Parenthood: Week 292 – AM

This is an amalgamation of night time adventures that have happened with my one-year old Ethan, as he continues to prefer to sleep in our bed over his crib.  While not every one of these things happened on the same night, the description here is not unrealistic or misrepresentative of the challenges of getting a baby back to bed.   

7:40 PM

Diana walked into Ollie’s bedroom, as I was finishing up my bedtime reading to him. We had gotten into the groove of Diana nursing and putting Ethan to sleep as I read a story to Ollie. Then I would say goodnight to Ollie and and tag out. Without much effort Diana had put him into his crib and he slept comfortably as Diana read to Ollie and I went downstairs to take care of evening chores. I hadn’t had chance to say goodnight to Ethan yet, but I wasn’t too worried about missing out.

9:40 PM

I turned down the volume on the television, and my suspicions were correct, Ethan was crying. I ran up the stairs and found him sitting up in his crib, crying sadly. I reached down to pick him up and carried him over to the rocking chair. He settled down quickly in my arms, grabbed a handful of my shirt, and closed his eyes.

10:00 PM

Ethan’s arm slipped out of his mouth and fell to his side. I felt his weight relax into my arms. I stood up, and carried him over to his crib. With great care, I leaned over and tried and placed him in the crib. As soon as his body weight fell onto the surface of the crib, he started crying again. I placed my hand on his chest in an attempt to comfort him, but it didn’t seem to help. At this point, Diana walked into the room, tapped me on the shoulder, and relieved me.

10:45 PM

Finally ready for bed after getting some work emails done, brushing Buffy’s teeth, and taking care of my bedtime routine. I looked down in my side of the bed and there was Ethan curled up on my side of the bed. I carefully picked him up, and managed to transfer him to his crib. As I got into bed, Diana sleepily said, “thank you” and I settled in for the night.

1:39 AM

I woke up to the sound of Ethan crying. I picked him up out of bed, and paced around the room trying to get him to calm down. After he settled down, I went to the rocking chair and we rocked together.

2:20 AM

I woke up from a light sleep realizing I had dozed off. Assuming that Ethan was ready for a transfer, I picked him up, and placed him gently in his crib. He exhaled with a gentle sigh, rolled over...and then started crying. I picked him up...again.

3:00 AM

After another failed attempt to transfer Ethan to his crib, I stood there at the edge of the crib at a loss of what to do. He pulled himself up on the railing of the crib and leaned his head into my stomach, attempting to cuddle with me standing up.

3:30 AM

As I lay in Ethan’s crib, I’m considered the weight limit of this thing, and whether it’s was worth taking the chance that I would break this thing. At the time it the risk felt worth it, as Ethan peacefully slept on my chest. Now I just need to figure out how to climb out of this thing without waking him up.

3:45 AM

“Well, at least he’s not crying,” I’m thinking as I stand on my tiptoes (the only way I can reach into the crib, yes I’m short), bent at the waist with my arm underneath Ethan’s neck. I’ve been this way for at least five minutes. I didn’t quite get climb out of the crib without stirring him, and the physical contact of my arm seemed to pacify him. I slowly pulled my arm out from under his neck, he rolled over, and continued to sleep.

5:30 AM

Time to get up for work.

Year 9: Week 10 – ...of Color

“Yes, of course you can come. You are a person and color, AND there’s free food. C’mon!”

Maybe it was because she was my department chair, or maybe because my lunch that day didn’t seem that appetizing, but that day I took a chance and went to my first faculty and staff of color luncheon.

Like many people I thought that the term “people of color,” didn’t apply to me. I knew that I was a racial minority in the United States. I was a “person of color by definition and in theory, but in practice it felt different. “Person of color,” felt like more of a term used to refer to people who identified as Black and/or African-American. Much like how the term “diversity,” is often meant to refer to issues around race, even though the definition in theory is far wider.

When I saw the email about the first faculty and staff of color luncheon, I didn’t really think to go. It was my first year at this school, my prep time was always full, and my teaching philosophy had not evolved with the focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion which would later become the foundation for my teaching philosophy.

It was what I expected. Almost everyone in the room was Black or African-American, with a few Latinx and Asian people. I grabbed some food and looked for a place to sit down. Then something happened that would become the norm when I entered affinity group spaces. I was welcomed with open arms literally, and otherwise.

People were excited to see me. They came up and shook my hand, I received hugs from some who I was meeting for the first time. All of the people in the room welcomed me not as a person who was new and had to earn his place, but as a person, they had been waiting for, finally home after a long journey.

As I settled down, I noticed that people were talking in Spanish, and others teachers were speaking in relaxed accents and expressions. It was clear that no one in that space was trying to “talk white.” I was surprised how different some teachers’ sounded in this space which helped me begin to understand why affinity spaces were so important. They didn’t feel a need to code-switch in my presence. I was one of them, and in their expression of their authentic selves, I felt their acceptance of me.

I was keenly aware that I was a minority in a room full of minorities, an outsider by appearance, and on the surface, this didn’t seem any different than the rest of my life. I’ve spent my entire life in spaces when I was a racial minority. In every single classroom, except for Asian-American history in college, I was a minority in a group of Caucasians. Every social and work space and all of the family occasions on my wife’s side, I carry that feeling of not fully being a member even though I am welcomed in every other way. The vast majority of the time, I experienced the kindness of inclusion in my life. However even in the best of times, I always knew I was one who didn’t really fit in with the others

In this space full of black and brown people, I did feel a level of discomfort, but it was balanced with something I had never experienced before.

I was raised in the “colorblind,” world, where the best way to deal with racial identity was to pretend that you “didn’t see race.” This erasure attitude about the racial identity asked people to look beyond race to the person on the inside. While this seemed like a good idea at the time, the feeling of people hiding their thoughts about racial identity, created an atmosphere, and feeling that there weren’t problems with race in America. I grew up feeling that people didn’t want to acknowledge my race, and they would value me despite my race, as if this part of my identity was something that was not considered, and that I shouldn’t value myself.

In that room with those faculty and staff of color full of people who came together because of their racial identity. I felt that my racial identity, my heritage, and my experiences were truly acknowledged, and that my whole self was valued.  The only way this could happen was for my racial identity to not be looked beyond but rather acknowledged and honored.

I get that it may sound “racist,” that people accepted me because of my race, so I’ll try to unpack this here, and why this isn’t “racist” at all.

How often are you reminded of you racial identity? Ten times a day? Twenty times a day? Zero? People of color are made to to think about about their race all of the time. The reality is that the vast majority of time when people of color are reminded of their racial identity, are not positive experiences. These are times when people make racist innuendos, have thoughtless conversations, participate in racist acts that are not intended to be racist. It’s in the moments when people ask me “what are you?” or expect me to be an expert in all Asian cultures. For serious, I’ve had people assume I’m an expert on the Vietnam War, my family is from Taiwan.

 They are different countries.  SIGH.

When someone reminds me of being Asian by saying something offensive, it becomes a moment of burden. This reminder is not meant to serve me.  It's a moments when I am made to think of my identity for someone else’s curiosity and puts me in a place where I sometimes feel obligated to do the work of helping them understand their own racist action.

On the rare occasion, when I’m reminded of race in a positive way, it can feel initially jarring, but more than that it is relaxing and a feeling of validation. Their acknowledgment of my race is not for their benefit, but for my own. In that room, they validated my racial identity so that I could feel the support of this part of our school’s community and support me in my own process of racial development.

After that initial luncheon, people started involving me in side-conversations in the hall and reaching out to me to provide support, and for my counsel. They felt my support and camaraderie through my presence and what they returned back was welcoming me, all of me, into the community and the work to make the school a more equitable and inclusive space.

Parenthood: Week 291 - The Things I Don't Share

There are facets of my identity that I share with Ollie and Ethan, my sons. We are all American, our biological sex is male, and we both share parts of our DNA. All of these things are categorized as vertical identities, things that I shared with my children.

Horizontal identities are identities that my children do not share with me, but they will likely find with people in their own generation. For example, they are mixed race, I am not. Ethan has a disability, and I do not. My children may not share the same sexual identity and/or the same gender expression as me.

Add all of this on top of the normal generation gap issues like music, and movies, along with the dramatically different way technology is integrated into their lives than during my generation, contribute to a very different experience my children will have growing up from my own. If you take this a step further, Ethan and Ollie grandparents and them have even more than a generation gap, they have a chasm of differences in their identities and their life experiences.

It is not uncommon children who do have horizontal identities have challenges with their parents. For example, straight parents with a Gay child, hearing parents with a deaf child, cis-gender parents with a transgender child. All of these situations are difficult in the best of the situations, and traumatic and scarring in the worst of situations.

When you don’t share life experience, and more importantly don’t share identities with your children, you as a parent need to extra work around gender. You will never know what it’s like as a father to be a girl, so if you’ve got daughters you have to work extra-hard to be feminist and do right by your daughters. I don’t know what it’s like to be mixed-race, so I’ve got work to do.

The reality is that if you create a family where children feel free to explore the many facets of their identity it is more likely than not that your children will differ than you in some way, and it’s incumbent on you as the parent to try understand this identity and support it. It may be something like sexual identity, or it may be the fact that your child identifies as a comic book geek, and you don’t.

Cultural plurality is not really a choice, or a novelty. It’s my family. My side of the family is mostly Asian but also has white women, and mixed raced children. There was a time that almost everyone spoke and understood Mandarin Chinese as an extended family. This is no longer the case anymore. Diana’s side is not all Caucasian, and they are not all the same religion. We can’t take for granted that just because we are a family, that these differences will somehow work themselves out. They will not unless we as the older generation make the effort to build bridges, cross them ourselves, and challenge ourselves to support parts of our children, which we don’t completely understand.

I know that there are things that my children will go through that I will be limited in my ability to help them work through. There will times that I will need to rely on someone else who is mixed-race to support them because I don’t really get the issues they are working through.  This is the job for progressive parents.  It's transforming parenting from guiding children through their own paths of life into learning experience as parent help their children fine a new journey, unfamiliar but right.

Year 9: Week 9 – The Trip And The Election

Next week I’m off to the 5th grade outdoor education trip. This has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had as a teacher at this school. It puts me out of my comfort zone, allows me to get to know my students in a different way, and has challenged me to contribute to a trip experience in ways that I had never done previously (e.g. leading a campfire sing along for the first time). It has been a part of my school year every year I’ve been here, except for last year. A week before the trip last year my second son, Ethan was born so I was on paternity leave during the trip and did not go. Two years ago, the last time I went, was over the Tuesday of the 2016 election.

I’ll never forget sitting with all of my wonderful teaching colleagues on our phones and laptops watching the news and feeling hope leave us. Calling and texting my wife as the night went on and the results that were once unimaginable became clear.  And I hope I never forget following morning watching one of my colleagues announce to the students the results, and seeing the two Black girls in the grade holding hands and crying silently as they realized that Senator Clinton had lost and he had somehow won.

All of this has been coming back to me in the past couple days as I prepare for the trip next week, and the coming election. Going on this trip, this will be my eighth time going.  Going on this trip always feels a little like going back to Neverland. It’s a place that feel so far away from reality, a place where we can focus on the students, and nature, and a place that two years ago was invaded by the parts of our society who could not see past the fear to work towards hope. And now going back, my feelings and my memories of this place are no longer as pure as they were before that night two years ago.

Like being 8 years old, it makes sense that my innocence with this place has been lost. And next week, I go there again, with an election that in some ways is as consequential if not more consequential than the last. I’ll enter that room where the two Black girls cried, and the lounge where the teachers met, and like seeing rain on a sunny day, my emotions will mix, good and bad, joyous and painful. Dark and light.

While I would have rather spent that election day two years ago with my family, and while I am not looking forward to being far from them next Tuesday, I was comforted, as I am now knowing that the work I am doing means something. That day two years ago, late at night I decided to get to work. It was that moment which crystalize a feeling that led to me becoming one of our schools’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion co-chair. All the work I’ve done with that centralizing DEI work in my curriculum has proven as the most relevant, and important work I’ve done in my teaching career.

No matter what happens Tuesday, I know that my work is fighting the tide of ignorance and hate. It’s educating students to go beyond fear, through the discomfort of difficulty conversations to the joy of embracing differences, and the enriching work of becoming a Beloved Community.

Parenthood: Week 290 - Bear Down

I was getting annoyed at all of those Bears’ fans and the concept of football as a whole.

I love being a parent. I love my boys, and I love my life. Nothing I do for my family I define as a sacrifice. I chose to get married, I chose to have kids, and I chose Sunday morning to drive my family to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to celebrate Ethan’s first birthday, which was a couple days earlier. No one forced me into any of this, which is why I’ve very careful about how I vent my frustrations related to being a dad.

There are countless frustrations that come along with being a parent in modern-day American society. While we enjoy plenty of lip-service when it comes to the importance of families and children, little economic and political work has happened by those currently in power at the federal level to actually help kids (e.g. public-school funding, gun-control). The fact that there are children in our country who do not have enough to eat, while there is plenty of resources to make sure not one child ever goes hungry in America ever again, is a clear sign that there are in fact many people who don’t actually care about children and families.

As a parent you move through society, and life, dealing with all of this in stride because for many parents, like me, this was all a choice. Now it’s important that I pause and state that having a child when you want to have to child and felt “ready,” is a privilege that I have enjoyed that many parents do not have.

I’m going to give you a peak in on some of my frustration, and well, rage because, it’s a part of parenting, and it needs to be acknowledged. I was really angry that after driving down to the Shedd Aquarium, on a Sunday which should have taken 45 minutes took an hour and a half. Then there was another hour of driving around, realizing there was no parking and getting out of that area because there was a Bears game.

It is frustrating that my families plans to go to the aquarium was a lesser priority than a football. Our needs were superseded. I’ve spent my entire life being made fun of for what I enjoyed as entertainment: comic books, sci-fi movies, geek culture, action figures, and professional wrestling. These are things that have and continue to bring me joy, and I was and still am to some extent still are made to feel less then because of my fandom. It’s not fair that my families desires for an outing were put aside for someone else’s.

When was the last time a person couldn’t go to a professional sports game because the parking was closed down for children’s concert? Yeah, that sounds preposterous, but so is spending millions of dollars on a league which still has an openly racist mascot, and fails to use its power and influences to fight for the rights of the Black players who make the owners (many of whom are white) millions.

We drove another forty-give minutes and eventually got to the Museum of Science and Industry, and we have a great time there. But it took a very frustrating two-hour car ride to get to the point in which I was laying back in the Giant Dome Theater with Ollie on top of me enjoying a half an hour film about the ocean. Even though the film was mediocre, sharing that moment with Ollie on top of me, and Diana and Ethan sitting next to me was wonderful. Ethan looking up at the screen with wonder and awe was magical. The hour car ride home wasn’t, but I don’t regret my choices.

Part of what bugged me about the Bears’ game was seeing all of those guys tailgating, spending hours together when I didn’t have that kind of time for myself.  Yes, I chose to spend time with my family but this doesn’t mean though that part of me isn’t jealous of what those guys have. I wish that I could find a space and talk about what I love in open and know that others will accept my interests. I wish I had more time for myself, and I wish on some level that I could care less about my family, and be satisfied with being less of a father.

 But I can’t, it's just who I am.

 I’d rather be myself and be lonely, than be something I’m not and be accepted by others.

Being a parent is hard, and being your genuine self is also really hard, but both of these things bring meaning to life like nothing else.  And that feeling laying in bed at night knowing that you did right by your family and yourself, that makes everything worth it.   

Year 9: Week 8 - Pride

“My father is Gay.”

There was no shame in her voice, or embarrassment. The 3rd graders statement was not frivolous or boastful. She wasn’t sharing this fact about her life to get a reaction from her peers or draw undue attention to herself. “My father is Gay” was a statement of pride.

In our study of “Simple Gifts” in 3rd grade music, I want to show them how this song was meaningful to our school, American culture, and themselves. I teach them about the tradition of performing this song at our Thanksgiving Assembly every year by the 3rd grade, and show them some artwork in our school that referred to the song.

The way I showed them that this song had meaning outside of our school was by sharing with them different performances of this song. There was a performance by Blast, I showed them the arrangement that was performed at President Obama’s first inauguration, and we watch wonderful performance by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.



I wrote the words “Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles” on the board and meticulously explained each word in that title. I saw some furrowed brows as I explained what affinity meant and why it was important at times to be with people you share a connection. I talked about how sometimes I feel comforted being around people of color, and that was an important space for me. Also, I talked about being around other dads. I explained that this was a good thing as long as it wasn’t what you did all of the time socially because being around people who are different than you is awesome, and very important.

After I unpacked what it meant to be “Gay,” she raised her hand and shared with the class how the her dads were also Gay with a smile. The pride in her voice was noticeable, and made the other students lean in with interests.

I thanked her for sharing and that I’m glad that she saw a connection between the men in this video and her own parents. In this lesson, she saw her family, and her parents. She received the message that her family was valued, seen and honored. And in that space the other students were reminded that this pride was not just something seen in a video, but part of their own classroom community. 

There are challenges ahead, and many examples of ignorance and hate, but the progress is undeniable. Twenty years ago, a teacher may not even share this video, let alone have a student talk about her Gay dads with this same pride and feel support for a teacher and her peers.

This is not how it is all across our country, but it is present for some and it can be the future for all.

Parenthood: Week 289 – Sick Day

Hard times come and hard time go, and one of the hardest times as a parent is when your kids are sick.

There’s a lot of moments and situations in which parents prove that they have “it.” Changing a poopy diaper with one wipe, nursing a kid in challenging situations, taking a baby on a plane, getting two kids ready for school in the morning (seriously this can take super-human efforts and abilities to accomplish) are all really difficult at times. The sick thing, ugh, is just the worst.

You know that it's inevitable. At some point, probably a couple times a year, your kids will get sick. Sometimes it’s minor, a stuffy nose, that is gross but doesn’t amount to anything serious or even a missed day at school. Or it can be life-threatening, an allergic reaction that triggers an asthma attack. Some of the treatments are candy-flavored medicine, but some of the treatments them can seem as traumatic as the sickness itself.

There are times when you are told to simply do nothing besides some over-the-counter drugs. It’s a virus the doctor says, which means that you have to let it work its course. Other times you get antibiotics, which feels slightly better than nothing because, there’s an action that is being taken that should show improvement pretty soon.

It’s hard to know when to call the doctor. You don’t want to feel like you are overreacting, and being that parent, but at the same time, you don’t to have things spiral out of control. You search on the internet for some guidance, deal with that new forehead thermometer, which is more comfortable for the child, but gives an annoying wide-variety of results.  You have to make decisions. Sometimes you are alone in these moments of crisis, but other times your partner is there, and the dynamics of your relationship, the true feelings you have for each other are revealed.

If you are parents as true partners you will lean into the one who is most worried and do what makes them feel best, not because it’s logical, but because it’s not worth being right if someone feels gaslighted. When you have a sick kid, it’s not about which parent is right or wrong. There’s no winning in these discussions, two parents are on the same team. If there’s a issue between the two parents, well, it’s going to get rough.

In the night, when the coughing won’t subside, and the fever is too high, but not high enough to take the child into the emergency room, you hope that something will change. You wish that you could somehow absorb the sickness from your child into your own body, or you wish that somehow your child could absorb your life energy from your sheer will and love and just get better.

You know that your child is contagious, and you’re not sure whether you had what they had when you were a kid, but you hug them anyways. You let them sleep in your bed,  knowing that you will probably catch what they have, but you don’t care about becoming sick, because you care too much about the child suffering in your arms.

When the morning comes and the fever breaks, when the cough subsides, and the lungs are clear, your shoulders relax knowing that after many restless nights, you will finally be able to sleep peacefully tonight. You know that there will be more moments your child is sick and these hard times will come again. Even with this knowledge you don’t give up, you get busy.  You get up, you make breakfast, and you do the endless number of tasks it takes to care for your child.

Because that’s what it means to be a parent.