Monday, February 21, 2011

Drawing inspiration from Tom Selleck and Blue Bloods

I was rather looking forward to the empty nest syndrome a few years ago. I’m still waiting for it to start (I’ll get back to Tom Selleck below, trust me).

My wife and I have the blessing of having all of our adult children living in close proximity to us. Three older girls are all married – the youngest, a son, is single and is living with us while he finishes his university studies. There are five delightful grandchildren. My mother-in-law now spends part of the year living in a trailer next to our house and has coffee with us each morning. Four generations living within a 20 minute walk of one another. Ideal right?



I have had a ‘love-hate’ relationship with the idea of family my entire life. I have a wonderful mom and dad, now in their mid-eighties. They are healthy, lively and fun people. Nevertheless, they went through some tough times in mid-life, which just happened to be my early adolescents years. There was conflict, some of it a bit traumatizing for me. I vaguely remember being terrified by the word ‘divorce’ as it floated around briefly in our household.

I grew up and moved away into my adult life taking my traumas with me – and they grew up into mature adult life, and learned how to live with one another and have recently completed over 60 years of married life together.

Surprisingly, I also went through some tough times in my mid-life which also traumatized my children, some of whom were just entering into early adolescence and others who were in the early elementary school period. I’ve spent the better part of the last 10 years trying to make amends, trying to heal the damage that I inadvertently caused. I kept thinking that there would be an end point – a finish line to parenthood that I could triumphantly burst through and be done with it – with high fives around -- but alas, that has not been the case (I’m getting around to Tom Selleck and Blue Bloods soon, I really am!).

After nearly six years of riding the roller coaster of stage 4 metasticized breast cancer with my courageous wife Debbie, last year I came to a point of fatigue in which I wanted to resign from parenthood, or at least retire. A friend of mine told me how her parents moved across the continent when she and her sister became young adults. I have to admit that the thought was tempting (my kids are great, but, everyone is human, we have all sinned and come short, and there is always drama in every family!).

Enter Tom Selleck and his new TV series Blue Bloods. This is about a 4-generation family of cops in New York. The father (Tom) is the Police Commissioner, his retired dad was the former commisioner, the oldest son (played by Danny Walhberg) is a dectative, a divorced daughter is a assistant District Attorney and the youngest son is a rookie beat cop. Another son was killed in the line of duty and there are several grandchildren who want to grow up to be -- you guessed it -- cops!

Here is the point of this story. Every episode of Blue Bloods shows Seleck sitting at the head of the table as the entire family gathers for Sunday dinner. Also, in almost every episode there is conflict. Some leaves the table angry. Almost invariably, Seleck’s character says “I’ll handle it” and follows the offended family member out of the room for a talk. He listens patiently, and says something loving and wise. Problem solved, conflict resolved, relationship retored and family continues to rule!

Watching Blue Bloods and Selleck’s character gave me the desire and the commitment not to turn in my dad badge and go off on retirement, not matter how appealing that option seems to me. I realize that a lot of my aversion to constant conflict is connected to childhood traumas and unrealistic expectations of life. Life is conflictual and families do fight. That is JUST the way it is. Dads, we have to man up and do our thing. I heard someone today define a father as someone who says “no!” If dads stop being dads, what kind of world would we live in? Probably a world pretty close to the world actually live in! Most dads are missing in action – others check out early.

So, regardless of the drama, regardless of the conflicts, regardless of the messes, especially including the ones that I often inadvertently make myself while trying to be a dad, I will soldier on … I will cook Sunday dinner, and light the Sunday fire pit, and send out the invitations … so that the house will be filled.

Thank you Tom Selleck!