storytelling -- the intro for rad dad 3

Parenting starts with a story:

My grandma, worried that her 3-year son had not spoken a word yet, had him chase down a grasshopper. Diligently, without complaint, the boy did and returned with a smile. Open she said; confused but with hesitation, he opened wide. Wide. She shoved it in and closed his mouth. Hablas, mijo, hablas. He spit it out crying. Crying and yelling. He has not stopped either since she says and smiles thinking of her now 50 year old son talking his time away in a New Mexican state penitentiary.

This is my father. He smiles when he tells this story now on a snowy day to my children in his trailer on the outskirts of town. He has been out of jail for a year now. My kids look to me for guidance. Do we believe? I can only smile. Teasing, my father says, ‘what mija you don’t believe me? Come here I’ll tell you more.’

I realize this is so central to my parenting. Stories. But I did not know this when I became a father. I didn’t know those afternoons or early mornings when my partner had to leave to culinary school and I had to discover what to do for the next eight hours that I was talking to both my newborn son and myself. I was showing us they way. I was imagining the path home. Telling myself, telling my son that success is possible, that despite my fear, my ignorance, my loneliness this path was traversable. It’s the stories that we tell each other that create connections, that foster empathy, that teach.

But we aren’t the only ones telling tales. I see now how storytelling works in a cultural, social level as well; how myths of capitalism, christianity, patriarchy are told over and over and over until our kids tell them back to each other while at play, to their teachers in their homework, to us if we listen during those tucking ins at bed time or in the quite hours when we wake up together in our bed. This is linguistic terrorism. I have also come to see how it’s our cultural stories that impact our kids more than any one thing can, more than parents, more than teachers.

My daughter combing her hair in the morning, sulks away from the mirror saying her hair is ugly. Who taught her that beauty standard because no amount ‘oh no it doesn’t, honey’ is gone change her view in that moment. My other daughter informing her sister as they play in the car that if she ever lives with a boy then she has to have sex with him. ‘Really, why?’ my partner asks. Because. As if that explains it. We need stories to counter these. We need heroes, legends, rituals that offer other narratives, other examples of how to look, how to live, what should be valued, what holds meaning, what it means to be alive.

Because that shit works; the other day my son, who used to be a vegetarian for the last five years (on his own accord) but now laughs at that Super Size Me film not because of what it’s saying but that it took the guy twenty whole minutes to eat his meal and then he puked. ‘Hella stoopid. I’d eat two in ten minutes,’ my son brags. As if it’s something to be proud of. My son who’s biggest dream right now is to own a scraper to cruise through south Berkeley bumpin base because it looks tight. Yes that’s my son, but so is this. My son taking his 3 year old cousin by the hand for a walk in the back yard and she picks up a worm. He asks her has she ever heard the story about Ella who ate a big ol’ worm when she was a baby thinking it was a cheeto. ‘Ever since then, he says ‘Ella is a little an animal lover. I think it’s the worm inside her.’ They laugh and laugh. I can only smile. I don’t know what it means, what the moral is, but I know my son is gonna make it. In his own way, on his own terms. But he’s gonna survive all the lies that are forced on him and so many others like him. All the bullshit he’s asked to believe or buy into.

What are the stories you need to tell? What do you share with your child, your lovers, your family and friends?

Our strongest weapons are our stories, the stories we tell our children, the ones we whisper to each other in beds of our own making, the myths that fill our imaginations shared among conspirators at bars or over camp fires or sitting in jail cells. It is those weapons we must employ over and over to create the world we want. I have realized that of all the things that give my life meaning it has been the spoken visions of the future or the shared memories of the past that sustain me in the present, that nurture my growth, my will, my determination. In stories, truth doesn’t matter, facts become fictitious, desire and purpose mold the outcome. If I need to hear stories of survival, if I need to find inspiration, if I need to laugh and laugh and laugh, I need only open my mouth, need only to sit with someone close and say ‘tell me a story.’ Here is one of my favorites to tell my kids when they ask why I do what I do. And I swear it is all true.

At 20, a few months before the birth of my son, I hitchhiked from Las Vegas, New Mexico down the highway to the State Penitentiary just outside of Santa Fe to see my father face to face. To try to find some answers, to perhaps find guidance. He tells me he fucked up. He should be out there with me, working with me, living life with me. ‘Because,’ he says, ‘I realized I’m a slave in here. And now I can only fight against other slaves. But if I was out there with you, when I realized I was a slave, I coulda done something, I coulda fought back at least. Somehow. In here, it’s just fucked up. All you can do is write and fight.’

My father explained that in jail, pencils are like daggers, you can write and you can stab. ‘Mira,’ he points to his hand, ‘here are the pencil tips that I cannot get out.’

Welcome to rad dad 3.

the intro from rad dad #2

Of all the pictures of the devastation that hurricane Katrina wrought, there was one that stopped me cold, that had me mesmerized, overwhelmed, that just seemed to contain all that I wanted to believe about fathers, no, not even fathers, just simply the men in our lives. The picture transcended all the racist media spin, it eased the pain of the decimated street scenes, the moments of panic. One man. One child. Not his even. He was wading through water; he was holding that child like it was the most important thing he could do, like not just that child‘s life but his life depended on their safe arrival. He asked no questions about whose child it was, no need to ascertain ownership, or ask permission. no pathetic excuses about needing to wait and see, to try hard like we kept hearing from the “men” in charge. He just knew: I help this child, I help myself; I help all of us get by. There was such humanity embodied in his arms, in the determination in his eyes. It spoke to me as the epitome of “fathering,” of caring for not just our immediate family but all our relations. I just stared and it reminded me of how much of an impact we can have on the children in our lives, how easy it is to overlook, to forget, to deprioritize others as we take care of our own. A few weeks ago a young boy who has been in my life for years now, a boy whose father has not been around, a father who breaks my heart and is all that is wrong with the “men” in our society, “men” and their disposable offspring. Well, this boy was with his mother and was looking at one of those mirrors that elongates and distorts its reflection; he stared at himself, made a muscle, and said ‘look, it’s almost as big as Tom’s.’ When I heard this story I again realized, as with the picture, how fathering is something all men do whether we want to or not, whether we are prepared for it or not. So it is incumbent upon us to think through who we are and how we affect others especially the children in our lives. Whether we are parents or not. I had this argument a few weeks ago about this with a male non-parent who said it’s not his responsibility to know how to be around kids. He believes this because of the silence around parenting, around its public perceptions of children being seen not heard, of good behavior, of issues of ownership (if it ain’t my kid why should I care or being oblivious to creating and fostering kid friendly spaces). I know friends who take diversity training courses to be prepared for when they work with people of color…but there is no conversation about working with parents, outreach to parents, ways to make actions, spaces, conferences, whatever, parent and child friendly.

In particular, there is a silence among men about fathering. I experienced this as I’ve talked with men about fathering; they are excited yet scared, nervous about making mistakes, most are dying to parent in ways that many of us weren’t fathered; there are very few role models, and the society we live in disempowers men to break from the prescribed role of the “male” parent, the one that supports patriarchy, capitalism, hierarchy and authoritarianism. And sadly, many women collude in this process of disempowering male experiences. It seems that women have the ability to speak about parenting because somehow they are better with kids, more sensitive, more nurturing, because they are women. Men can speak to being proud, being happy and supportive. Or even worse they can speak to issues of discipline. I have found that it has been incredibly difficult to get men to commit to writing something about their ideas, their approach, their fears or experiences. They feel shamed or silenced or not knowledgeable enough. This must end. Because the diversity of fathering is multitude while the prescribed role singular: what can we learn from a gay father about discussing sexuality with our daughters? I want to hear it. What can a working class father share with us about fighting patriarchy in the household while still having to struggle with a 9-5 job. We need to hear it. How does a white father discuss race with his white son or his biracial daughter. Every single one of us can benefit from hearing that story.

For the last few months I have been going to some zine fairs and trying to get the word our about rad dad and I am puzzled by the responses when I say it’s a zine on fathering, on how men impact the world and the children about them, most people smile and say I ain’t a dad, or I don’t know anyone who is and when I ask if there are children in their lives or are they uncles or are they thinking about being a parent most just smile and say something like well I’ll deal with that later, those things don’t relate to me now. Tell that to the man who picked up the child, held her close to his chest and waded out in the waters which were destroying the very place he lived. How we relate to our own children and the know and unknown children in our lives and communities is analogous to how we envision a better world, a more compassionate, loving, creative world. If we continue to curtail that relationship, we continue to live our lives surrounded by levees that cannot hold…