Of the titles I've had the privilege of earning Dad is by far the most endearing--and important. It's a subtle change in how I live, but steadily my FOUR boys have overtaken every major activity I reserved for free time. It's only right that they earn space here and I'll sprinkle a few things that have tickled me in the coming posts.
The world is complex and extraordinarily arbitrary to a child. China implements a one-child-per-family policy which we explain to our four year old. Months later I get a slideshow from a male Shanghai coworker on their visit to see their brother. I see it. My wife sees it. The whole company sees it! Nobody thinks anything but great thoughts of the slideshow. My oldest son (of four years) gets to slide 3 and asks, "why's he have a brother?"
Me, "he has a brother just like you have brothers." Him, "but he's Chinese." Me, "yes?" And then I catch up with him. Why did this slideshow of our Chinese coworker have him and his brother in it? Shouldn't one-child-per-family keep him an only child? That's exactly what my son asked.
The question needled me enough that I excused any potential taboo and asked about the family and political dynamics allowing the two-son family. I had thought the brothers were born before the policies, but my coworker explained, "My father had to pay a fine of 1000 YUAN. That's not much in today's dollar, but at the time it was 3 years wages and since he was a government worker it was very tough for us after my brother was born."
The impact here was immediate--empathy for my coworker, his father, and his brother--growing up with a weight on the family of his own birth. And the impact lingers--could I, would I have made the same sacrifices for my second son? And would I still have for the third and fourth?
It's a little question from my son that takes me down a meandering train of thought. I tell him the news--and he says, "Oh." Just another arbitrary tidbit for him to file away...
This evening at dinner (my wife is pregnant now again)--the same son asks between bites of lentils and yogurt, "when you have boys do you have to make them with boy-love? And when you have girls you have to have girl-love? Did you have boy-love or girl-love with this baby?"
Firstly--my wife and I are both studied in the sciences. We come from greatly different backgrounds and have agreed to be a reference for the kids, to talk bluntly about things like sex, love and death and in the end encourage them to be unafraid of learning deeply about topics and forming their own opinions.
Secondly--we have a healthy sense of humor and this question was too good to let die. We replied, "what type of love do you think we had?" He says, "well you made boy-love for Lex and boy-love for Liam and boy-love for Eoin and boy-love for Me. Did you make boy-love for the new baby?" Now--biting our lips--we explained a smidgen of genetics, "you see Daddy's genes decide whether it's a boy or a girl, but we don't get to choose. So there's really no boy-love or girl-love, just love-love."
By the time we'd finished, he was back to lentils. Another datum stored.
