Hey Chase – ICYMI ILY IRL

There is no better ego rush than having small children greet you upon retuning home from work. You could have blown your sales presentation or embarrassed yourself in a meeting and your littles would still shower you with a hero’s welcome. Those days are long gone at our household, but I remember them fondly. As soon as I’d pull into the driveway, Ryan would come tearing out of the garage, as fast as his three-year old legs could carry him. Lagging behind him would be Chase, lumbering with the stiff cadence of a new walker, trying to keep up with his older brother. They’d scream “Dada! DADA!” like I was the Beatles getting off the plane at JFK. Crouching down, I’d spread my arms and receive the two loving lumps of toddler slamming into my chest, one after the other. There were ear-to-ear smiles and lots of laughter. I had, once again, preformed the miracle of making these two humans immensely happy, merely by returning home from work. It was one of the most selfishly gratifying times to be a father.

Dad coming home is no longer the gala celebration that it used to be. I certainly don’t expect the boys to be faithfully waiting at my armchair for a pat on the head like the Banks children in Mary Poppins, but perhaps they could do better than a grunt of acknowledgement while playing video games. At this point in their lives, I don’t need the boys’ evening greeting to be the barometer of our relationship. What’s important to me is our ability to communicate with each other, father and sons.

When I was kid, my father and I never found the right channel to communicate with each other. For me, there’s one conversation that exemplifies this breakdown. It’s a December evening and the Chicago Bears, in the midst of a then-undefeated season, are being throttled by the Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football. Dan Marino is carving up the vaunted 46 defense like a Thanksgiving turkey. Back in Manlius, NY I’m watching the action on my 13-inch Toshiba in my bedroom. During the game, my father popped his head through my bedroom door.

“How are you doing?
“Good.”
“How was school today?”
“Fine.”

My dad, correctly assessing that the fate of Mike Ditka’s team was more important to me than discussing biology class, withdrew and closed the door. It may seem like the typical teenager withholding information from parents, but three decades later this moment still resonates with me and exemplifies our uncomfortable collective nature. Our ten word exchange was typical for the two of us: formal, awkward, terse. It spoke to our relationship that was more ambivalent than angry. Most of the time, we operated like two independent nations–neither allies nor enemies–who generally respected each other’s sovereign borders.

That’s why, it was troubling to me when I started to see a seemingly similar pattern with my younger son, Chase, and me. You can take the scene above and replace Monday Night Football with a Wings of Fire book. Chase is a voracious reader and escapes into his own secure cocoon with a book. There have been times for the sake of his own safety, nutrition, or social awareness, Jenni and I have uttered, “Chase, you’ve got to stop reading!” As an English teacher, I know Jenni feels like she’s betraying her people giving such direction to her child. Still, it’s an impenetrable reading world Chase resides in, and it’s difficult to engage with him. And so, I’ve had my struggles trying to talk to him after school and work. Is this the Bears/Dolphins all over again but with the Mudwings and Sandwings?

But beyond the distraction of reading, Chase and I communicate very differently. I thought I was deep in thought most of the time, but Chase makes me look like a lightweight. We joke with Chase that he’s an “old soul” and he often looks like he’s ruminating with the wisdom of someone well beyond his years. In the face of his rapacious need for understanding deeper issues, discussing the trivial events of “Who do you eat lunch with today?” don’t often produce fruitful dialogue. A card-carrying introvert, Chase doesn’t have the energy to run through who played what on the playground of Lake Elementary on a daily basis.

There were also situations where Chase would make conversational overtures only to have them land unsuccessfully. Every now and then, Chase would ask if I would want to hear about the book he was reading. Unfortunately, Chase’s gifts do not include concise summarization and this would often lead to a lengthly oration about The Ruins of Gorlan. When he sensed he lost his audience, Chase would become discouraged. One evening, slumped over the dinner table, Chase lamented, “There’s no one in my family to talk nerd stuff with.” WHAT!? Hasn’t he seen the picture of me dressed up as Donkey Kong’s Mario for Halloween well before NES was released? Doesn’t he know that I was one of only a handful of kids in America who had the Star Wars droid factory from Kenner? Is he not aware that I worked in the A/V department in college? in COLLEGE! Alas, not all “nerd stuff” is created equally and one man’s Atari Adventure is not another man’s Five Night at Freddy’s. Unable to find a mutual connection, I believe both of us were frustrated on the communication front.

And then a couple months ago, an unexpected breakthrough. I forgot what was going at school, but there was something I wanted to know the outcome of before dinner. I told Chase to text me on mom’s phone after school and update me. I’m not sure if it was a test grade or a part in school play, but Chase dutifully reported via text later that afternoon. We exchanged a few sentences and I went to back to my day. The next day I got another text from Chase’s on Jenni’s phone. Another report on school and even asking me about my day. Another day, another message from Chase downloading his day and letting me know what was going on with him. The afternoon texts continued the next day and the next.

We never intended to set up a daily text conversation after school, but that’s exactly what happened. Every day, shortly after two ‘clock, I look for Chase’s signature hand-raising bitmoji heralding the fact that he’s ready to report on his day. The conversation is not ground-breaking stuff, but it’s certainly more effective than trying to talk to him with his face in a book. While the social cues of an in-person exchange can escape our son, texting is incredibly straightforward: you type then I type, my bubble follows your bubble. Three blinking dots mean that your partner is typing. To signal the end the conversation, we use the gift 🎁 emoji to mean “wrap it up.” To Chase, it’s a conversational tennis match with concrete rules and set boundaries. And while body language and voice intonation supposedly makes up the majority of communication, there seems to be very little ambiguity in the afternoon text dialogue. Chase is focused and attentive to the conversation. He’ll even answer the most mundane questions about lunch or PE with mood appropriate GIFs. All of which raises the question: is it possible for someone to make better eye contact and be a better listener via text?

Who knows how long our after-school texting pattern will last. Right now it’s dependent on Chase being able to use mom’s phone. I’m guessing someday Chase will have his own phone and perhaps we’ll continue to text in between his e-book reading and whatever apps of the moment kids are using. When you hear about parents and teenagers texting each other inside the same house it makes their relationship sound disconnected and emotionless. Yet, texting has done just the opposite for me and Chase–built a bridge of intimacy and shared experience. Years ago, Chase used to run out to my car and greet me after work. We no longer celebrate Dad’s return home with a hug in the driveway, but we’ve found our place to connect at the end of the day. 🎁