Dear Tristan,

Yesterday I wrote about relationship, and what it means when I say that my relationship with you is, to me, the most important thing between us. Today I want to write a bit more about something that I think is an especially effective relationship-killer.

In one of my earlier letters, I wrote:

“Many of the good, well-meaning parents I know think it’s a positive thing to have extremely high expectations of their children. There is a raging debate in our culture as to whether the carrot or the stick – positive or negative reinforcement – is more effective at getting one’s children to live up to those expectations.

I believe a better alternative is to have no expectations, and to reject the use of either positive and negative reinforcement as behavior-modification tools . . . because as I’ve tried to communicate throughout these letters, behavior isn’t the point of my relationship with you! My relationship with you is the point of my relationship with you.”

Expectations, I think, are one of the quickest ways to damage a relationship. The advocates of expectation will tell you that having high expectations of someone is a very effective way to motivate them to succeed at whatever you expect of them. And you know what? That’s true! Expectations ARE effective . . . at compelling behavior under duress. And make no mistake, it IS duress, particularly when wielded by a parent or some other authority figure against those under their authority. In cases like this, expectations are extremely coercive, because when you set expectations on someone, you are essentially psychologically manipulating them into acting a certain way.

This is true of both high and low expectations. When we set high expectations on someone, we can indeed motivate them to do something, but in the process we de-personalize them a bit . . . we tell them “This is who you are, and I will be less approving and more disappointed in you if you don’t live up to my vision for who you are.”

Similarly, when we set low expectations for someone, we’re objectifying them in the same way . . . we’re telling them “This is who you are, and don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise because I already know better.”

In both cases, we’re not really seeking relationship with a person . . . we’re seeking relationship with our manufactured image of who that person is. We’re seeking a relationship with a figment of our own imagination.

Now, there are certainly times when expectations are appropriate . . . a battlefield commander has every right to expect that when he says “go” his troops will go . . . that they will act according to their training, instantly and without question. But this is the example that proves the rule – because a commander on a battlefield isn’t seeking a relationship with his soldiers when he gives such an order, he’s seeking to capture an objective or complete a mission. He’s focused entirely on behavior, and in that moment, he should be. Moreover, any “de-humanizing” that takes place on a battlefield is not a side-effect of the battle, but a necessary part of getting men to go out and do battle to the death.

But you are not a soldier, and I am not your commander. You are a child, and I am your father. Sure, I could load you up with all kinds of expectations. I could tell you that “I know you’re better than that” when you fail at something you attempt, or “I knew you could do it” when you succeed. I could regale you with tropes like “you can do anything you put your mind to” . . . with, of course, the implication that you should put your mind to what I want you to do . . .

But I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in compelling a set of behaviors from you, nor am I interested in a relationship with some “potential you.”

I’m interested in you . . . and in a relationship with you.

This is a big part of how your mom and I relate to one another. Instead of setting artificial “roles” (mom cleans the kitchen, dad mows the yard, etc.) we don’t really have much in the way of expectations. There are certainly some things that she’s better at than I am, and vice versa . . . so, for example, more often than not, I’m the one who assembles furniture, and more often than not, she’s the one who pays the bills. But there’s no expectation there. If I have an “off day” and something doesn’t get done, that’s ok. If she needs me to step in and do something she normally does, that’s ok too. With the exception of our actual vocations – her violin teaching and my communications consulting – there is no “that’s Mom’s job” or “that’s Dad’s job.” Instead, it’s our life . . . and the only expectation present is that which I place on myself, and that which she places on herself . . . which is, of course, the essence of the internal vs. external motivation she and I have both written about. Expectations, after all, are just another form of external motivation, which as I wrote in my earlier letters is a very effective way to kill off internal motivation.

There’s another way in which your mom and I try to eliminate our expectations on one another. In the same marriage book I told you about in which we first discovered the concept of “differentiation,” the author wrote that, when sitting in a restaurant, he can always tell which of the other couples around him are married and which are not. The married ones, he said, are the ones who aren’t talking to each other.

That’s because, he said, the longer you spend in relationship with someone, the more you discover which topics aren’t “safe” to talk about. And for couples who have been married a long time, there are a lot of “unsafe” topics, particularly in a public setting.

That’s just one more form of expectation. If I “expect” you to think or believe a certain way, and you don’t, it’s going to lead to some pretty strained conversations . . . how could it not? But your mom and I don’t level those kinds of expectations at one another. As a result, we don’t have “things we can’t talk about.” We have areas where we disagree, certainly, but we’re open about them and neither of us feels threatened by the fact that the other person isn’t quite in the same place on a given issue. If the issue in question is a Big Deal, and it turns out we’re not on the same page, neither of us would feel right about asking the other to give up what he or she believes unwillingly, so we talk about it until one of us convinces the other. Let me tell you, when those conversations occur at midnight and I have to get up for work the next morning, it’s awfully tempting sometimes to just give in on what I think, and give up on who I am. But because we’re both committed to the same sort of relationship, we’re able to help one another through those tough conversations. Sometimes it means tears. Sometimes it doesn’t happen in a single sitting. But eventually, we’ve always managed to come around to the same perspective, because neither of us expects the other to just give up and “let me be right.”

Because at the end of the day, it’s not our actions or opinions that are important, but the ability to be fully and completely true to who we are . . . and to share that person fully in the relationship we have with one another. When it comes to your mom, I don’t want to know “everything about her except for the stuff she feels uncomfortable talking about.” I want to know everything about her!

Which is exactly the type of relationship I want with you. I don’t want to allow expectations to affect what you’re willing to share with me about what’s going on in your heart and in your life. I don’t want you to shrink from certain topics because you feel as though expressing what you truly feel won’t live up to my expectation.

Before you were born, I wrote a poem for you. The point of that poem was the same as this letter – that I want to know the real you rather than setting up expectations and manipulating you into being who I think you should be. It was the overall subject of the whole poem, but there are two stanzas that, I think, capture best what I’m trying to say:

And as you grow and thrive, as you explore and you discover
The ground you want your precious life to grow into and cover
My wish is not to shape your mind and body or control you
Just to know you

I’ll celebrate your joys in life and grieve with you your sorrow
Recall your yesterdays; and share your hopes for each tomorrow
But I don’t want to use them to direct you or define you
Just to know you.

That’s it, right there. That’s the point of my relationship with you. In the time since you were born I’ve gotten to realize what an amazing, wonderful person you are . . . not the amazing person you will be . . . the amazing person you already are.

That person is the one with whom I want a relationship. And the relationship I want is one in which I know you – the real you – as much as I possibly can, and in which I share the real me with you as much as I possibly can.

So I expect nothing of you . . . but I hope that you will come to think of this relationship between us as one of the most important and powerful influences you will ever have in your life.

I know it’s already one of the most important and powerful influences in mine.

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

In several of these letters, I’ve shared how important relationships are to me, and how I hope that my relationship with you is always the most important thing between us. I’ve shared the fact that I believe God created us for relationships, both with Him and with each other.

But in today’s letter, I’d like to explain a bit more about what that means, and tie together several strands of thought from several of the letters I’ve written thus far.

When I say I believe we were created for relationship, and that my relationship with you is the most important thing between us, what do I mean? After all, there are different kinds of relationships: some healthy and some . . . not. A relationship characterized by abuse or neglect, for example, is still a relationship. But of course, that’s not the type of relationship I want with you – nor is it the type of relationship God wants with us.

I think it comes down to what I wrote in my letter yesterday about differentiation. I want a relationship with you where we are both able to interact as two healthy individuals, relating to one another as is appropriate for our respective levels of development. Obviously, that’s going to look different now, when you’re seven months old, than it will when you’re seven years old, or seventeen years old. It will also look different as I get older, and keep learning and discovering and growing. Like I’ve said several times, just because I’ve been a parent for seven months now hardly means I’ve got it all figured out.

The same is true of relationship . . . my relationship with you or anybody else. What I strive for in each of my relationships is an interaction that: does not judge the other person solely based on their behaviors, does not rely on them to “fulfill” or “validate” me, does not depend on shared opinions or preferences, and DOES seek to extend empathy and understand their feelings and the needs beneath them. In short, everything I’ve talked about so far in these letters.

As I said, this is important to me in all my relationships, but it is especially important in the relationships with those closest to me . . . and there is nobody closer to me than you and your mom. I want to make sure that, at any and all points in your life, I am treating you and interacting with you in ways that feed the relationship between us, rather than ways that starve it.

This will mean doing things that might not make sense in the moment, to you or to others watching our interactions. It might mean allowing you to do something other parents would not. For example, I’m not going to “discipline” you for getting into something that “isn’t a toy.” Because my relationship with you is more important than whether the toilet paper gets shredded or the beans get spilled all over the floor, I’m not going to take an action that has the effect of telling you that my “things” are more important to me than you are.

At the same time, though, there will probably be times when I decide not to give you something you might, at the moment, want more than anything else in the world. For example, I’m fairly sure that I want our home to be one that never has a dedicated video gaming console in it, because I think it’s too easy to get sucked into spending time with the XBox instead of one another. That’s a decision my dad made for our home, and over which I argued with him several times. And it’s one of those areas where I look back now and think to myself, “he was right.”

So as I said, I want to make choices on my end that feed the relationship . . . but I also want to bring you up with the knowledge that relationships are important, and hope that you’re making the same choices as well . . . because one of the things about relationships is, they cannot exist when only one of the parties to the relationship is nurturing it.

I think that, right there, is the broad narrative that the Bible has to share with us. Like I said at the start of this letter . . . and like I’ve said several times . . . I believe we were created for relationship. In Genesis, the story of Adam is a story of relationship with God. God spent time in person with Adam, and relationship was important enough to God that He made another person for Adam to share a relationship with as well. In fact, even after Adam and Eve sinned, the very first thing the Bible records about God’s reaction is that . . . He showed up for their evening walk together. It was Adam and Eve who severed the relationship by running and hiding. Though God was deeply affected by their actions, the fact that He wanted a relationship with them was not.

The rest of the Old Testament is, to me, the story of God trying to restore that lost relationship piece by piece . . . and the story of the people on the other side all too often not caring. Time and again He reached out to them, and while there were times when the relationship looked like it was on the road to being restored: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, Hezekiah, Josiah . . . in the end those of us on this side of the relationship always turned back away from Him.

Ultimately, he showed up in person. And we killed him. And then we set up a religion where He never intended to create one. We made “following Him” out to mean doing the right things, saying the right words, and being in the right places at the right times. We made the point of “accepting Him” out to be some “get out of Hell free” card, rather than a restoration of the relationship that was lost in Eden.

And yet, after all that, He still continues to offers us His hand in relationship . . . which is the real promise of Salvation, rather than a “fire insurance policy” to keep us out of Hell.

That’s the kind of relationship I want with you . . . the kind in which, like I told you in my very first letter, there is nothing you can do to make me love you more, and nothing you can do to make me love you less. The kind in which loving you is the most important thing . . . more important than that you act a certain way or think a certain way or believe certain things. The only thing I want to make sure you believe is that you are loved.

Too many people . . . too many parents . . . use a relationship that looks like the kind I’ve been talking about – a relationship that is based on individuality, empathy and openness, to try to subtly manipulate their child into a specific set of actions they know they can’t force their child to adopt openly. For me, though, the relationship is not a tool to get you to the point where you think or do the “right things.” The relationship is the point, and it always will be.

Will you come join me in such a relationship?

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

Today you took your first trip in an airplane with your mom down to visit friends in St. Louis, and I’m sitting here missing you both terribly.

The situation is a perfect backdrop for the letter I want to write to you tonight, about a topic at the core of much of what your mom and I have been writing to you over the last several days.

That topic is “differentiation.”

Your mom and I discovered the concept of differentiation when we were in the process of thinking about getting married. We came across the concept of differentiation while reading about how to formulate and maintain healthy marriage relationships, but the concept really applies to all of our relationships.

Differentiation is the process of nurturing two aspects of relationship that often seem to exist in tension with one another: autonomy and connection.

You’ll hear a lot of people in your life refer to their husband or wife as their “better half,” or say things like “I can’t live without him/her.”

These are, when intended seriously (or even partially seriously), signs of poor differentiation. They are signs that our identity is too wrapped up in that of another person. Saying that you “can’t live without” someone is a way of saying that your life isn’t worth living if they are not a part of it. If you truly consider someone else your “better half,” then you are identifying as a part of them, rather than as your own individual self . . . and an inferior part of them, at that!

Of course, right now as I write this, you don’t have a fully developed sense of self. We don’t really develop even the most rudimentary self-awareness of our own individuality until we’re about three years old. And for who you are and where you are right now, that’s perfectly fine!

But As you get old enough to read this letter, and as you grow to be an adult, I hope you take the time to think about what it means to be Tristan . . . not what it means to be Mike Daniels’ son, but what it means to be you . . . a complete and self-sufficient individual.

But there’s another part of differentiation. Remember that I said the twin ideas of autonomy and connection live in tension within this overarching concept. Most of my letters thus far have focused on the “autonomy” piece of that puzzle, because I think that’s the one we most often neglect in today’s society where we too often consider “individualism” to be a dirty word.

But I’ve lived on the other side of that spectrum as well. There have certainly been times when I “failed to differentiate” by becoming “fused” with another person . . . by allowing my identity to become wrapped up in theirs. But there have also been times when I “failed to differentiate” by pulling away and becoming overly detached.

What does that look like, then? There will be times in your life when you feel like hiding something from me. And certainly, there are some circumstances where that’s ok. We have this notion in our society that only adults have an inherent “right to privacy.” I don’t buy that. There will certainly be some things in your life that I want to know about for your own safety, but there are others that are none of my business. The key to being a well-differentiated person is to know where that line is, and why it’s there.

If you write something in a private journal, it’s your right to expect that it remain private. But if you’re avoiding a conversation because the topic is uncomfortable and you suspect that I’ll have a different perspective that doesn’t necessarily match yours, that may be a sign of poor differentiation. Similarly, say that you broach a subject that I don’t want to talk about. If my reasoning is that I think the conversation would be better to have at a different time, place or setting, that’s largely a judgment call. If, however, I’m uncomfortable with the fact that we might have differing opinions and I just don’t want to talk about it, that might be a sign of poor differentiation on my part.

You see, a well-differentiated person is able to handle differing perspectives, uncomfortable conversations and changing circumstances without becoming offended at the other person in the relationship, because the well-differentiated person is self-sufficient. The reason I might shy away from you because of a difficult conversation is the same reason I might become “fused” with you and say that I can’t live without you . . . because ultimately I have wrapped too much of my identity up in yours.

This is also tied to what I mentioned yesterday about taking responsibility for your own feelings and needs. When we are “fused” with another person, it is easy to lose track of where their “self” ends, and ours begins. Do I hold a particular opinion because I believe it, or because they do? Do I enjoy a particular activity because it’s what I like to do, or because it’s what they like to do? If I find a particular activity fulfilling, is it because it actually appeals to me, or because I know that the other person will approve? Are my preferences, beliefs, activities and thoughts my own, or am I merely a reflection of the person with whom I am “fused”?

That part of the process of “differentiating” from a fused relationship is rediscovering what your own thoughts, beliefs, preferences and opinions are, and holding true to them in spite of the reactions of those with whom you are in relationship. This can create some incredibly tense situations, and if the other person is not as committed to the relationship or to the process of becoming self-sufficient as you are, it can mean the end of the relationship. That’s the part you have to take responsibility for.

If you feel the need for self-sufficiency, and if the other party in a relationship is asking you to give up pieces of your self as the price for staying in relationship with you, then the choice of whether to give up yourself, or give up the relationship, is up to you. Nobody can force you to remain in a “fused” relationship. Only you can make that decision. Similarly, you cannot force someone else to change alongside you as you rediscover yourself and differentiate from them. Only they can make that choice. You are responsible for yourself. They are responsible for themselves.

And often, as in the case of your mom and me, as you work through the process of differentiating, the other person in the relationship will work alongside you to differentiate themselves as well . . . they will give you the space to rediscover yourself: your own thoughts, preferences, opinions, feelings and needs . . . and they won’t be upset or offended, or take it personally, if yours don’t exactly match up with yours.

Sadly, in some cases, they will be unwilling to change . . . and equally unwilling to see you change.

That’s hard. It’s incredibly hard. Frankly, in my experience, I’ve found that it’s perhaps the most difficult thing I’ve ever done – differentiating in spite of the other person’s unwillingness to live in a differentiated relationship. Simply “going along to get along” . . . keeping your mouth shut, keeping your head down and avoiding conflict is much, much, much easier. But you have to ask yourself if the price is worth it. I’ve said several times in the course of these letters that my relationship with you is more important than actions, thoughts, opinions, differences, or any number of other things . . . but you have to decide, is a relationship in which another person is constantly urging you to sacrifice your own opinions, beliefs and thoughts, under threat of severing the relationship, really one that is healthy for you to remain in?

Frankly, is that kind of relationship – a relationship that is entirely at the whim of another person’s opinions and preferences, and where you must sacrifice much of who you are for the sake of placating them – any relationship at all?

Of course, this is one of those many areas where there is no black and white. It’s not a matter of “being differentiated” versus “being undifferentiated.” There are many shades of differentiation, and you will probably occupy many points along the spectrum – as I have – throughout your life. I’m not going to promise you that your mom and I will always behave in the most differentiated fashion toward you. Differentiation is a process, and as such there are times when we move forward and backward within that process. There are times when I am living much more fully differentiated than I was the week before, and there are times when I am living much less fully differentiated than I was the week before.

Remember to have grace for yourself in this process, and remember that just because you make a choice in one conversation to act in a way that is “fused” with another person, doesn’t mean you have to make that same choice in every instance . . . or even in the very next conversation with the same person.

And I will promise you this: I will promise you that differentiation is something that is very, very important to your mom and me, and always will be. I will promise you that we will, throughout the course of our lives, be working to differentiate from one another and from you . . . allowing you the space to become your own Self, but not pulling away so much as to sever the relationship. Because ultimately it is the relationship that is the most important part of my life with you – which is why I’m not willing to settle for a relationship that isn’t real . . . and why I want to make sure that I’m nurturing that relationship as much as possible, and sharing with you the ways that I’ve learned so that you can do the same, if you choose.

I very much hope that you will.

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

I promise that, despite appearances, your mom and I aren’t coordinating or comparing notes on what we’re writing to you about, or when. I guess the similarities in our letters are just a sign of how much we’ve talked and shared with one another our hopes for our relationship with each other, and our respective relationships with you. Yesterday, your mom wrote about feelings and needs, and today she wrote about empathy. Yesterday, I wrote about empathy. Today, my letter is about . . . you guessed it . . . feelings and needs.

Your mom wrote in her letter yesterday, “One of the things adults most commonly say to children is, ‘It’s ok.’ It’s a reflex when trying to comfort a distraught child.”

I think she’s right, but I think that’s only part of a much bigger problem with feelings and needs in our culture today.

The simple problem is, it’s not considered “acceptable discourse” – at any age – to discuss our feelings and needs. It’s not just that we tell kids “It’s OK” or “You’re OK” during times of distress. I catch myself telling the same thing to coworkers who turn in work to me after the deadline, making my job more difficult. I tell them “It’s OK” rather than telling them “I feel really stressed because I now have an hour to do what it normally takes me three hours to do.” Similarly, when someone asks “How’s it going?” or “How’re you doing?” The expected answer is “oh, just fine!” or some variant thereof. The people who ask that question do NOT really want to know how you’re doing. They do not want to hear that you’re depressed, or angry, or hurting, or ill. They want to hear that everything is fine and go on their way.

Acknowledging our feelings is jarring . . . both to ourselves and to those around us. It’s not intuitive . . . it goes against our desire to believe that everything is right with the world. When it’s not . . . when we feel that something is not ok . . . we seem to do everything we can to bury that feeling, as though if we ignore it, it doesn’t exist.

I remember, when I was growing up, being taught that feelings were unreliable. I remember being told that the soul is comprised of our mind, our will, and our emotions . . . and that emotions were the most volatile and least trustworthy of the three.

I remember, as a teenager, trying to cultivate a mindset without feelings . . . purely logical and based on reason. I remember thinking that the only thing feelings were good for was clouding judgment.

I was completely and totally wrong. And what I have come to realize is that feelings are an important indicator of the health of one’s soul, the same way pain and pleasure are important indicators of the health of one’s body.

What, then, are feelings, and how do they relate to needs?

As your mom wrote yesterday, our needs are universal. Everybody shares the need for food, water, sleep, air, and other basic necessities. But beyond that basic level, we all share other needs like the need for security, relationship, accomplishment, or respect.

When our needs are being met, this generates certain feelings within us: “I feel safe.” I feel happy.” “I feel content.” “I feel fulfilled.”

When our needs are not being met, feelings are also generated: “I feel insecure.” “I feel afraid.” “I feel angry.” “I feel frustrated.”

Accessing those feelings in their pure form is very, very difficult . . . and the self-centeredness and empathy I wrote about in my last two letters play a vital role in understanding what we’re feeling. That’s because, far too often, instead of relating to one another through our mutual needs and the feelings they engender, we relate to one another through judgments. Instead of “I feel afraid.” we might say “You’re scaring me.” Instead of saying, “I’m feeling disconnected,” we might say, “You’re being standoffish. Instead of “I feel frustrated,” we might say “You’re making me angry.”

This act of placing responsibility for our feelings on the shoulders of those around us kills relationship.

Part of maintaining healthy relationships with those around you is to take responsibility for your own feelings . . . to realize that what you’re feeling is not a reflection on the person with whom you’re talking, but a reflection on yourself. If you’re angry, it’s not because the person you’re talking with is making you angry. It’s because an unmet need within yourself is making you angry, and the conversation just happened to touch on or reinforce that unmet need. Becoming conscious of the underlying need can empower you to develop a strategy for meeting it . . . because in truth, that’s what you’re doing anyway! Everything we do is a strategy we’re using to meet our needs. But a strategy developed by identifying the need and interacting with the feelings that need engenders is going to be a lot more effective than a strategy undertaken in haste without consciously realizing why you’re doing it.

And just as we can’t place responsibility for our feelings on the shoulders of others without killing relationship, we do the same thing when we place responsibility for our needs on the shoulders of others.

Make no mistake, right now, as I write this, you’re a seven-month-old baby. Your every need is my responsibility, and your mom’s responsibility. But there will come a time as you grow to be an adult that you become capable of meeting your own needs. In our culture, far too many of us never grow up in that way . . . virtually the entirety of Western Civilization has become a culture whose main concern is getting someone else to meet its needs.

But there’s very little difference in effect between saying, “You’re making me mad” (you’re responsible for my feelings) and saying “I’m mad, and it’s your job to fix it” (you’re responsible for meeting my needs). It goes back to what I wrote in one of my early letters about expectation . . . about the burden of “should”: The expectation that someone else “should” meet your needs, even if you’re fully capable of meeting them yourself, is one of the quickest ways to tear down a relationship.

I realize as I’m writing this that there will be times that I fail . . . times that I expect too much of you or react to you out of a place of my own needs without considering yours. And for that, I am deeply sorry in advance.

But understanding that we will all fail at times is part of the bargain. The interactions going on around you every day are the actions of people trying to meet their own needs. Once you can comprehend that, a new world of relationship opens up to you. One of the saddest things your mom and I have both realized as we grew into adulthood is how many of our relationships were based on shared experiences and viewpoints. The people I liked, I did so because I agreed with them on most things. But when our experiences diverged, so did the friendship. Your mom and I have become disconnected from some amazing friends, because the basis we had on which to relate evaporated.

But when two parties to a relationship are able to empathize with one another based on shared needs and the feelings those needs engender, the importance of shared experiences and belief systems is greatly diminished. Because the parties to such a relationship can interact without judgment, they are able to share openly without fear that the other person will be hostile to what they have to say. Just as I’ve grown apart from some of my closest and dearest friends due to newly-discovered differences in our belief systems, I’ve been able to develop some new and amazing friendships with people whom I could never have become close to if all I was basing the friendship on was our common beliefs.

In her letter on feelings and needs yesterday, your mom reiterated what she and I have both said throughout these letters, “You are not what you do.”

Similarly, what I’m trying to say in this letter is, “You are not what you believe.” And neither is the person across from you in a conversation or relationship. There’s so much more to each of us than what we do, or say, or even what we think. And my goal for my relationships – particularly my relationships with you and your mom – is to get to know the person beneath the actions, words and opinions. That’s why behavior modification isn’t the point for me. It’s why empathy is so important, and it’s why I think of self-centeredness as a virtue rather than a vice . . . because as your mom said in the conversation I referenced in my letter about self-centeredness, true intimacy is knowing yourself as deeply as possible, and sharing that person fully with another.

That’s the type of relationship I want with you . . . and I hope it’s what you strive for in all your relationships. It’s hard . . . but it’s worth it.

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

Yesterday I wrote about the counterintuitive virtue in self-centeredness. Today I’d like to address the counterpoint to that. As I wrote yesterday, I believe it’s vitally important to ignore all the advice you’ll hear throughout your life from people who tell you never to think of yourself – to always think of others and base your priorities on their needs and never on your own. But as I’ve said several times throughout these letters, I believe it’s just as important to remember that, in any relationship, there are two sets of needs at stake. This is true regardless of the nature of the relationship. It’s true of your relationship with your best friend. It’s also true of your relationship with your worst enemy.

That’s where empathy comes in. In one of her letters, your mom wrote about “perspective-taking.” That’s a piece of the empathy I’m talking about. She wrote, “When we are able to take the perspective of another person, we step outside of our shoes and into theirs. We imagine life from their perspective. Rather than judge what we see them doing, we are able to ask why they are doing it. We see beyond their doing to their identity, and we focus more on what makes us the same rather than that which makes us different.”

Just about anybody can cultivate sympathy for others – only a psychopath is unable to understand and feel sorry for someone who is suffering or in trouble. Empathy, though, is deeper. It’s digging down into your own experiences with the universal needs we all share, and using those experiences to not just feel bad for another person whose needs are not being met, but actually identify with their own feelings and experiences. It’s taking time out to enter their story and share it with them in their time of need.

And it’s very, very hard to do sometimes.

You will get in disagreements throughout your life (probably a fair share of those disagreements will be with me). But when you do, take a look at the other person in the disagreement and consider this fact – and it is a fact: They are, just as you are, acting out of a set of strategies designed to meet their needs. Sometimes that strategy might involve an in-depth conversation. Sometimes it might involve screaming and shouting. Sometimes it might involve waving a gun around or even using it on another person. But it’s all designed to accomplish the same purpose.

Does that mean that if they adopt a strategy of violence you should let them use it against you without standing up for yourself or protecting yourself? There are some who believe this. I do not. I don’t believe empathy requires you to let other people take advantage of you. That’s where the self-centeredness I wrote about yesterday comes in.

Does empathizing with someone who adopts a strategy of violence mean that they’re excused from the consequences of their actions? Absolutely not! And if someone were to adopt such a strategy and threaten me or your mom or you, if I was unable to convince them of the ineffectiveness of this strategy, either because the situation didn’t give me a chance or because they rejected what I had to say, I would meet force with force and they would not like the result.

What it does mean is not judging the motivations behind what someone is doing. Always do what you must to protect yourself and your loved ones, but do what you can to empathize with others, even those who would do you harm.

Perhaps most importantly, remember to have empathy for yourself – both as you are now, as well as your past selves.

What does this mean?

I’ll give you an example. One of the reasons I’m able to write these letters to you as I’ve been doing is because I’ve cultivated empathy for myself as a child. I think we parents sometimes forget what it’s like to be a kid. We get so far distant from that wondrous time that we lose the ability to empathize with that person we once were . . . and the people, like you, who are coming along behind us. There have even been times when I’ve despised who I was as a child . . . when I’ve completely failed to have grace not only for children like you, but for myself. Part of writing these letters is, for me, an exercise in empathizing with you, and with where you will be as you go through the rest of your childhood. But part of it, too, is remembering my own childhood . . . thinking through my own mistakes, shortsightedness and misconceptions, and having empathy for the person I was back then. Recapturing that perspective and working to understand it again, in a way that I can communicate to you in order to save you the heartache I endured at my own hands.

Like I said earlier, empathy is hard! But what you’ll find out as your get used to thinking in terms of empathy, is that it’s probably harder to have empathy for yourself than for anyone else.

But when you make a habit of empathizing, both with yourself and others, you’re able to eliminate judgments and realize that their actions are not about you, but are the only way they can think in the moment to meet their needs . . . needs you share with them.

This allows you to, refrain from taking their activities personally, and respond calmly and rationally rather than reacting to them.

Like I said, this stuff is hard! You will find out, if you haven’t already by the time you read this letter, that I love a good debate. But too often debate becomes the opposite of empathy. Rather than really listening to what the other person is saying, too often I’m listening only with the intention of crafting a finely-tuned argument about why they’re wrong. If I’m doing that, I’m not understanding them or where they’re coming from . . . and if I’m not doing that, I’m not really cultivating relationship with them.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that just because I’m telling you all this is a good set of habits to cultivate, doesn’t mean I’m all that good at it myself. Mostly, I’m not. I’m learning, but most of the time I still fail. I’m sure there will be times when I fail to empathize with you, and for that I apologize in advance. My goal is to continue to get better at empathizing, and to always try to keep your perspective in mind when we’re discussing things with one another.

For your part, I urge you to cultivate both self-centeredness and empathy, as contradictory as that might seem. Always be aware of your own needs and the strategies you’re using to meet them. And do the best you can to be aware of the needs of others with whom you interact, and the strategies they are using in turn.

You’ll find that the more you do this, the more people’s actions that might have once seemed crazy, insane, inappropriate or just plain rude, suddenly make a lot more sense. That may not make any given action any more appropriate, but it can help you understand what the person taking that action is going through, and allow you to have grace for them . . . and, when it comes to your own actions, grace for yourself.

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

Your mom and I have shared these letters to you with friends of ours online, and have had a handful of people share their thoughts – some agreeing and some disagreeing with portions of what we write, Overall, though, in these letters so far, I’ve raised a lot of ideas you might not hear from very many other people – at least not in the way I’m raising them. I tend to be outside the mainstream in a lot of different areas, and when I say things like “obedience is overrated” or “behavior is not the point” or “I want you to learn how to make wise decisions, even if that means you disagree with me sometimes,” those are not the sort of things most people tell their children. They are, nevertheless, what I believe.

So is this: I said yesterday that I believe you were created, as I think we all were, to make real choices about your life. One of the things I think it is important to keep in mind as you make these choices is the importance of being self-centered.

Most of the people who are reading these letters as we share them are probably reading back over that last paragraph to make sure they read it right. They did. I think self-centeredness is an important quality to nurture in oneself in order to engage in healthy relationships with others.

Most people I know think of self-centeredness as a negative quality. They see it as akin to selfishness – engaging in strategies for meeting your needs that end up harming others in the process. I don’t see them as the same thing at all.

I remember a conversation with your mom and some very good friends of ours several years ago soon after we first got married. We were talking about intimacy, and what it means. I gave a fairly commonplace definition that intimacy is knowing another person as deeply as possible. Then your mom said one of the wisest things I think I’ve ever heard her say (which is saying something, given how many wise things I’ve heard her say!) She said, “Intimacy is getting to know yourself as deeply as possible, and then sharing that person fully with another.”

That, to me, is the essence of self-centeredness. Your mom and I have been criticized before as being overly introspective . . . overly focused on our own inner lives. But I think without that focus we would be much less ready and able to offer relationship to you and others at the level we want to do so.

Part of the problem is that our culture idealizes selflessness, particularly in Christian circles such as the ones in which your mom and I grew up.

Here’s the problem. Selflessness is not a Biblical concept. Self-sacrifice certainly is, but look at some of the Scripture passages people use to promote selflessness.

Luke 6:31 – Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Philippians 2:4 – Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Galatians 5:15 – For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Aside from teaching the virtue of caring for others, each of these verses has in common the admonition to care for yourself!

In the first passage, you can’t do to others as you would have them do to you, unless you first know how you desire and deserve to be treated by others.

The second passage urges you are urged to look after the interests of others in addition to your own, not to the exclusion of your own.

The third passage, I think, captures it best. It is a simple fact that you can’t love your neighbor as you love yourself, unless you love yourself.

But I remember sitting in Sunday School classes when I was a very young child, singing songs that went like this one:

Jesus and Others and You
What a wonderful way to spell JOY
Jesus and Others and You
In the life of each girl and each boy

“J” is for Jesus, for He has first place
“O” is for Others we meet face to face
“Y” is for You, in whatever you do,
Put yourself third and spell JOY

This strikes me as pretty poor advice when it’s taught, as it was to me, as a universal truth to be applied to every situation and relationship. Of course there are times when we put others first. There are times in your short life when I’ve met your needs to the exclusion of my own, and there will probably be many more.

But that’s not sustainable all the time.

Next week, you’re going with your mom on your first airplane ride. When you get situated on the plane, an annoying announcer voice will come on and instruct all of you on what to do in the case of an emergency. You won’t be able to understand what he or she is saying, but one of the things they’ll do is talk about if there is a breach in the cabin of the airplane and all the air gets sucked out. If that happens, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling of the cabin to make sure you can all still breathe. The announcer will tell your mom and anybody else travelling with small children to put their own masks on first, before helping their children.

That’s because, if your mom puts the mask on you first, she might pass out before she’s able to get her own mask on, and then if something happens to your mask, both of you would be in trouble.

And I think it’s the same way in life. You can sacrifice for others. You can even give up your life for others, as I would for you or your mom in a heartbeat if needed. But the one thing that is dangerous to give up is your self.

I know. I tried. I spent most of my life being everything I thought others wanted me to be. In college, especially, I was the ever-present shoulder to cry on. I was the chauffeur making myself available to anyone and everyone to take them places or run their errands for them. I was the one who had to be helping everybody with everything, to have my fingers in every pie. I had a burning need to be . . . useful.

What I ended up being was used, and used up. I was there for anyone who needed someone, but I wasn’t taking care of myself. In the end I wound up severely depressed and on the verge of giving up on life all together. I’d invested so much of my self in other lives that I didn’t have anything left for my own, and It took your mom and another couple of very dear friends who were willing to invest in my life to pull me through that period.

As you grow up, I want to teach you to care deeply for others, but at the same time I want to teach you to hold onto your self. Share your heart with others, but don’t give up who you are in the process. Invest time in others, but make sure you’re taking some time out for yourself. Give your possessions to others, but not to the extent that you’re unable to meet your own needs or the needs of those for whom you are responsible.

That’s what it really comes down to. There are two sets of needs in any relationship. We do the relationship injustice when we only consider one set of needs, whether our or the other person’s. If we only consider our own needs, that’s not much of a relationship. If we only consider the other person’s needs, we don’t leave ourselves with anything to offer them.

You’ll hear a lot of people talk about Christ’s example – about how He gave up His position at the right hand of God to come and sacrifice Himself for us. And all that is true. Earlier, though, I quoted Philippians 2:4 as one of the verses people pull out to talk about self-sacrifice. That passage continues by talking about Christ’s sacrifice, and what it says is not that He sacrificed His self – His being, His essence – but that He sacrificed His reputation. He gave up the glory that was His due by virtue of the fact that He is God, to come and live as a man. But He did not give up being God. He could only effect the redemption of fallen humanity by sacrificing Himself as God.

That’s the example I hope for you to follow . . . give and give and give, as much as is in your heart to give. But do not give up your self. Stay self-centered, in the sense that you remain the main character in your own life story. For when your life story becomes about somebody else, you’re left with nothing to give to those you care about, or to anyone else, for that matter.

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

Today we come to one of the points I’ve been trying to build to in all of my letters so far. I’ve written a great deal about what I don’t want to do as a parent. Today I’d like to share some of what I do hope to do.

My highest aspiration as your dad is to equip you to make wise decisions about your life: How will you live? How will you spend your time? What will you believe – spiritually, philosophically, politically? Who will you marry? These are all big decisions that will have a profound impact on your life. I want to make sure that you’re well-equipped to make them.

One of the worst pieces of parenting advice I’ve come across thus far was from a very popular parenting book, which says the way to teach your children how to make wise choices is to make wise choices for them.

This strikes me as exactly wrong in very nearly every way possible. If I make all your choices for you, and expect you to blindly obey them, how are you ever going to learn to think, discern and decide for yourself? If I teach you blind obedience to me, what am I teaching you about how to respond when you come across a charismatic, inspiring spiritual or political figure who claims to be deserving of your absolute, blind obedience?

So my goal is to give you as much choice over the little things in your life, as early as possible, so that you learn what goes into making a good decision, and how to deal with the consequences of a bad decision.

Yesterday I wrote about rewards and punishments . . . about intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. I believe allowing you to make choices and letting you deal with the positive and negative outcomes of those choices is intrinsically motivating. I believe that when you understand the natural progression of events that stems from a choice you make, it will help you determine whether that choice is something you want to keep choosing. This is, to me, very different than setting up arbitrary “do’s” and “don’ts” that have very little to do with anything other than my own personal preferences, and rewarding or punishing you for your success or failure to accommodate my preferences.

Of course, this won’t be easy . . . and of course teaching you how to make wise choices necessitates allowing you to first make unwise choices at times – in areas where I can be confident you are able to handle the consequences of those choices, and where I can help you do so. I’m not, of course, going to allow you to experience the consequences of running out into the street . . . that’s not a choice I’m going to give you the opportunity to make. I might, however, give you the opportunity to discover the consequences of running to quickly through the living room, because those are consequences you can handle . . . and in the course of handling them, you can learn the natural results of your actions.

I think this is how God deals with us. I think He created us to make real, genuine choices, and to be responsible for the results of those choices. The first thing God did after creating Adam was bring him all the animals and allow him to choose their names. Then, He gave Adam and Eve a far more momentous choice . . . the choice to sever their relationship with Him. God didn’t have to put that tree in the garden. Then he didn’t have to allow the serpent access to tempt them. And He could have stepped in at any time and stopped them from eating its fruit. But confining people into a bubble where they have no freedom to make their own decisions isn’t relationship, it’s hostage-taking. And God is pretty clear that he wants the former.

So Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. And Even after they did so, it wasn’t God who severed the relationship. He still showed up for their regular evening walk. It was Adam and Eve who went and hid.

And we’ve been hiding ever since. God wanted to address his people face to face at Mount Sinai, but they insisted that He speak to them through Moses. Then, once He’d given them a country of their own, He wanted to rule them directly. They insisted on a king.

We still bear the scars of that severed relationship. All of us suffer because of that choice, but He’s also given each of us a choice to restore the relationship. It’s the most important choice any of us will ever make . . . and I hope to have many long conversations with you as you grow older about that choice, and the natural results of deciding one way or the other.

In the meantime, though, I want to demonstrate relationship to you just as God does to me. I want to give you real opportunities to make real choices, and while I will always share with you the choices I think you should make, I will never stop extending the hand of relationship just because you make a different choice.

Dear Tristan,

Yesterday I wrote about expectations and the insidious nature of praise. I’d like to go a bit deeper into parts of that topic today, and share my thoughts – as your mom did in one of her earlier letters – on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

One of the things I’ve been trying to communicate to you throughout these letters is how important it is to me that you choose your own way in life – that you be empowered from a young age to decide who you want to be, and that I equip you with all the tools you need in order to become, not a compliant, submissive, obedient child, but a strong, self-aware, discerning adult.

A lot of parents take a mixture of two approaches to raising their children. At one end of the spectrum is the “carrot” – the practice of rewarding behavior seen as desirable. On the other end is the “stick” – the practice of punishing behavior seen as undesirable.

Our society recognizes that people who tend to the extremes of this spectrum are fostering unhealthy tendencies in their children: Those who rely solely on the “stick” are called abusive. Those who rely solely on the “carrot” are called indulgent.

But I think there’s a problem with the whole spectrum.

Multiple problems, actually.

First and foremost, it’s all about behavior – specifically, it’s about modifying your behavior to be in line with what I think it should be.

It’s also an exercise in raw power – it’s me, the bigger and stronger person, asserting that my will is more important than yours, and that you must change to suit my preferences . . . or else.

Finally, as I touched on in my last letter, motivating you through external pressure all to easily kills any internal desire you might have to do the very things I might wish to motivate you to do.

Of course, in the case of the “stick,” these issues are very easy to see. Naturally, punishment as a behavior modification is an exercise in power. And naturally, if I am punished for failing to do something, the moment the punishment no longer hangs over my head, I’m no longer going to want to engage in the activity that was being forced upon me under threat of punishment.

But the same is true of the “carrot.” Inducing behavior modification through bribes (let’s call them what they really are) is just as much an exercise in power. Ask any politician who has been induced by a donor to changed his position which of them holds the power in the relationship. Withholding that which we desire is just as powerful – often moreso – than threatening us with harmful consequences. And it’s certainly just as behavior-focused.

But it also kills desire just as thoroughly. If we’re rewarded every time we do something (either tangibly or intangibly through something like praise), our desire to do it when the reward is withdrawn is killed.

I’ve experienced this in my own life. I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood devouring all kinds of books – anything I could get my hands on. Since I was homeschooled, my reading was largely self-directed, and I gravitated toward a lot of non-fiction, particularly history books, biographies and political philosophy.

Then I spent nearly eight years in college and graduate school. I read all kinds of history texts and biographies, and branched out into new and interesting areas of non-fiction: pure philosophy, science, theology, law, economics . . . areas where I’d done some reading, but not a great deal.

And for a while I enjoyed it. But because it was for a class . . . because it was something I felt I HAD to do, it became a chore. I did it very well, and got good grades, but the grades – the “incentive” – wore me down to the point where it was a burden to read the kinds of books I’d once enjoyed.

As I write this, it’s been six and a half years since I finished graduate school – nearly seven since I read my last textbook.

I still find it very difficult to sit down with a non-fiction book.

Because I did it well . . . for someone else. Because I did it for a prize. A degree. That framed piece of paper on my wall, and the things I did to get it, killed my love for nonfiction reading. I don’t want to do the same for you by becoming an external motivator. I want to help you find the joy in doing what you love for its own sake. For your sake.

So what does the alternative – teaching you to rely on intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivators to guide your decisions – look like?

To tell you the truth, I’m still figuring that out myself. I’ve made most of my choices in life motivated by external factors, and am only just beginning to discover how much more joy I find in the things I do when I do them for me, rather than because of anybody else’s “carrots” or “sticks.”

I can tell you what it will look like in some cases, though:

It will look like not resorting to spanking you when you do something I don’t like. If I believed “appropriate behavior” was the point of our relationship, and that any means was justified in eliciting that behavior from you, spanking would be perfectly appropriate. But I don’t, and it’s not. Instead, I will talk through situations with you and tell you what’s on my heart each time it comes up. Your mom mentioned “Non-Violent Communication” in her letter yesterday. NVC is focused on understanding that behaviors are the strategies that each of us adopt to meet universal needs we all share. Some of those behaviors are effective, and some are ineffective. Some are helpful and some are destructive. But the point is not to punish or reward the behaviors, but to understand and meet the needs underneath them. I’ve seen this method of communication work incredibly well in a parent’s relationship with her very young children, so I know it can be done, and that’s what I want to do with you.

It will look like allowing you to take a hand in your own development, starting . . . well . . . now. For example, your mom and I are committed to “self-weaning” you. Many parents introduce food to their kids at a certain, arbitrary age – six months, a year, whenever they think their child might be ready for it. Your mom and I know that she’s fully equipped to meet your needs for nourishment until you decide you’re ready for something else. In the meantime, if we hand you a piece of chicken or avocado, and all you do is play with it, that’s fine and dandy!

We’ll continue allowing you to guide your own development by teaching you here at home, rather than putting you in a formal school setting. Your mom and I were both taught at home, and the freedom we had to guide our own studies and pursue our own interests is something we definitely want to pass on to you.

Like I said, I’m still figuring it out. The one thing I know is that I want it. Because there will be times in your life when you don’t do what I want you to, and I will grieve some of those times. But I would grieve infinitely more if you go through life not doing what you want to do.

Dear Tristan,

I’ve written a lot lately about expectations and how damaging they can be. I wrote about those who expect you to follow their example, those who expect your obedience, and those who expect you to act in service of their power over you.

But there’s a flip side of expectations, and it is just as damaging.

I and many others throughout your life will tell you that you can do anything you want to do. When I say that, I mean that you have a virtually unlimited slate of choices out there just waiting for you to pick among them. I mean that I want to help you learn how to make wise choices, and support you in whatever choices you make.

Not everybody who tells you that, “you can do anything you want to do,” will mean the same thing by it. Many will add an unspoken expectation to the end of that sentence: “you can do anything you want to do, so why aren’t you doing __________?” “You can do anything you want to, so why are you choosing to do something I feel is unwise?” “You can do anything you want . . . so why aren’t you living up to my expectations?”

Praise has an insidious side. This back-handed praise is the most obvious, even a well-meaning compliment has its dark side. Your mom and I have even made a concerted effort to avoid saying “good job” to you when you accomplish a major milestone like learning how to sit up or roll over, because we don’t ever want you to feel as though you must earn our subjective approval in order to give you fulfillment for the things you do. Instead, we seek to make objective observations: “You sat up!” “You put that toy back together!” “You rolled over all by yourself!”

Of course, you’re too young, and your communications skills are too undeveloped, for any of this to mean much to you right now. At this point, we’re really training ourselves! We’re building habits so that when you’re older, we can still talk to you this way. If you should go into sports, we can replace vague compliments like “You played very well!” with objective observations like “You scored a touchdown!” or “You turned a double-play,” and let you decide what that achievement means to you. If, as both of us did, you dedicate much of your life to music, we can replace “You played that section very well” with the observation “you played that passage in tune.” . . . making it clear that we observe your accomplishments, but letting you derive your own value from them rather than giving the impression that we value you for what you can achieve.

There’s another dark side to praise as well. It’s scientifically proven that the more we are externally incentivized to do something, whether through positive or negative reinforcement – the carrot or the stick – the less we want to do it. The last thing I want to do is kill your desire for something you love by praising you for it repeatedly, so that when your mom and I are no longer around to offer that praise, you no longer enjoy doing the thing you once loved.

So what it comes down to is this. Many of the good, well-meaning parents I know think it’s a positive thing to have extremely high expectations of their children. There is a raging debate in our culture as to whether the carrot or the stick – positive or negative reinforcement – is more effective at getting one’s children to live up to those expectations.

I believe a better alternative is to have no expectations, and to reject the use of either positive and negative reinforcement as behavior-modification tools . . . because as I’ve tried to communicate throughout these letters, behavior isn’t the point of my relationship with you! My relationship with you is the point of my relationship with you.

It’s not that I don’t think you’re an amazing person, or that you’re capable of doing anything you put your mind to . . . rather, it’s that I want you to be free to make those decisions about your path without feeling as though you’re doing so to earn my approval, or your mom’s, or anyone else’s. As I’ve already told you a couple times in these letters, I will do whatever I can to communicate to you the path I think is the wisest one for you to take, and then I will walk with you down whatever path you choose.

But I want you to choose. I want to raise you as a person who is equipped to make wise choices, and who makes those choices not because you’re trying to earn another person’s validation or because you’re afraid of an externally-imposed consequence – the carrot or the stick – but because they are what you want.

Love,
~Dad

Dear Tristan,

Yesterday I wrote about being a powerful person, and how I hope to help you become one. Today’s letter is a bit more about what I believe that means.

I swear, your mom and I didn’t talk very much at all about the topics we planned to write about in these letters to you, and we certainly didn’t coordinate about when we planned to write about each topic. Nevertheless, my letter for you today will have a lot of similarity with her letter.

I titled yesterday’s letter “Be Powerful,” as opposed to “do powerful things,” for a reason. I do not believe that you are the sum total of your actions. I do not believe you are defined by what you do. I wrote that obedience is overrated, because I believe deeds are overrated.

I believe you are not what you do. I believe you are. Period.

When you were still in your mom’s tummy, she and I used to sit and talk with you on the bed before going to sleep at night. I still remember how amazed I was the very first time we felt you move, slightly more thana few weeks more than halfway through her pregnancy. We were sitting there talking about how moms were usually able to feel something before that point, and your mom hadn’t felt anything yet. I reached down and put my hand on her tummy and said something to the effect of, “I wish I could feel you kick, baby” . . . and suddenly you did.

That was the first of many moments when you quite emphatically took your place as part of our conversation. Of course, I have no idea what must have been going on in your still-developing mind at that time, but it was clear, even then, that you had a personality . . . a unique, individual self.

That became all the more apparent once you were born and started expressing needs, desires and opinions. It was very clear, very early, that you usually have a clear idea of what you want . . . and if we try to placate you by giving you something other than what you want, you’ll have none of it!

I love seeing flashes of your personality, and I’m so excited to watch as you get better and better at communicating, because I know that I’ll just get to keep discovering more and more of who you are.

Sadly, most of the people you’ll meet throughout your life will not think of you that way. Instead, most of them will judge your worth, your self, by the actions you take, the talents you build and diplay, and the accomplishments you achieve. They will, as I talked about in an earlier letter, attach labels to you and think that those labels define you.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t bother to ever do anything, but those things that you do, you should do for you – because you want to do them . . . because they fulfill something in you – not because they make you more valuable to somebody else.

What, then, do I value in you?

I love your spirit – your persistence in pursuing what you know you want, even when the rest of us are too dense to get it through our skulls what you’re trying to communicate to us. I love sitting with you on your play-mat for hours on end as you pull yourself up on my hands over and over, let go try to stand on your own, and plop back down, only to haul yourelf back up on my hands again. And again. And again.

I love your joyfulness – the fact that you can get an amazing amount of pleasure out of the smallest things, or even out of just sitting quietly staring at the light coming in through the bedroom window.

I love your curiosity – the way that you love to investigate things . . . like how you look at yourself in a mirror and try to peer around it to the back to see what’s on the other side.

I love your strength – I remember Tammi, the midwife who helped you come into this world, as she felt you still inside mommy and as she described how, even in the process of a very difficult birth, you were just twisting your head this way and that, working your way ever closer to being born. I love the fact that, as difficult as your birth was, your heart-rate never dropped, you never showed signs of struggling – never let all that hard work phase you.

I love how relational you are – as evidenced by the ear-to-ear grin that splits your face whenever I or your mom come into the room after an absence, or the fact that the first thing you do when you’re upset or in pain is reach for me or mommy, even if one of us has inadvertently contributed to the cause of your distress.

I even love the fact that you’re a very emotional kid – you certainly come by that honestly! The way small things set you off and make you inconsolable, the fact that you’re easily frustrated, or the fact that you’re easily overwhelmed by large crowds or loud noises: most parents would, I think, find that frustrating . . . and sometimes I catch myself thinking in those terms as well. But then I stop myself as I realize that’s just me trying to value behaviors (such as settling down instead of crying) rather than valuing you for who you are and investigating what the real need behind your distress might be.

In short, I love who you are . . . the content of your heart and soul and mind. Of course, even in describing these pieces of your personality, I’m describing them in terms of things you do to illustrate them. But it is not the actions I value, but the soul from which they stem. I’m sure I will get great pleasure throughout your life because of the things you accomplish. In fact, I already have! I was so glad to be there when you first rolled over. Lately I’ve enjoyed watching you as you take the first tentative steps toward learning to crawl. I have lots of fun holding your hands as you pull yourself up and try to stand. But these are not the things I love about you. I love to spend time with you, yes. And I’m very happy that you are learning and growing and thriving . . . but that’s not what I love about you. What I love about you is YOU! And as I said in an earlier letter, there’s nothing you can do to make me love you more, and nothing you can do to make me love you less.

I think the love between a parent and a child is the one place here on earth where we get to experience truly unconditional love. I love your mother, don’t get me wrong . . . I love her more than I can express with words, and that’s coming from someone who’s usually pretty good at expressing himself with words! But the love I have for her is the product of four years of incredibly deep friendship, followed by a year of going even deeper as we began to fall in love, a year of engagement, and more than five years of marriage. It’s not truly unconditional, because without the many years of shared experiences and the time spent knitting our hearts closer together, neither of us would feel as we do about each other.

You, I fell in love with about half a second after you were born . . . and it only took that long because I was so startled that you’d finally arrived after you and your mom struggled together through 48 hours of labor! I hadn’t had time to get to know you, hadn’t spent years sharing the best and worst that life had to offer you. I just loved you. For you.

I have learned over the years who your mom is, and have grown to the point where I love her now for her . . . just as much as I do you. I think we miss out on something precious when we value one another for what we do – what we accomplish or are capable of accomplishing. I think that loss is a tragedy that takes something away from not just who we are, but who the person we love is as well, because it tells that person “you are only as valuable to me as the thing you can do for me.”

I don’t want to do that to you. Not ever. I want you always to know that you are an amazing, wonderful person, completely apart from anything that you do or accomplish in your life.

I love you.

Love,
~Dad