Parents Crushing Kids’ Emotional Grit

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Jack Christopolis was one of my best friends growing up. When I was invited to dinner at his house, his mom made typical midwestern fair for Jack and his brothers, his dad, and me. From meatloaf and mashed potatoes to roasted chicken with carrots and onions, eating at Jack’s house was a lot like eating at home. With one exception. Jack had a very narrow flavor palate, and refused to eat his own mother’s cooking. She made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost every time I had dinner with Jack’s family. At my house, the options were limited to eating what was lovingly prepared for me, or starving until breakfast when I could eat last night’s dinner cold.

Even as a preteen, I felt like Jack was a whiny little bitch to his mom, at least at dinnertime. I definitely didn’t like every meal served to me at my house. I had a particular aversion to baked potatoes, and slathered them in ketchup and sprinkle parmesan cheese. But I ate them. In fact, since baked potatoes were my mom’s favorite, I ate them a lot. No part of me was jealous of Jack’s little waiver. In fact, I occasionally rejected his dinner invitations because I didn’t want to witness the tantrum of culinary brattiness.

Sunday was the annual children’s Christmas program at church. My wife, Sheri, is the children’s minister at our church, and she learned years ago that an impromptu Christmas program was the way to go. Trying to wrangle kids and their parents to come to pre-performance rehearsals during the busiest time of the year is an exercise in futile exasperation. Only the half-dozen kids with speaking roles have to drop in on Saturday to be given their lines, and they perform on Sunday reading from their script. The only person who is prepared is Sheri. Along with her loyal adult volunteers, she decorates the sanctuary complete with set changes and props-a-plenty. She lays out the costumes the day before the event, and lets the kids choose a part when they roll into church 30 seconds before the service starts (or even five minutes after the opening hymn).

Those without speaking parts only have one thing that they bring to the table: their innocent cuteness. The kids are given the choice of being shepherds, angels, or manger animals. Early arrivers snatch up the costumes for Mary, Joseph, the star of Bethlehem, and the three wisemen. Those costumes are more elaborate and go fast in the random, first come, first served nativity lottery. Baby Jesus is cast without his or her consent, and is chosen for a mild, pleasant temperament, especially when delivered to Mary by a terrified angel who has only recently learned to tie her own shoes and can’t carry a gallon of milk without dropping it.

Sheri has created a loving environment that is low stakes, low pressure, and completely devoid of barriers to participation. We were short on shepherds this year, so a very obliging 6’2” freshman in college squeezed into a brown polyester tunic. We let him be the “senior” shepherd. When I asked him if he was ready for finals next week, his crook-bearing colleagues all wanted to know why they didn’t get to take finals before their first-grade winter break.

No talent, practice time, or coachability is required for participation. Sheri accepts kids who aren’t potty trained, and kids who shaved before driving themselves to church. An empty bench in the park is not more accommodating than my wife’s Christmas program. A kid could walk in praising Allah and she’d cast him as the innkeeper. And yet, it is amazing to me to see how many parents let their kids opt out. When Christmas-pageant aged, our kids got to choose between being a sheep or a shepard, an ox or an angel, but sitting it out was not an option. A decade or so ago, one of our kids was recast because he couldn’t stop hitting the other actors with his shepherd’s crook. He played the grumpiest angel that year. The halo was hilarious perched above his frowny face and defiantly crossed arms. But he helped make the Christmas program special through gritted teeth and seething anger, damn it!

I don’t get why parents let their kids opt out. The kids of Western culture are under deadly attack from technology superpowers and failed education system policies–the effects of which we don’t yet fully understand. Like a lot of people, I spend time considering possible solutions, but one thing is crystal clear.

Our kids need some emotional grit. It might literally save their lives.

Our kids are under the siege of deaths of despair from addiction and suicide. A myriad of factors, most that emanate from a phone or tablet, are to blame. While we figure out the precise causes and exactly what to do about it, there is no question but that we need to help our kids experience the real, flesh-and-bones world around them–complete with wins and losses, challenges and new experiences, and a little anticipation and anxiety. If they don’t like baked potatoes, let them get the ketchup from the refrigerator, but for the sake of their future adultability, let’s not make them a PB&J.

Let me be clear. A huge component of my concept of Emotional Masculinity is for us to protect our families from comparison, critique, and criticism inside the home, with limited teasing and negativity. Their devices put our kids under a constant barrage of comparison, critique, and criticism. As a kid, when I came home, the inauthenticity was over for the day. I could be my goofy self, and shut down the part of my brain that was on guard for social judgement and stratification. That part of our kids’ brains never shuts down unless we limit their technology usage and create an emotionally safe home environment.

But protecting our kids from the tech bros and their algorithms of contempt is not the same as helicopter parenting–protecting our kids from all potential adversity.

Our kids need emotional grit.

I coach college and high school soccer. My daughter teaches fourth grade, and my wife teaches preschool. We see all developmental segments through the lens of the education system. The lack of consequences, and lack of resilience, is crushing adolescent and young-adult generations.

My youngest double booked his piano recital and a high school wrestling meet. If he skips the wrestling meet he will be demoted to junior varsity. If he skips the recital he will let down the teacher who has helped him develop his skills for many years. Sheri and I helped him talk through his decision, but he apologized to his piano teacher on his own. He faced consequences, and learned a lot about taking calendaring more seriously. He developed a little emotional grit.

Our second youngest is pursuing an apprenticeship to become an electrician. I have an old contact for an electrician in the town where my son lives–a friend of a friend I drank beers with over a decade ago. I gave our son the man’s number, and encouraged him to call. Before he devotes years of his life to an apprenticeship program, we both agreed that the opinion of the program from someone who is quite successful in the trade is a valuable resource. I didn’t text my electrician friend in advance. I didn’t make the call for my son. My 18-year-old son will make the cold call. For a young man from a generation accustomed to letting their thumbs do the talking, this call will take some gumption. He will develop a little emotional grit.

Jack Christopolis seems to be doing fine. I haven’t talked to him in 35 years or so, but the version of himself he reveals on facebook is still upright and expressing an opinion. I have no idea when he last ate a PB&J. I can’t help but think of the other ways he developed grit as a kid. He and I were in the middle of a lake in a row boat when a snake slithered out of a seam in the sheet metal and flickered its tongue at us. Armed with only our fishing poles, one of us poked at the snake while the other rowed like our lives depended on it. We survived the venomless garter snake attack, but we definitely developed some emotional grit that day. Incidentally, Jack’s older brother drowned the terrestrial snake when we reached the shore, so we developed a little emotional grit from watching his brother’s callous ambivalence to death, too.

I’m no perfect parent. Far from it. I am a recovered alcoholic who has left a traumatic mark on the upbringing of all of my kids. But I am also a cycle breaker. Together, my wife and I and our four kids are trying to break cycles together. An unanticipated blessing from my debilitating addiction is that it got our attention. We think about things that moderately dysfunctional families probably tolerate or ignore.

Helping our kids develop emotional grit without traumatizing them along the way is a goal worth thought and effort. And the glaring universal applicability of our lessons learned in a world under techno-siege is something we can’t unsee.

I don’t put ketchup or parmesan on my baked potatoes anymore. I can’t think of a potato preparation technique that I haven’t grown to love. While eating those little red potatoes roasted with some olive oil and rosemary, I dropped one on the floor. As an ardent obeyer of the five-second rule, I picked it up and popped it in my mouth. It had something attached to it. Maybe some dirt, or the crumbs of another floor dropping. I cringed for a minute, then swallowed with a knowing smirk. I’m proud to have developed enough emotional grit to be willing, from time to time, to eat a little unidentified floor grit.

I wonder what Jack Christopolis would think of that?

If you are ready to explore Emotional Maturity, including developing some emotional grit, please consider joining us in SHOUT Sobriety.

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