Category: Positive Parenting

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Process and Progress

I didn’t want a tree this year. Lots of reasons, but I’ve never owned this tradition. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, it never entered my sense of nostalgia.
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I mentioned opting out of a tree to my son, Isaac, and the disappointment on his face told me we needed a tree. Now I dreaded it as it felt out of my control.
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Then my friend Julianne’s daughter mentioned that she wanted to surprise her mom with a tree when she got back from a weekend away.
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Julianne is as hardworking as moms come. She’s a widow who has been a support and inspiration to me for almost two years. I never turn down an opportunity to help her out as she spends each and every day helping other people live their best lives.
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That same day I picked up the McElroy children to find our trees. I love love love these kids. They’re the McElzerbs when we’re all together. Our youngest boys were born just four  days apart.
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Julianne’s daughter, Kay, is all business and the trees were on top of my car in no time. She’s as independent as they come, but let me help get the tree inside and upright.
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By the time I got myself home, I didn’t have the energy to get our tree off the roof of the car. It was down early the next day, but stood outside for a week as I prepared a space for it inside. Repeatedly that week, I thought how absurd it was that I was bringing this tree inside to die.
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But, as I rearranged, cleaned, and generally improved our living space, I remembered how much my late wife enjoyed seasonal changes. Christmas  decorating was her favorite. Her sweet joy at all of it fueled me out of indifference. Isaac carries an inordinate amount of her DNA and spirit.
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Now here we are. More than week after purchase, a dozen bulbs replaced, and ready for ornaments.
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Certain things move more slowly as a single dad. It’s hard for me to accept that and forgive myself for being worn out before a job is done. The funny part is that sometimes Mary and I would get this done a few days before Christmas. In my self criticism I almost forgot that I’m doing a fine job. I almost ignored the progress we’ve made. This is my process.
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Respect yourself. Respect your process. Merry Christmas.

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Thankful for Forgiveness

I missed my gratitude blog post yesterday. I haven’t trained jiu-jitsu in weeks due to a skin infection. I yelled at my children. I didn’t know how communicate with my girlfriend. I’ve made people uncomfortable. I missed some cold therapy showers. I haven’t been all that I could be.

I can forgive myself for these things. I can accept Jesus’s forgiveness of my innumerable sins. I am thankful for today and all the opportunities I have to make the world better.

I’m thankful my son’s jiu-jitsu tournament is happening as scheduled. I’m thankful to see friends this afternoon. I’m thankful for live theater tonight. I’m thankful for a beautiful, caring, and patient girlfriend and a chance to work on my communication skills.

It’s a beautiful day.

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My Curious Little Man

I’ll start with a small self-gratitude for my intentional and disciplined approach to media consumption. On Election Day and the day after, I didn’t see, nor hear, any news. I was focused on our lives as a family and we had a great couple of days without distraction.

My big gratitude is for the little bugger who wrecked my plans. My older son, Westen, got curious about who won the election late on Wednesday. I told him I didn’t want to know and I didn’t want him searching for the answer.

Luckily, he’s a Zerbey and would never listen to an incurious authority figure. While I played soccer, he looked up the results. Of course, he couldn’t find anything satisfying and told me after the game. I’m not the best dad I can be at night after a workout, so I chided him for disobeying my request. It took me a few minutes to apologize and tell him that he had done the right thing, that if you have a desire for knowledge, you should let no one stand in the way. I told him I would have done the same thing.

I’m blessed by my rebels. They humble me and teach me everyday.

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Grateful for These Strange Creatures

Of course I love my boys and think they are, objectively, the best humans. That should be a given with 9- and 11-year-olds who have had half decent parentage.

But these boys are special. They lost their mother almost three years ago and bring her spirit alive every day. Isaac, the younger, struggles with fading memories of Mary, but he has no idea how much he embodies her compassion and warmth. He’s a half-grump and slow to wake up, just like mama. He’s always thinking of little things to do for people. He gets overwhelmed by the nuclear energy that emits from his dad and older brother. He loves music and art and when he’s in the present, no one else is more present.

Mary and Isaac would have been best friends. They would have built fires and cuddled in front of them. They would have cooked and baked together. They would have slept in on Saturdays while Westen and I went on a morning adventure.

There’s sadness in those “would haves,” but I am grateful for the connection his existence creates with his mother.

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Not Imposing My Will on Others

I don’t determine my potential by who is in elected office. I am the driving force in my life.

I participated in politics for 20+ years. Voting, phone banking, volunteering for the Republican National Convention in Philly in 2000, attending city council meetings, speaking at school board meetings, Tweeting wildly in the pre-censorship days, watching C-SPAN and listening to Rush Limbaugh at age 16 and spinning that into a 24-hour TV news habit, and generally believing all those activities were important.

Then I had children.

I turned off the TV. That’s adult stuff, right? I don’t want to poison there minds with that…yet.

Then I came home to take care of those children and facilitate their development full time. That was around 2009-2011 and I was sure Obama was our greatest villain. He and Hillary were getting us into unnecessary conflicts in the Middle East and I was with the Right on all the arguments against him. It took me a long time to unwind my hypocrisy.

In that period, I was working out my principles and how to pass them on to my sons (as I thought that was my job as a parent). I hadn’t found faith in Jesus Christ yet and had no easy source for answers. I was working on my simplest truths.

I decided to formulate how I would explain my support for Bush’s wars and opposition to Obama’s (and both Clintons’) wars to my sons when they were ready. I couldn’t do it. The Golden Rule kept getting in the way. How could I act one way in my life and support the opposite policy in my political beliefs? Lesser of two evils? That’s a false choice. The near term cost may be great, but good is always an option.

It was a slow, quiet, and internal process. I had wanted to be a dad since I was ten. I had put a lot of thought into it and this was the first time I felt the Holy Spirit telling me that I was in the right place. I was learning at least as much from my sons as they were learning from me.

As we grew into a homeschooling family, I discovered Tom Woods and libertarian philosophies. My wife and I were taking on a task that many assume is the role of government. If we could be responsible to educate ourselves and our sons, what else could motivated individuals accomplish? What could they NOT accomplish?

The Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) was the concept that cleared away contradictions in my mind that I had been trying to reconcile. It is the articulation of the Golden Rule in political terms. I was finally able to say that I had been wrong and that I can be right going forward.

In 2016, I was driving my young sons to vote in the Presidential Primary in Delaware. Our polling place was in the church that I would eventually join as a follower of Christ’s Way. Trump was on a roll and it seemed that Ted Cruz was the only one who might stop him. I was torn and discussed it with my sons. I told them war and education were my biggest issues. Cruz was better on education and Trump was better on war. My seven-year-old asked, “You have to decide between war and homeschooling?” Crap. Simultaneously, he exposed the false choice and gave me the answer I still give today, “If the people are dead, you can’t educate them and you can’t move their hearts.”

I’m pretty slow, so I didn’t absorb all of that before pulling the lever for Trump that day. I was more right than I knew, Cruz eventually tried to meddle in homeschooling from the Senate and he (or Hillary) certainly would have given us more dead bodies through military conflict. But that would be the last vote I cast.

I came to learn that democracy is one group of people imposing their values on a larger group of people (most Americans do not vote for the winning candidate) through force of law. I could no longer support that system of aggression.

Today, my sons have their own political ideas. They discuss candidates and issues with their friends in a juvenile manner that isn’t far off adult conversations on the topic. I see my role as always advocating for the opposite position as best I can. Freedom and voluntarism extend into my parenting. I’m not here to direct their thoughts, but as a stone for them to sharpen their blades upon.

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Imposter Syndrome

A few days ago I saw myself in a mirror. I looked strong. I felt strong and happy. I was between soccer games, cleaning out the garage, gardening, and enjoying a sunny afternoon with my girlfriend.
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Strangers, friends, and family have told me I’m strong in a number of ways.
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I looked down at my legs today and they looked frail. A couple rough days of parenting, someone dear to me reaching out for help in tears, news of another community broken apart by varying approaches to the Lockdowns, and a wellspring of insecurities have transformed the image of my body. I don’t know what good I am to the world in this moment.
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Searching for a positive turn to this post…not there yet.

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Screen Time, Gently

This is one of those pictures we don’t share. An #optoutside hashtag would be ironic, at best. They aren’t on educational apps nor watching informational videos. It’s that side of unschooling that makes unschoolers (even radical ones) cringe a little.

There’s always a family that appears to being doing “better.” As little screen time (I include any content on a screen) as we get relative to national averages, I still see the absolutists, world schoolers, and off-grid livers who seem to have a lock on the analog life.

My social media feeds are full of images of my sons up trees and in streams, but there is an almost daily negotiation around screen time that often becomes a battle.

One of the hardest things for me is at the end of a day of adventure. We’ve seen friends, explored new places, met new people, enjoyed an audiobook en route, and finished with a sweet treat; yet just before bed, “Dad, did you put the tablet on the charger, it’s at 36%.”

My ego flares up, “What? Did you not just have the most amazing day without a screen? Aren’t you ready to abandon the digital life for one of lively connection?” An exaggeration, but I’ve come close to these words.

Last night was one of those nights (although they did have some tablet time during the day). But I held back my ego and said, “I’ll get it charged up in the morning.”

It works better when I’m gentle. Sometimes they binge and I cringe, but we never have time in the car and our frequent weekends away are usually screen free. I’ve got boudaries, but they’re not set around minutes on a device.

So, there they are, at a playground on a beautiful day, playing goofball games. I try to be gentle with them and myself. Please be gentle with your children and, especially, yourself.

God bless, I appreciate and thank you,

Jason

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Learning Lifestyle: A Day Off

My sons slept in.

I celebrated 32 coffee-free days with an affogato with my girlfriend.

The boys joined a friend’s birthday party for slip-and-slide fun.

We turned our brains off and enjoyed a sunny pre-fall day.

We generally have very busy Satudays. It was nice to take one off and rejuvenate ourselves.

God bless, I appreciate and thank you,

Jason