Parenthood: Week 160 - Big Boy Bed

MOMMY!!! DADDY!!!!!!

Since school got out, we’ve been wakened by Ollie screaming at his top volume for us to get him out of bed . . . at 6:30am, every morning. We figured it couldn’t be any worse with a big boy bed.

When we first brought Ollie home, he slept in a mini-crib. He was this little bundle in what seemed like a huge space. After about two months, Ollie switched to a normal sized crib, which again seemed way too big for him. Over the next three years, Ollie really came to enjoy his crib. He would invite me into his crib and we would read books together. He enjoyed putting a sheet over the top of the crib so that it could be a tent. Unlike other toddlers, Ollie never figured out how to climb out of his crib, because more often than not he wanted to stay in his crib.

Now that Ollie was pretty much set with potty training during the day, we realized that in order to move on to night potty training, he would need a big boy bed. We skipped the step of the toddler bed and went straight into getting him a twin-sized bed to replace his crib.

At first Ollie wasn’t very excited about the idea of a big boy bed and told us that he wanted to keep his crib. We explained that now he was getting bigger, he was going to get a big bed. In that big bed, mommy and daddy could read stories with him, and Buffy could cuddle with him. While I climbed into Ollie’s crib on many occasions to read with him, Ollie knew that it was crowded with both of us in there and he seemed excited when I told him that we could both be in bed and have more space.  We took Ollie to Target and let him pick out some sheets with a cute dog pattern that he enjoyed. We continued to talk to Ollie about how much he was going to like his new bed.

The bed and mattress came and Ollie eagerly tried to help us take apart the crib and put together the bed. This mainly consisted of Ollie touching the part of the bed we were moving helping us hold it. While he couldn’t really help out and often got in the way, we didn’t chastise him for this as we felt it was important that he felt like he had a role in this transition to a new bed.

Once everything was set up, we explained to Ollie that instead when he woke up, he could get out of bed, open his door, open our bedroom door and say good morning.  I taught Ollie how to do this.  I started with both Ollie and Diana pretending to sleep and then Ollie would get up, open the two doors and wake up mommy. Ollie loved this process and insisted on practicing getting up and saying good morning to mommy for almost half an hour.

The first night, Ollie slept in his big boy bed, I was worried that he would wake up, open his door and run around the house. Also, we were worried that he would pop out of his bed over and over and that we would have to spend a time putting him back into bed as Super-nanny recommends.

We were lucky. Ollie stayed in his bed all night. Instead of screaming for us in the morning, he slept in or waited for us to come get him. Even with a wake-up clock that would turn green, Ollie still doesn’t quite get that he can get out of his bed under his own prerogative. Right now, this isn’t such a bad thing. All of us including Buffy appreciate not being woken by Ollie’s screams.

Ollie has fallen out of bed, which resulted in giggles not cries. And he still has yet to leave the room by himself after waking up.  One day, he'll realized the freedom of no longer being in a crib, but until then, I'm going to enjoy the extra sleep.  Seeing him once again laying in a bed that seems way too big for him is a nice reminder that he still has a long way to grow and that he is still my special little guy.

To Be Asian-Americans: Tears

My Asian-ness keeps me from crying when I hear about another unjust death of an African-American. I am shaken to the core at horror of the violence, but I do not shed a tear because I do not see myself, my son and my family represented in that video. Intellectually, I understand the injustice, the history that led to these tragedies and the hard work that must be done to move our country forward.

Emotionally, as a human being, I empathize and I hear the strength in the mother’s voice and anguish in the girlfriend’s cries and I am moved and I feel the feelings, transform in a warmth behind my eyes, but I don’t completely let go and the tears do not come.

I don’t cry because I do not know and I cannot completely understand what it means for African-Americans to see one of their own face terrible injustice, again. I’ve read Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns and watched Gates’ series African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. I have a great depth of knowledge of Motown and Soul music and I can drop many Rap verse by memory. I’m proud that I’ve taken the time and that I have interest to learn about African-American culture, but I’m not black. I can spend the rest of my life immersing myself in African-American culture, and I still will not know what it means to be black in America.

The reason, I have this interest in African-American culture is because it has taught me what it means to be a minority in America. I spend most of my time as a minority surrounded by white people. I don’t belong to an Asian church or have a group of Asian-American friends that I hang out with. I live primarily amongst white people. When you are a “model minority”, it is easy to forget that I am not one of them. It is in African-American culture, that I have found inspiration and understanding in the development of my racial identity.

I’ll never forget walking into my first teachers of color lunch and seeing a room, where once again as an Asian-American, I was a minority. Instead of being lost in a sea of Caucasians, I was embraced in by a group of African-Americans. We validated each other’s feelings and trusted what we could not fully understand to be truth, honoring other’s perspectives. It is in that room I felt valued and seen for what I am, an Asian-American.

These shootings are an issue for Asian-Americans. It is not an issue in the same way that it is for African-Americans, or for Caucasians. All of this racially based violence is a symptom of how we as Americans value and in many cases devalue groups of people in our country. Unfortunately it continues to manifest most tragically and most visibly in the African-American community. But even if it doesn’t affect your community, it affects you. With tragic injustice, the promises you tell your children about our country become closer to lies and in these lies we lose our souls.

Fireworks

Parenthood: Week 159 - Going To The Movies

Ollie went to the movie theater for the first time to watch Finding Dory. We had tried to watch Finding Nemo with Ollie a couple months ago, but he really wasn’t interested. Then he watched this film at school with his class and he came home very excited about the film. His favorite character was the stingray, Mr. Ray. It took us a couple days to decipher his singing as the song that Mr. Ray uses to teacher about the different zones in the ocean. We like to think that Ollie likes Mr. Ray because he’s a teacher just like mommy and daddy, but it’s probably because of the way that he sings flies through the water.

The day before we went, we told Ollie that we were going to go see Finding Dory, which was going to be like Finding Nemo. We explained to Ollie that we were going to go “tomorrow.” Ollie then spent the remainder of the day trying to figure what “tomorrow” meant. An hour would pass and he would ask if it was tomorrow yet. Eventually he understood that tomorrow was going to be when he woke up the following morning. This worked out fine until the next morning when we had to explain that we were going to go to the movie in a couple hours, which initially didn’t make sense to Ollie.

We talked about how the movie theater was going to be dark, which in Ollie’s head meant that it was nighttime.  We explained what Ollie could do if he felt scared and that if he need to go to the bathroom or wanted to leave early, he could ask us at any time. We also went over how he needed to be quiet during the movie.

Ollie did really well in the movie theater. He got annoyed and impatient with the half an hour of movie trailers before the film (which annoyed us as well). For the first part of the film, Ollie stayed in his own seat and then later switched to Diana’s lap. Finding Dory wasn’t a bad film for Ollie to watch, but it wasn’t perfect. It was a little bit too long and a little bit too dark. For the last half hour, Ollie repeatedly told us that he would rather watch Finding Nemo.

There are more reasons not to go to a movie theater than to simply stay home and watch a movie in our family room, especially with a toddler. Movie theaters are expensive. It’s better to watch movies in smaller chunks for Ollie (and us).  And we really should preview films before watching them with Ollie, which is both time-consuming and costly.

However it’s undeniable that there is magic in a movie theater and I saw that in Ollie’s eyes looking up at the screen with wonder as the film took us through the ocean. I loved going to the theater as a kid and I look forward to sharing more movie-going experiences with my son.

A couple tips for the toddler film experiences:
- Bring snacks and/or buy popcorn.
- Grab a cardboard drink tray to use as a plate
- Skip the movie trailers if possible.
- Go during a matinee time.  Less movie goers to disturb and it's cheaper.
- Talk over the experience and the film beforehand.
- Be prepared to help your kid unpack the experience and the film afterwards.  Conversations about the movie theater (that may seem repetitive) are important in the processing the experience.

To Be Asian-American: Loving v. Reality

I was 5 years old when I had my first kiss. It was just a peck, nothing more than Preschool-aged play. I don’t remember her name, but I know that she was Caucasian.

My wife is Caucasians, and the vast majority of my past love interests (crushes and girlfriends) were also Caucasians. If you didn’t catch the hint from the title of this post, I’m Asian-American.

Growing up, my parents never talked to me about the why I should date within my own race or with people who shared my own cultural heritage or with the issues of dating someone who wasn’t Asian. My parents knew how hard it could be to find love and they didn’t want to put up more roadblocks. They also strongly believed in creating a new cultural identity mixing their Taiwanese traditions with America ones. Encouraging me to date other Asian girls was inconsistent with this approach to Americanization.

Then things started happened in high school that made it clear to me that while Loving v. Virginia, the 1967, United States Supreme Court Case that invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage was long since past, not everyone was on board with that decision.

An Asian parent after finding out that I was taking a white girl to prom, complained to my mom saying that I should take an Asian girl since some of them didn’t have dates yet. A Caucasian teacher echoed this same sentiment. And then at a wedding reception, one of the people at our table after asking me about the race of my girlfriend and finding out that she was wife, chastised me for dating a girl who wasn’t Asian.

I fully respect people’s desires to date and marry within their own race or cultural identity. JDate.com, it’s all good. Even with only a cursory knowledge of Jewish history, it’s easy to understand why a persecuted minority group, who’s people have suffered incomprehensible tragedy and withstood efforts to erase their culture would want to marry within their cultural identity.

I also understand what that person was saying at that wedding. For many people having a shared cultural identity and race would help in developing a marriage. A shared cultural identity with similar life experiences could make a lot of things easier. While there’s a school of thought that says that people who have many differences actually have better long-term relationships, there is logic in the “marrying within your own race/culture is helpful”-logic.

The whole interracial thing hasn’t been a huge struggle in my life but it has presented challenges. Sometimes when my wife’s name is called in a waiting room people are surprised that she is white. There’s a lot of mandarin Chinese spoken in my parent’s house, that sometimes I forget to translate for my wife. I’ve had to correct acquaintances who assume that my wife is Asian (this is pretty awkward). I’m glad that everyone likes to mention how mixed-race children like my son are so good looking but many of these people are completely ignorant of the unique challenges that Ollie will face in his cultural development as a person who fails to fit into traditional racial categories.

I don’t completely understand the evolutionary biology, and the social influences that affected the relationships in my life. But I do know that I love my wife. You may not believe me, but her “white-ness” was never an issue in my mind. I’m not saying that I’m colorblind. I knew she was white from the moment I met her. Trust me, I’m very aware of the race of people around me. Our differences were bonuses, not burdens. It is exactly this shared viewpoint on life along with our belief in each other that provided the foundation for our relationships and our family.

We are not out of the woods in our acceptance and understanding of interracial marriage.  Yes, Loving v. Virginia was 49 years ago, but in issues surrounding interracial marriage still resonate in our cultural consciousness. About a month ago, I talked to a Hispanic student about how minorities often have preference lists for race when it comes to dating. With her parents, African-Americans were at the bottom of that list and she was told explicitly that she couldn’t date a boy because he was African-American. I shared the ranking that is typical for Chinese-Americans.

This isn’t so much an expression of racism but rather an expression of generational differences, cultural influences and societal pressures. The idea of a “ranking” is disturbing, but it’s a lived reality. I’m not proud of this shared experience between minority groups, but I’m really we were able to talk about it.

I wonder, do some Caucasian people have these lists?  Do they talk about it openly?
Have you talked race and dating with your family?

Have you been made to think about the race of who you date or who you marry?

Parenthood: Week 158 – Other People’s Parties

First birthday parties are as much for the parents as they are for the kid. It’s a big accomplishment for parents to make it through that first year of their child’s life. And in most situations getting there is largely due to the support of friends and family. That first birthday party features the kid smearing cake on their face but it’s really about the parents and village coming together. Yes, people invite some of the kid’s friends but those “friends” are only friends because their parents are part of the village.

Over the years this has changed and now we are making our way through third birthday parties. There parties aren’t drop-off parties, where the parents can just leave the kid at a location for a couple hours. Now that these kids are toddlers, the food has to be toddler friendly, which means that the food is not prioritized to please adults (though I do heart all the pizza at these parties). 3 years-olds are a lot more active than 1 year-olds, so adult interactions are now interjected between attempts to monitor children and suppress toddler drama.

There’s a need for activities at these parties now. In the past couple months we’ve experienced a nature walk, some very cool folk dancing, a sing along, watching balloon animal and running around at a park. Then there’s eating, and of course, the most important part of a party or as it seems through the eyes of a toddlers, the cake.

I know that there’s only a couple years of birthday parties that I will go to until we hit the drop-off stage and I am no longer present at these celebrations. I was never a huge birthday party person growing up, but I’m enjoying experiencing these parties through Ollie.

We joke that we are on a birthday party tour like a summer concert tour. Because Ollie was born in May, many of the friends we met through Ollie also have children who have summer birthdays. This means that we are blessed to go to at least half a dozen, if not more toddler birthday parties this summer.

It can be a lot to navigate and there are some weekends like this last weekend when we went to two parties. There was a parent at one party who was leaving to go to another party.  Seriously two in one day.

Ollie doesn’t fully understand the meaning of these parties. Sometimes he seems to get it, but other times all he seems interested in is the cake. Any time you get a group of toddlers together, it’s as entertaining as it is exhausting.

Each party is a special opportunity to be a part of a family’s tradition. These events are different in their customs and values but they all share the same optimism and joy that transforms parenting from a burden to a celebration.

The tour continues.

To Be Asian-American: The Model Minority

I’m a model minority. I’m that minority that doesn’t make you clutch your purse when I walk by. I’m that minority that doesn’t get followed around when walking into stores. I’m that minority that people assume is good at math. And I’m that minority is that worries you the least when I date your daughter.

I’m Asian, the good kind.  I’m Taiwanese. I’m not a communist from China, and my people weren’t your enemy during any wars. And I’m not from the other parts of Asian, like Pakistan, so that whole Muslim thing, not an issue.

Is it a relief to be the preferred minority in America? Not really, but I’m not going to deny that being at the top of the minority totem pole doesn’t provide me with a level of privilege that makes my life easier. And as with any kind privilege, these benefits have baggage, and are never “all good.”

The thing that I was told when first learning about race that the problem with the idea of the model minority was that when we as Asians fail to live up to people’s positive stereotypes, it hurts our feelings. As someone who isn’t great at math, (I have issues doing math in my head), I have had my fee-fees hurt when people assume I’m good at math. Either people laugh in disbelief when I inform them that I’m not a math genius or they look at me disgusted like I’m some sort of a lower form of Asian. Thank God, I’m decent at troubleshooting tech stuff. I don’t think I could deal with disappointing all of the people around me who ask me for tech help.

More significant than my fee-fees, the idea of the model minority made me blind to the fact that I was a minority, and that there were significant issues in my life related to racism in America. I’m not saying that I have the same degree of challenges as an African-American whose ancestors were brought to America through the slave trade or as a Mexican whose parents are illegal immigrants. I’m saying that somehow I came to assume that racism didn’t effect me and wasn’t my problem as an Asian or an American.

Then came moving to Chicago, a class in Asian-American History, my first African-American friend, and finally, working at a school that valued racial diversity and an open dialog around issues related to diversity and inclusion. And now, I see things differently.

Racism is everywhere in America. It feels like in the past year, it’s racism has come out of the closet in the guise of security and making America “great” like never before in my own memory. Yes, we’ve made progress but that’s no reason not to push and push hard for change.

The idea of the model minority is inherently racist. The categorization and the comparisons that people make between minority groups separates racial communities and builds a wall of prejudice and ignorance that gets in the way of Caucasians developed meaningful relationships with people of color.

Watch the model minority thing.

It’s much more than hurt fee-fees.