Rumspringa: If only every parent possessed the open mindedness of the bad ass Amish

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I admire the hell out of the Amish.

Not for their rejection of modern day technology. That’s insane. When humankind deflects the next planet-killing asteroid from striking the Earth, the Amish can thank their lucky stars that most people moved beyond the horse and buggy a while ago.

No, my admiration is born from the way that they impart their religion and culture onto the young:

The straight-up, bad ass,  open mined confidence of the Rumspringa.

The Rumspringa normally begins around the age of 14 to 16 and ends when a youth chooses baptism within the Amish church, or instead leaves the community. 

While the majority choose baptism and remain in the church, some Amish youth do indeed separate themselves from the community, even going to live among the "English", or non-Amish North Americans, experiencing modern technology and perhaps even experimenting with sex, alcohol, and recreational drugs. Their behavior during this time represents no necessary bar to returning for adult baptism into the Amish church if they choose to one day return to the community.

Allowing the youth to choose baptism in the church?

Encouraging the youth - practically requiring them - to go experience other cultures and beliefs?

Feeling confident enough in your own way of life and respectful enough of personal choice to allow your children to choose their own path in terms of religion, and community?

That is seriously progressive for a people who can't even listen to a podcast. 

I can't tell you how many times I've heard stories about dumb ass, intolerant parents who disowned their son or daughter for leaving the religion or refusing to attend their child's interfaith marriage or believing they have any say at all over their child who is now a fully grown adult. 

These Amish have it right:

We've offered you a religion and a way of life that we love and embrace. We hope you will love and embrace it, too. Now go forth. Explore the world. See what other possibilities exist in the great unknown. And then come back to us if you so choose. 

The degree of courage, respect, understanding, and open mindedness required to do such a thing is astounding. 

If only every intolerant, dumb ass parent would offer the same choice to their children. 

My unconventional advice for the expecting parent (or the less experienced parent)

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My friend is expecting her first baby next month. She asked me for my thoughts on parenting. 

Here is my truth.

When Elysha was pregnant, people warned us about how difficult parenting an infant would be. We wouldn't sleep for the next two years. We wouldn't see a movie for the next five years. We wouldn't have sex for at least a decade. We would be exhausted at all times.  

None of this happened.

I was warned of the horrors of a thousand diaper changes. I was told that visits to restaurants would be impossible (or at least no fun) for years.    

This didn't happen.  

Then I was told that as soon as Clara started walking (or even crawling), all hell would break loose. That was when things would get really hard. 

That didn't happen, either.

I was told by a friend that my children would be sleeping in our bedroom and probably in our bed - off and on - for years.

That never happened.

Then I was told that the second child would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. He would be the one to make parenting hard. 

That didn't happen either. 

I was told that parenting would strain our marriage. Strip away our opportunities to be alone. Deprive us of any free time. Make us feel like slaves to little people. 

None of this happened, either.

I've been told that my children will grow up in the blink of an eye. That time will fly by faster than I thought possible. That childhood would be ephemeral.   

This has not happened.  

Now I've been told that the middle school years will be terrible. High school will be the worst. I've been warned that my children will stop speaking to me. Stop sharing their thoughts and feelings. Become sullen and surly. I've been told that they will become emotionally unstable, akin to little hormone bombs capable of blowing up at any given moment. I've been told that homework will become the bane of our existence. That driving our kids to athletic events will become like second jobs. That our children will eat us out of house and home. 

I've been told that I will worry all of the time. 

As far as I am concerned, no one has spoken the truth to me yet. 

Here's what I know:

My children are healthy and typical. No illnesses. No learning disabilities. No cognitive impairment. We are blessed. If our kids weren't healthy or typical, I suspect that parenting would be hard.

I also know that I am gainfully employed. We may not always have all the money we need, but my wife and I are both capable of finding work and making a good living. Someday soon my wife will return to work and things will be easier, but until then, we have enough to get by. I suspect that if this weren't the case, parenting would be hard.

As a result, parenting has been a joyous ride. A goddamn dream come true. It's been remarkable. Unbelievable. Indescribable. It has been the greatest thing I have ever done and will ever do. I love my children more than I thought possible. They bring me more happiness than I thought possible. Parenting has not been miserable. It has not been soul crushing. On most days, it's not even hard.

That is my truth.

That is what I told my pregnant friend because I am quite certain that she is going to hear from an army of nattering nabobs of negativity, spewing forth their warning of pain and suffering at every turn. Parents love to complain. They love to speculate about the disasters that await less experienced parent just around the corner. They love to project their own struggles onto others. Assume that their experiences are universal. It often seems as if it's their mission to strip all happiness and joy from their descriptions of parenting at all costs. 

So as I make my way through this world, meeting expecting or less experienced parents, I speak my truth. 

So far, parenting has been great. The naysayers have been wrong. My children are the best, and being their father is the best. Beyond joyous.

I tell parents to love every minute, because if you are as blessed as me and Elysha, it's entirely possible.

Owl hunters interrupt fiction writer's flow

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In case you didn't know what an owl hunter looked like, here are two are in the flesh. Note the uniform: 

Pajamas. Straw hat or beach pail worn as helmets. Rain boots.

Each is also equipped with a mode of transport (scooter or tricycle) and a flashlight. 

In this training run, I served as the owl. Lights in the house were turned off because the taller of the two hunters noted that owls are not diurnal. They are nocturnal. 

You never know what is going to interrupt my attempt to get a little writing done. 

My six-year old daughter understands the nature of religious texts better than many Republican candidates

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On Yom Kippur, my six year-old daughter attended services at the local synagogue. As part of the service, the rabbi gathered the children and told them the story of Jonah and the whale. This is actually a story that can be found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts.   

The rabbi told the story as if Jonah's encounter with the whale really happened. It was accompanied by a song which she and her brother sang all day. 

When I asked my daughter if the story of Jonah and the whale was real, she said, "Of course not."

"But the rabbi made it sound like it really happened," I said.

"Daddy... don't be ridiculous. I don't care if he said it was real. It was just a story. People don't get stuck inside whales." 

"What about a blue whale," I asked. "They're huge."

"Daddy, blue whales are baleen whales. They can't even eat fish."

I laughed. "Then why would the rabbi tell the story of Jonah and the whale if it didn't really happen?"

"Because it was just a fun story. And maybe it was supposed to teach me something, but I can't remember what." 

About 50% of Americans believe that the Earth was created by God less than 10,000 years ago despite the mountains of physical evidence indicating otherwise because it the Bible says so.

These are the same people who believe that Noah built an ark that housed two of every animal on the planet during a worldwide flood because the Bible says so.

And presumably, these are the dame people who believe that there once lived a man named Jonah who was swallowed by a large fish or whale and survived for three days in its belly because the Bible says so.

How is it that my six year-old daughter can see the ridiculousness of this story and so many others cannot? She's in first grade and understands that a literal interpretation of religious texts makes no sense.

I was so proud of her, and yet at the same time, her conclusion seems fairly obvious,. 

At least for her. 

A character from The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs comes alive. Seriously.

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If you've read my latest novel, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, you'll know that the book opens on a memorable scene in a PTO meeting. What you might not know is that there is a nonfictional character living within that scene.

Eric Feeney, identified in the book as a father of twins daughters and a New York Giants fan, is attending the PTO meeting on the same night that his beloved team is playing on Thursday night football. He is wearing his Giants jersey to the meeting in hopes of reminding the PTO chairperson to wrap up the proceedings quickly so he can catch the game.

Eric Feeney is a real person. He's a teacher at my school. He has twin daughters and is a rabid New York Giants fan. And at last night's PTO meeting - on a night when the New York Giants were playing the Washington Redskins on Thursday night football - he showed up with wearing his New York Giants jersey, thus bringing this fictional sliver of my novel to life.

Sadly, I had to leave the PTO meeting a little early, but Feeney is never one to miss an opportunity to garner a little attention. After the PTO meeting was finished, he gathered a bunch of parents and teachers and had a photo taken with my book, which he sent to me. 

Feeney is not the first real person who I have embedded in one of my novels. In Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, another teacher from my school - Mrs. Gosk - plays a prominent role, and over the years, real people have occasionally occupied small roles in my books.

Feeney is just the first one to revel in his inclusion in fiction to this degree. On the night of my book launch, he was there, hoping to have a table set up beside mine in order to sign books. When that didn't happen, he offered to sign books for several people but was declined each time.

Still, I love his enthusiasm. He has me considering making him a reoccurring character, which would pretty much blow his mind, I think.  

  

Pulling loose teeth just got more profitable. And strange.

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The latest parenting craze is pulling your child's lose tooth with a drone. There are hundreds of videos demonstrating this new dental practice on YouTube, including this one.

My initial thought was that this is a ridiculous and stupid idea, but then I saw the number of views of the video (almost half a million) and it occurred to me that this video is generating more advertising income for the boy than all of the tooth fairy money he would see in a lifetime. 

There are also videos of kids removing their own loose teeth via bow and arrow, which kind of impressed the hell out of me. 

It's also a much better system than the one practiced by my grandmother. She would sit in front of us, tie a string to our loose teeth, look us square in the eye, and yank.

No doorknob. Just me, my grandmother, and a piece of string separating us.

Scared the hell out of me. 

My brother recalls a day when my grandmother pulled three of my teeth this way in rapid succession. I have obviously blocked the memory of this day and probably have suffered psychologically as a result.

But I guess it could've been worse. 


God doesn't want you to dress up in order to worship him. In fact, he would prefer that you dress down.

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If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I am a reluctant atheist. I would like to believe in God (perhaps a kinder and gentler God than the Old Testament version) and have faith in an afterlife, but up to this point, I have not found the capacity to do so.   

As a result, I live in constant fear of the void. I envy people of faith for the peace they must feel about their ultimate demise.

But despite my ongoing, persistent existential crisis, here’s one good thing about being an atheist:

I don’t give a damn about what you wear, regardless of the circumstances. 

Attending a religious service of almost any kind requires a person to dress in clothing that is almost always more expensive and elaborate than what one usually wears on any other day.

Suits and ties. Dresses and other female regalia.

Of course, this wardrobe requirement means that parishioners, worshipers, and other indoctrinates are required to spend money on these clothing items in order to appear presentable.

I have a couple thoughts about this:

First, does God really care about the quality or style of clothing that we wear? This is the same omnipotent being who supposedly brought Adam and Eve into the world in the buff. Yet parishioners are expected to wear their Sunday best when attending services? 

Yes, they are. I see the ladies entering the church near my home every Sunday. Large hats. Elaborate dresses. Heels. Handbags. And they are escorted by men in fine suits and towing children in fancy clothes that they will most assuredly grow out of within a year. 

Do we really think that God give a damn about what his people are wearing?

He doesn't. I may not have the capacity to believe that God exists, but he doesn't. Trust me. The clothes that you wear are the least of his concerns.  

Second, wouldn’t the Lord prefer you arrive to church or synagogue in an old pair of jeans and a tee-shirt and use the money that would've been spent on more formal attire to help someone in need?

I may not believe in the Big Guy, but I've read the Bible cover-to-cover three times, and everything that I have gleaned from my study inclines me to believe that God (and especially Jesus) would prefer that you ditch the expensive threads and put the money spent on them to better use. 

I am absolutely certain of this. 

When we dress up for our religious services and don our “Sunday best”, we may try to rationalize this as a way of showing respect for God and our fellow worshipers, but this, I think, is nonsense. You would earn far more respect from the Almighty if you took the $300 that you spent on that suit or dress and used it to help the homeless. Or the hungry. Or the sick. 

Wardrobe requirements at religious services are man-made artifices, serving only to satisfy the human ego and/or further indoctrinate worshipers by lending an air of importance and formality to what should be a personal relationship between a human being and his or her creator.

And this is why atheists don’t give a damn about what you wear. Atheists are not interested in any of this ceremony, ritual, or means of indoctrination.

Attending the baptism of a friend’s daughter? Where whatever the hell you want. Who are we to judge?

Invited to attend your niece’s first communion? No need to change those jeans. As long as your sex organs are covered by something (denim, gabardine, or even fig-leaf), we are fine with your choice of attire!

Unencumbered by ritual and routine, free from indoctrination and the judging eyes of peers, I propose that the atheist is better able to see through the artifice of custom, ceremony, and law to the essence of what human being's relationship with God is supposed to be.

The relationship as it's described in the Bible.

The relationship I would want with God. A relationship based solely on my thoughts and deeds and not upon my physical appearance. 

Atheists (or at least this atheist) may live in fear of the void and suffer from an unending series of existential crises, but at least we can wear jeans and sneakers to the most formal, religious services and still feel good about ourselves.

This does not mean that atheists will always wear whatever they desire to their friend or family's religious ceremonies even though they think they should. Sometimes ethics and principles are trumped by the sheer power and will of one’s familial expectations, as annoying as that may be. 

My daughter's first homework assignment: First steps on a rotten road

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It's my daughter's first homework assignment. 

She didn't mind doing it. She said it was easy. It took five minutes. Her brother sat with her in solidarity.

Still, she has begun a journey that will not be fun. A journey that her father despised. A journey that many kids despise. A journey that most rationale people despise.

My daughter has at least 16 years of homework ahead of her. The poor thing.   

Recommended Reading

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When I visit a bookstore or library or book club to discuss my new novel, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, I also recommend books as a part of my talk. Audience members have recently asked for a list of the books that I am currently recommending, so here there are, in case you can't make it to one of my upcoming appearances. 

Details about why I am recommending each below.

The Official Boy Scout Handbook: I still have my original Boy Scout Handbook, which is now more than 30 years old, but I still think it's one of the best books ever written, particularly for a young person. Turn to any page and you will discover something fascinating. Learn to build a fire. Identify poisonous snakes. Properly fold a flag. Build a lean-to. Purify water. Sign language. First aid. Astronomy. It's an amazing book that any young person would love, whether he or she is a Boy Scout or not.

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo: This is the first gift that my wife ever gave me, on our first date, and it's a book I love dearly. Written for children but perfect for adults, it's the story of a mouse who dares to be different in a world that expects him to conform. It's a perfect story, perfectly told, that has remained in my heart ever since I read it for the first time.

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath: If you're a teacher or a parent or someone who needs to convey information or skills that must be retained, read this book. It's the single greatest teaching guide ever written. It makes ever book about teaching that has ever cluttered by bookshelf look ridiculous by comparison.  

Ballisitics by Billy Collins: Collins is a great poet an a former Poet Laureate of the United States. This may make him sound impenetrable, but it could not be farther from the truth. Collins is amusing, insightful, and simple. I recommend that rather than buying the book, purchase the audiobook. He reads it beautifully. Create a playlist with songs you love, interspersed with poems. It's a joy to be driving down the highway listening to a Beatles or a Stones song and suddenly have Billy Collins reciting a poem to you. 

The Fermata by Nicholson Baker: I love Baker's work, and this is one of my favorites. It's the story of a man who can stop time, and he uses this power to undress and then dress women, so they never know that they were naked. This description does not make it sound compelling, but it's a terrific story of a man who desperately wants to connect with the world, and when he finally does, the surprising results. 

Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon: This is a book of flash fiction. Though I love this book specifically, I am recommending it more as an attempt to get readers to give flash fiction a try. Flash fiction is stories written in a couple hundred words at most. It's an incredibly challenging way to tell a story, but when done well, is truly brilliant.   

The Moth edited by Catherine Burns: This is a collection of 50 of the greatest Moth stories, originally told on stage, and lightly edited for the page. If you don't want to start reading at the beginning, start on page 200 with Erin Barker's brilliant story about her family. You'll soon encounter one of my favorite lines from the thousands of Moth stories I've heard over the years.

Brilliant use of chalk

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I drove by this parking spot, as did every other person at the park. The parking spot closest to the gates of the playground remained empty all day.  

Why?

Note the color and location of the chalk: handicapped blue, positioned alongside an actual handicapped parking spot. My mind (and everyone else's mind) registered it as handicapped parking, even though it's clearly not. 

Brilliant. 

This video encompasses so many of my fears for my students

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I watch this video from the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and it encapsulates so many of my fears for my students.

  1. I'm afraid that they are growing up in a world with an African American President and legalized same sex marriage (two things I never thought I would see in my lifetime), and yet sexist, stupid, degrading beauty pageants like Miss America still exist and are watched by millions every year.
  2. I'm afraid that they might decide that competing in beauty pageants like Miss America is a worthwhile endeavor.
  3. I'm afraid that they might answer a question in the same inarticulate, imbecilic, and embarrassing fashion as our reigning Miss America.
  4. I'm afraid that they might answer a question in the same inarticulate, imbecilic, and embarrassing fashion as the people on the street who foolishly agreed to speak to Jimmy Kimmel's producers. 
  5. I'm afraid that they might become content creators who think that sticking a microphone in pedestrians' faces and recording them speak like morons makes for interesting or amusing television.

This is why I work my students so hard and insist on making every minute of the school day as productive as possible. The last thing I want is to see one of them appear in a video like this in any capacity. 

My book launch party was filled with many surprise guests and references to Dungeons & Dragons

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My most recent novel, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, published ten days ago on September 8. Originally my book launch party was slated for September 10, but that was the date of the Patriots home opener at Gillette Stadium, and I have my priorities.

My publicist understood completely, so the launch was moved to September 14.

A few weeks later, I had to point out that September 14 was Rosh Hashanah, and given the fact that my wife and many of my friends are Jewish, this date would also not work.

Please not that it wasn’t my wife or my in-laws or any of my many Jewish friends who noted the conflict, even though the date was made public and added to calendars for more than a month. It was me, a former Gentile turned reluctant atheist, who first realized the problem.

After I realized the conflict with Rosh Hashanah, we moved my launch again to September 17, which was last night. It meant that I needed to leave Colebrook, CT in the midst of a weeklong trip with my students to a YMCA camp to return home for a few hours, but that was fine.

Better than missing the Patriots game or disrespecting my wife’s holiday.

It was a terrific evening, and I thank each and every person who attended for making it a fantastic night. One of my friends counted well over 100 people in attendance, and I had many surprise guests, including:

  • My aunt Paulette from South Carolina, who I haven’t seen in almost ten years and have only seen a handful of times in the last 30 years. She and her husband were traveling to Niagara Falls to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and made a detour in order to attend the event.
  • Sarah, a high school student in Rhode Island who I have been corresponding with for almost two years about writing and publishing. I visited Sarah’s high school last year – where my former high school vice principal and nemesis is now principal – and she returned the favor by making the almost two hour trek to Connecticut to join us for the event.
  • Sara, my friend and author from Vermont, who has now driven more than two hours to attend my last two book launch events.  
  • My superintendent, who told me that he would try to attend the event, but knowing the schedule of someone in his position must keep, I hardly expected him to make it. His willingness to give up an evening to support my work meant a lot. 
  • Many of my fellow teachers and colleagues, including one who had just returned from our YMCA trip hours earlier and was sitting in the front row.
  • Maybe best of all, dozens of my former students, many all grown up and some who left my classroom just last year, all sitting or standing (there was a large standing-room-only contingent) in support.

Rather than reading from my latest novel, I spoke about how a high school teacher and an assignment on satire turned me into a writer and launched my first business, and how 20 years later a friend's request that I play Dungeons & Dragons with him and some buddies saved my writing career. I also recommended some books (including The Boy Scout handbook), took some questions, handed out some prizes, and signed many books. 

It was an incredibly fun night and well worth the wait.  

Productivity tip: Back up your phone, damn it.

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It is unconscionable for parents to be walking around with phones that have 10,000 photos of their children saved only on the phone's hard drive, yet in an anecdotal survey of the last ten parents I spoke to, six of them have not backed up their photos for more than a month, and two have never backed up their phone EVER.

Do your own survey. These lunatics are all over the place.   

I personally know of three people who lost months of photographs when their phones were accidentally destroyed and there was no backup.

This is not hard, people. Either set your phone to automatically back up data to a cloud service, or connect your phone to a computer every night.

And if your computer does not have an automatic backup service running in the background, there's no hope for you. Honestly. You're insane.  

Almost as insane as the people walking around with six months of photos on their phones.

There are three incredibly stupid things wrong with this sign. Can you spot them all?

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I saw this sign in a Dunkin Donuts drive-thru in Danbury, CT.

There are so many things wrong with this sign.

1. "Spring is here and we want our customers to be completely satisfied..." implies that spring was the impetus for management to want to satisfy its customers. 

Wouldn't it be better to say: 

"We opened a Dunkin Donuts, and we want our customers to be completely satisfied..."

or: "From the moment we were born, we have wanted our customers to be completely satisfied..."

or "The universe began with the Big Bang, and ever since that singular moment in time, we have wanted our customers to be completely satisfied..."

All of these are better than linking their desire to satisfy customers to an arbitrary day in March.

2. Spring was almost two seasons ago. Am I to presume that since spring is no longer with us, the desire to satisfy customers is also gone? Basically, don't connect your desire to do your job well with seasonal changes. That's stupid. 

3. The sign indicates a website where I can leave feedback, but it also informs me that I will need my receipt for instructions. So in order to input feedback into a digital computer network, management has created a system by which I must also retain the analog slip of paper handed to me through the window. 

Does anyone else find this process insane? Sort of like requiring someone to use an instruction manual in order to operate the Internet.

Smart, book person and crazed football fan does not always compute.

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Editor Katie Adams - a fellow New England Patriots fan - tweeted this on Thursday night prior to the game:

“It’s football season now. If you’re new, I’m still a smart book person but now I wear the skin of a crazy football fan for a few months.”

I understood this sentiment completely. 

While I hardly think it's surprising that I'm a football fan (I'm actually shocked and confused when a guy tells me that he's not a football fan), the assumption is often made by readers that because I'm (stealing Katie's words) a "smart book person," I could never be a crazed football fan.

They are even more stunned to discover that I am a Patriots season ticket holder.

Writing novels and simultaneously being emotionally attached to a team of uncommonly large men who seek to run into and through another team of uncommonly large men does not compute for many people, and especially for those who read my novels.  

As a woman, I expect that it computes even less for the people in Katie's life.

But it's true. On Saturday morning, you can often find me sitting at my computer, writing novels and thinking bookish thoughts. 

The next day you will find me in section 331, row 24, seat 5 of Gillette Stadium, cheering for men who I have never met as they throw and catch and tackle other men who dare to wear an opposing color. I scream and swear and hug strangers and sometimes even cry as the Patriots march up and down the field in pursuit of a victory that will not be mine but will feel like it's all mine.

I'm a smart, bookish person, but I also wear the skin of a crazed football fan.

Go Patriots. 

Verbal Sparring: Flip and Own

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This is a simple comeback that works in certain situations.

Last week, I was listing all of my petty grievances to a friend and how I planned on conquering each one. 

His response: "It must be exhausting being you."

My comeback: "No, it's exhausting not being me."

He laughed.

I followed up by ensuring him that I'm the least exhausted person I know, and that the only real solution to exhaustion is being me. 

I'm not sure if I really am the least exhausted person I know, but in verbal sparring, unassailable hyperbole is a legitimate tactic. 

The verbal strategy that I used here is what I call the "Flip and Own."

You simply take an accusation made by your opponent, flip it on its head in some way, and then fully own the flip.

If you imagine an opponent's attack as a river of potentially damaging words heading your way, the "Flip and Own "is your way of damming up the river, diverting the flow of water in a direction of your choice, and owning all the water as a result. 

In this case, I flipped an attempt to make me seem petty and obsessive into a compliment for myself and a insult of the rest of humanity. 

It was a good flip. One of my best. 

But "Flip and Own" can be as simple as this:

Opponent: "You're a terrible golfer."

Me: "No, I'm actually the worst golfer on the planet, and yet I'm still only two strokes behind you. You're barely beating the worst golfer who ever lived."

Or this:

Opponent: "I can't believe that you didn't finish that report yet."

Me: I can't believe you already finished that report. My life is so full of wonder and joy that all reports must be completed at the last second and perhaps late or maybe even never because there is simply too much of this world to see and do. How sad it must be for you to have the time to complete something as meaningless and stupid as that report with days or hours or even minutes to go. Should we schedule an intervention?

The Flip and Own.

Only applicable in very specific circumstances but so much fun when the opportunity arises.