Little Ted, Little Steve

My window is open for the sake of it being open.

Ryan Matsumoto

Sitting at the dinner table as a child, my father would typically forgo the “How was your day at school?” line of questioning and instead creatively continue my education over green bean casserole. An electrical engineer by trade, Ted Matsumoto peppered his children during dinner with a combination of trivia questions, logic puzzles, and problem solving. Once after dinner we had to submit our drawings of ideas to keep the squirrels off the back yard feeder. Not only was my father the president of the local school board, he was home schooling long before it was cool.

So trained in answering his quizzes and questions, to this day my brain is hyper-alert for these type of queries and primed to retrieve the necessary information. If my wife casually asks, “Guess who I ran into at the grocery store?” I’m disappointed if she reveals the mystery shopper before I’ve had time to answer. She, on the other hand, is frustrated by her husband pausing to think while she holds three bags of groceries.

But I am afraid this pattern of behavior goes deeper. It appears I enjoy badgering my children with the same type of questions. While we don’t have squirrels in the back yard, Ryan and Chase are getting the same type of extra-curricular dinner topics. One day, as I was riffling through the pots and pans to find something to trace a circle for a Venn Diagram, I realized this was something my father would have done. Uncovering my true identity as my father’s son I was Luke Skywalker after the truth was revealed in Empire Strikes Back–“Nooooooooooooooo!”

Your world turns upside down when you finally realize that what you thought was your personality was really your parent’s. As horrifying as this awareness is, there’s a paradox here: We dread becoming our parents, but we delight when our children remind us of ourselves. I call this the Expanded “Cat’s in the Cradle” paradigm. Named after the schmaltzy Harry Chapin song, it goes beyond “my boy was just like me to” to “my boy was just like me, I’m just like my dad, and the three of us are remarkably similar.” I believe, in fact, this was Chapin’s original chorus before he shortened it to make the song more radio friendly.

It’s easy to see the Matsumoto DNA in both boys, but the Force is especially strong with Ryan. We look alike. Our hair sticks up in the same spot. We share specific mannerisms. But beyond the physical resemblance, our personalities are definitely cut from the same cloth.

Consider this recent exchange in the car between me and my oldest son:

Me: “Why is your window open?

Ryan: “My window is open for the sake it of being open.”

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Loquacious and precocious, Ryan interacts comfortably with adults, impressing them with his natural vocabulary. His use of phrases like “actually” and “as well” make him seem older than he actually is–something my mom always said was true when I was a kid. An eager linguistic parrot, Ryan steals all of my jokes, typically moments right after I’ve made them. I’ll make a witty observation and seconds later Ryan makes seemingly the same observation with a slight twist. It’s like listening to a Rosetta Stone lesson on how to speak Matsumoto.

And oh yes–we love being right. Isn’t that what my father’s dinnertime discourse was about–the correct answer? Sometimes Ryan and I are so resolute in our believe that we’re right, we have a tendency to enthusiastically correct others. (Note to Ryan and Steve–others don’t always love enthusiastic correction.) The flip side of our conviction is that we’re spirited debaters, fierce advocates, and loyal friends.

Generationally situated between Ted and Ryan, it’s easy for me to see the connective thread between the three of us. So as much as we think Ryan is “Little Steve,” perhaps he’s rally “Littler Ted.” And sure it’s endearing to see qualities in Ryan that recognize in myself, I’m guessing Ryan might not always share that sentiment. His own rebellious youth is yet to come and, with fatherhood, perhaps his own understanding of the Expanded “Cat’s in the Cradle” paradigm.

For now, Ryan generally relishes the role of “Little Steve” and I am grateful for how our similarities create a common bond. Additionally, I can appreciate that many of these similarities are shared with my Dad. Although it’s hard sometimes to realize your personality is not genuinely your own, I can make piece with my familiar heredity.

Are we destined to become our parents? Their genes and childrearing set a course for outlives, but it is our hands on the rudders that steer us into the future. Luke Skywalker was lot like his father, but ultimately chose not to follow him into the family business. The choice is ours and the answer are not black and white, like the diametrically opposed sides of the Force. We all have personality tendencies based on our family tree, but the manifestations of those tendencies in how we live, how we love, and how we parent can develop in a number of ways. As I learned as a child, there’s more than one way to keep squirrels from climbing up a bird feeder.