. Well, 3 years later, with a bit more wisdom (and more grey hair), Greg and I are beginning the process once again in welcoming a new son to our family.

For those new to this blog, some quick background information. Greg and I are a happily married, gay couple living in Montreal. We've been together 5 years now and for the past 3 years we've been dads to a beautiful boy (K.) whom we have now officially adopted through Batshaw (Montreal's English division of Youth Protection Services). In Quebec we have something called the mixed-bank (foster-to-adopt) program. These children are already placed in foster care, but Batshaw is seeking permanent homes for them with the intent that they may eventually become adoptable. Increasingly many gay and lesbian couples are participating in the mixed-bank program and are actually being sought out as resources. For more information check out the Coalition des Familles Homoparentales (http://www.familleshomoparentales.org/)

We had always thought of having two children and after being on the list with Batshaw for about a year, a match has been made and we are about to transition N. into our family. So K. (who is now 4) and N. (who is 2) will grow into being brothers and Greg and I will become dads to the second degree.

When K. joined us, I took the parental leave and I documented my discoveries through what I called the Daddy Diaries. What began as a way to preserve my sanity by laughing about my parental neuroses while K. was napping, soon became my family's favorite reading material and made other parents in my circle snicker.

So as I am about to embark on another journey, I figured I'd dust off those old Daddy Diaries, post them here and pick up with volume 2. All in all 8 entries were written and then I went back to work and I stopped as the rythm of working life took over again. Rereading them I'm brought back to the joys and pains we experienced transitioning K. into our family. For any of you who have adopted, you'll know what I mean.

So the next entries will date back to 2008 and early 2009, but keep an eye out for upcoming news. Greg and I meet N. for the first time tomorrow and K. will meet him the day after. From there we're on a 2 week schedule of visits until N. is placed with us officially.

Wish us luck!