We don't even know if he's straight yet

"We don't even know if he's straight yet."

This is what a friend whispered to me the day my first child was born, back in 1996. Our baby Ethan wasn't even 24 hours old, and his doting grandma had just suggested that he might grow up to marry a friend's newborn baby girl. At the time, I rolled my eyes at grandma but bristled at my friend's response. First-time dads can barely figure out which way to tape on a diaper; this "friend" could keep her insinuations to herself.

Twenty years later, I now think that every doctor should say that same phrase to every newborn's parents. Maybe not immediately after recording the Apgar, but at least once before they leave the hospital with their tiny squirmy poop machine.

Why? Because it reminds new parents that even the most "obvious" assumptions about our children could easily turn out to be wrong. Through the years, I've remembered that whisper and used it to check my expectations. My son doesn't like soccer? I'll get over it. My son has one weak eye and needs an eye patch for a while? He'll be fine. My son wants to join the military? Well... all right, I guess I'll get over that, too.

As for being straight, well... Ethan did in fact grow up to like girls.

He also grew up to become a creative, smart, artistic young woman named Emma. Emma came out to us as a trans girl about a year ago, and although the physical transformation will take a while yet, in our hearts and minds she is fully Emma. Medical records, tax returns, and job applications still say Ethan, but those will be corrected in time.

The people I've told about this, they praise me for being supportive and accepting. They tell me it must be hard for a parent to go through such a thing. And I can testify they're right. It is hard. It's hard to watch your child suffer with the choice of living in the wrong body, or living with prejudice and discrimination. It's hard to visit your child in a lock-down psych unit because depression drove them to the verge of suicide. It's hard to take 20 years of habits and expectations, and turn them inside out. But it has never been hard to love Emma, or to feel proud of her. Those are and will always be easy for me.

"We don't even know if he's straight yet."

That one sentence, whispered 20 years ago, may have been the preparation I needed as a parent to understand that my assumptions and expectations will not always be right, even when they seem obvious. Like "It's a boy."

Last week I introduced myself to a delightful young trans woman, a barista at one of my semi-regular coffee shops. She began transitioning a few months ago. I simply wanted to say hello and offer a few words of support. I'm glad I did; we only had a few minutes to chat, but she's very sweet. Unfortunately, her parents weren't able to accept who she is. Instead of realizing their assumptions about her were wrong, they reacted as if she had broken their trust.

If only the doctor had told them, "We don't even know if he's straight yet," they might have been better equipped to understand that her transition has nothing to do with them. Of course it makes them uncomfortable, but their discomfort is irrelevant. Their discomfort simply represents the gap between their expectations and reality. Reality doesn't change just because you wish things were different. But expectations can be changed.

Believe me, it's damned hard to discard assumptions you've carried for 20 years. If you accept that those assumptions were wrong to begin with, however, it becomes possible.

We are all just stumbling through life, figuring it out as we go. I don't know the right way to be the father of a trans woman. Twenty years ago, I didn't know the right way to be a father. All I really know is that it involves love and patience and acceptance. And I think I can manage that, especially for my own child.

This blog post is my first public reference to Emma's transition. Some of you who have known Ethan may be shocked and unsure how to respond. That's okay. No response is necessary. If you feel a need to say something, comment or DM or email or call. It's all good.

2006 revisited on the eve of going to college

On Wednesday, our firstborn goes to college for the first time. Huge moment in any parent's life, right? Tonight, our neighbor who is also off to his first year of college came over to catch up for a few minutes.

The boys grew up together, with cowboy Star Wars battles and races around the cul-de-sac and matchbox cars and video nights. But they haven't hung out together in years; in middle school they found separate friends. You know how it is.

But as our neighbor arrived, I remembered that back in 2006 the four boys--this neighbor, another neighbor boy who moved away, and my two kids--put together a time capsule. We didn't bury it, but we did hide it, Indiana Jones-style, in our garage among the tools and boxes of Christmas decorations and other unused things.

Of course I had to have them open it.

Ethan opens the protective plastic bag.

On the front were the names of the boys. The oldest was 11 at the time, and I think Ethan was just nine. Sam was only six, and apparently--according to the note included in the time capsule--he didn't contribute anything to the box because he was "selfish and evil." Later, though (as you can see from the inscription on the box itself), he added a marble.

Sam added the marble later. He wanted credit.

The note details what each boy put in and why. These were their "most treasured possessions," which might be a slight overstatement.

The note, and all the items. Pokemon, pennies, tamigachi, a Sierra Nevada bottlecap (?!?), plastic army men and soldiers... everything dear to a 9 year old boy, I suppose.

I've sealed it back up and put it back in the garage. Some day someone will find it or remember it, and wonder why we bothered to keep it all those years.

It's amazing how kids grow up so quickly. Young men off to college.

My favorite picture of the boys, EVER.

The privilege of driving a stick shift in suburbia, and being able to laugh about it

My younger son recently got his learner's permit, and he's been eager to get out and drive as often as possible. He's only had four hours behind the wheel, and he's already almost--not quite, but almost--mastered the stick shift.

This is the car.

Last night he took me out for a practice drive. Fifteen minutes of warmup through our suburban neighborhood with broad, sparsely trafficked streets; gentle curves with good visibility and a few stop signs; and the mildest of hills. Christmas lights ranged from simple elegance to the most garish displays of electrical overindulgence I've seen anywhere. He almost missed one stop sign. Almost.

After the warmup, we went out on the bigger streets. Multiple turn lanes at stoplights, crossing major intersections, a lot more traffic. He was nervous but had done this once before and handled the vehicle well. Another stint through another suburban neighborhood... then:

He made a good start from a stop sign into a tight left turn despite the headlights of an SUV close behind. He got into second gear, then went to shift into third but missed and hit first again.

Have you ever accidentally downshifted when you meant to shift up? The car bucks like crazy, the engine fighting against momentum and slowing like you slammed the brakes. To his credit, he got it back to neutral and then found third gear almost immediately. He was flustered but not panicked.

Until the SUV behind us turned on its red and blue flashing lights. Yup, a cop. A cop at 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday night during the height of holiday party season. My son smoothly glided to a stop on the shoulder with a little coaching from me. The cop pulled up behind. My son was now very flustered as I retrieved his permit from the glove box and handed it over.

"Can I see your license, please?" The cop shined his flashlight into the car but stood behind the driver's window. I couldn't see him. My son handed out the permit, and I leaned forward into the light and asked if he wanted my license, too.

The cop's face broke into a big, knowing smile when he looked at the permit. "That explains it," he said. He said he was just making sure "we got home safely because from the sudden deceleration in the middle of the street, he wasn't sure we would." I.e. he though he'd spied a drunk driver. But it was just a kid, learning to drive a stick shift. A few more seconds of kind and gentle banter between us, with my son explaining the mis-shift, and he went on his way. My son did an excellent job of recovering, pulling away cleanly, and finishing the last 20 minutes of our drive without any mistakes.

For me, that is a great story, a funny anecdote, a memory I'll enjoy for decades. For my son, it's a great learning experience.

It wasn't until this morning that I realized it could have been a very different kind of story, a very different kind of learning experience.

If we hadn't been white.

I don't know the officer we met, and he was absolutely right to stop us to check us out. And he was right to be cautious as he approached the car. Once he saw us, though, everything changed. If we hadn't been white, would he have so easily dropped his caution? Maybe he would have. Maybe another guy wouldn't. With us, he was professional, kind, understanding, and efficient. If we'd been black, would we have gotten the same quick and cheerful dismissal?

I like to think in our town, yes. I like to think that our town is somehow more enlightened about diversity than the towns we've read about so often in the news recently. But I don't know. That's probably what the white people who live in those towns like to think, too.

For me, this is still a great story, a funny anecdote, a memory I'll enjoy for decades. And for my son, it's still a great learning experience. For him, the lesson is that he doesn't have to fear cops or be nervous if he ever gets pulled over again.

I wish that were the lesson that all 15 year old boys could get when pulled over for a simple shifting mistake while out learning to drive with their dads.

But I understand that's not the case.

Yet.

Some day. Some day.

Do smart people make stupid parents?

Having kids changes everything. But does becoming a parent make people stupid, or is that caused by society on a bigger scale?

I'm referring, today, to this blog post by KQED which skims the surface of a serious epidemic facing today's middle class families: The overwhelming academic pressure that teens face these days.

For you non-parents, and you parents of younger kids that haven't yet hit high school, this is totally a thing.

Parents want the best for their kids. They want success for their kids. They know success comes from hard work, but it also comes from having opportunity. Opportunity comes from having a degree from a prestigious college. Everything good parents do comes from the well intentioned quest to give their kids the best opportunity for success.

So when we see things like this (from the UCLA admissions FAQ)

The average admitted applicant to UCLA for the Fall Quarter 2013 had a weighted GPA of 4.41, an unweighted GPA of 3.89, an SAT Reasoning Test score of 2055, an ACT Assessment composite score of 30, 21 semesters of honors/AP course work completed between 10th and 12th grades, and 53 semesters of college prep coursework overall.

HOLY SHIT.

That's the average admitted applicant. Average.

It's no wonder that parents go a little out of their minds when they see such statistics. It's no wonder they start pounding on their kids to study harder and do more homework and stop being children when they're still in fifth grade. Because by the time they're a freshman in high school, if they're not on a path to complete 21 semesters of honors/AP classes over the next four years, they might not get into that prestigious college.

Thus, they project a crushing fear of failure onto their kids. They don't stop to think about other options, only that a 4.40 weighted GPA might not be enough to get into UCLA these days. The kids pick up on this fear but don't have the maturity to self-regulate. They're just kids. And they're under this impression that their lives will be over if they get a B or don't score in the 90th percentile on the SAT.

I'm a reasonably smart guy. I graduated from UC Berkeley with an engineering degree. Maybe that opened some doors that wouldn't have been open had I gone to a school with a less grand reputation. Then again, maybe not.

At work, in my neighborhood, at my kids' schools I'm surrounded by smart people. Many went to colleges I'd never even heard of before. Some went to "party schools." A few never went to college at all. Yet they have good jobs, nice homes, great kids, comfortable lives.

What goes wrong in a parent's brain that allows them to think 12 hours devoted to schoolwork every day is a good thing? That missing family dinners for studying will lead to a better life? What lets them torture their own kids with this crushing fear of a potential failure that, quite frankly, isn't even real? What makes them think they're competing against other kids, rather than against this mythical ideal?

Better to try to guide teenage kids into adulthood by letting them understand that finding the right fit is more important than squeezing into a prestigious torture chamber. We spend so much of our energy trying to be "the best" as defined by rankings and tests and brand recognition that we forget that we should be focusing instead on being the best "me" we each can be.

It's difficult as a parent to break away from the overwhelming social pressures. But ultimately our children's success and happiness will be best served by helping them learn how to create their own path that is the right path for them. Yet even some of the smartest people out there seem to turn stupid when it comes to their kids. Love them. Guide them. Coach them. Push them to be the best they can be.

But don't hold them to arbitrary measurements that don't fit them in the hopes that they will become something they're not. 

I'll have a new book out soon. You can get a free preview.

I have a new book coming out this week for kids in the 3rd to 6th grade range. It's about a kid who has to make some tough choices about friendship, honesty, and his future, all staged in a golf setting.

If you've read my other books, you know this new one is outside my usual audience, but it was fun to write. The idea popped up last spring when a colleague decried the dearth of good golf-themed books for kids. Yes, she really was upset by that. I did some research and had to agree. So I decided to write one.

I gag when I read sports stories that are all about the main character winning the game in the end to become the hero, and I'm bored with sports stories that focus too heavily on the sport itself. So when I sat down to come up with the right story, I thought about my own experience with golf.

I am not a golfer. I have hacked around in the past, and I still enjoy a round with friends from time to time. Years ago, a good friend who is a great golfer watched me hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. He finally shook his head and said, "You have a beautiful swing. I have no idea why you can't hit the ball straight."

So you can see why I had no interest in writing a story about the highly technical nuances of the sport. But golf is so much more than just the physical activity. Golf is a connection between friends, between family members, between the individual and nature. Golf is as much about the bonds we create while playing as it is about the competition. On the flip side, the game itself is one of personal skill, concentration, and integrity. It's a very introspective game, and it can also be a lonely game.

Those are the very human elements of golf that drew me into this story. Jay, the main character, is a very good golfer for an 11 year old, but he's got real-kid problems. Parents recently divorced, peer pressure, the general stresses of growing up. He's faced with tough decisions that test his character and his relationships with his parents and his friends. Golf is central to so many part of his life, and when he's faced with losing that, it means more than just some game.

The book is scheduled to be available January 16 (print only), but recent crazy weather may push that out to the following week. In the meantime, I'm making free e-copies available to anyone who promises to post an honest review to Amazon or Goodreads by the end of January. Simply email me with the subject The Bad Lie Preview and let me know what e-reader you have, and I'll send you the file.

UPDATE 1/13/2014: The weather has indeed caused a delay. The book, originally scheduled to be available January 16, will now be available on or after January 22nd.

Sometimes my son hates having a writer for a parent.

Out at dinner the other night, my younger son finally got fed up.

"Sometimes I hate having a writer for a parent," he grumbled.

"Only sometimes?" I asked. I got all warm and fuzzy. Not just because I succeeded (again) in ruining my children's life, but also because he recognized and appreciated the word-nerd sarcasm I had just unleashed in a teachable moment disguised as humor.

See, I love to call out two ambiguities in particular, and he had just stumbled into one of them.

One is the misplaced modifier, as in

Ugly and ineffective, teachers shun corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool.

Okay, I admit the above sentence is actually unambiguous. But how often does the speaker really intend to call teachers ugly and ineffective, do you think? (Hmm. Maybe I should have used a different example.) Anyway, I usually just enjoy these gems quietly, without comment.

The other one I love is more than/less than, as in what my son had just said:

I like bread more than my brother.

Even within the context of our conversation, the ambiguity of this sentence gave me pause. Did he like bread more than he liked his brother? Or did he like bread more than his brother liked bread? This was a toss-up, so I asked him, and we got into a lengthy discussion of the possibilities of this construction.

A particular pet peeve of mine is the frequent misuse of "more than me" when "more than I" is intended. Take a simple example such as

You like fish more than me.

While it may be true that the listener prefers the company of fish to spending time with the speaker, usually the speaker means that the listener enjoys fish more than the speaker does. If that's the case, the speaker should have said

You like fish more than I.

(Kids especially hate this because it sounds awkward and stilted, so they think it's wrong.)

The simple test here is whether the sentence holds its proper meaning if you add the verb phrase at the end. As in:

You like fish more than I like fish.

If, however, you really mean that the listener prefers fish to you, then go ahead and use the object "me" here. And of course, You like fish more than me like fish makes no sense.

Besides providing a way to titillate grammarians, this rule can also come in handy when ambiguity is what you're looking for. For example, if you wish to tell someone who doesn't like cheese that you find them distasteful, you could say something like this:

I like cheese more than you.

The listener will heartily agree, thinking that you meant to recognize their dislike of cheese. But you and I both know you meant something different. And who could blame you? I also like cheese more than people who don't appreciate this grammatical concept.

And no, I never did find out whether my son liked bread more than he liked his brother.

And finally, because I had no photos of fish or cheese handy, here are some kittens I've shown before:

Empowering others to their own self-empowerment

Yesterday a friend pointed me to a link with seven awesome affirmations, reasons to "stop proving yourself to everyone else." There are great points there for everyone to remind themselves of from time to time, especially in the Internet era.

But as I read it, I thought about how these lists are like Twinkies for the psyche--good for the sugar rush and quick calories for one's confidence, but not enough to overcome true self esteem difficulties if the environment around you pushes you down all the time. It's easy to tell yourself to be who you really are, find your own path, own your happiness... but if those closest to you don't give you the space and support you need, you'll keep getting dragged down.

As a parent, youth coach, former scout leader, and manager in the workplace, I am constantly focusing on empowering others. I believe in all seven points in the article and use my own version of them to guide me in coaching, managing, raising my kids, talking with friends--everywhere I interact with people. Maybe that's just my positivity strength, but everyone is capable of being a force for empowerment.

With that in mind, here are seven points for those of us who want to empower others to grow, to accomplish all they can, to be happier, to suffer less stress.

1. Don't compare them to someone else.

Being compared to someone else sucks, especially if you're the one that falls short. Celebrating the abilities and accomplishments of others is wonderful, and we should do that. Saying that Susan's husband is a great cook, however, is different from saying, "I wish you could cook like Susan's husband." Being happy your son's friend got straight A's is different from saying, "I guess you're just not smart like he is."

We all have different talents, strengths, likes, and dislikes. The girl that can't spell might be a dynamite poet. The boy struggling in Chemistry might be a whiz at Physics. Instead of pointing out where you think they're falling short, focus on what they do well. Recognize their talents. Don't get mat at your kid if he'd rather socialize than bury his head in a book; chances are, the parents of the bookworm wish their kid would be more outgoing and social. Love them for who they are, acknowledge and understand their strengths, and guide them in a way that will help them harness those strengths.

2. Understand, then embrace, their dreams.

Popular culture is full of stories of parents forcing their kids into certain careers or molds. Sometimes it works out, but come on. If you were forced into a career you hated, how happy would you be?

People perform better and live happier if they can pursue what they love. What they love, not what you want them to love. Maybe you think you see them being successful in a particular path if they'd only commit themselves to it. But they never commit, even if they've tried it. Frustrating, right? Forget it. Their dreams are not about you. Their dreams are about them. They won't commit to your ideas because they're your ideas, not necessarily their ideas. Instead of trying to fit them into roles, help them figure out for themselves what they love. Then, embrace it. Support it.

3. Illuminate their path, but don't walk it for them

We all know the term "micromanage" as a bad word. For good reason. Not only does a micromanager frustrate the people they're controlling, but they're also creating stress and stifling growth. This is true both with leading teens and managing the workplace, where we strive to develop and grow talent while simultaneously accomplishing the work that needs to get done.

The manager's job is to set up the tasks, then provide the tools and materials for the worker to get the job done. Get out of the way and let them do it. Maybe they'll do it a different way from your way, and that's okay. If they seek help, give it. Shine a light on the path so they know where to go, but don't control every step of the way. People perform far better if you let them unleash their own creativity, and they take far greater pride when they know they've accomplished something on their own.

Micromanaging says I don't trust you to do it right. Handing them the keys and giving them a map says I know you can do it. Which is more empowering?

4. Make sure they stop looking up for a bit.

We're all under such pressure to reach a consumerism-defined version of "success." It's so easy to look at those who have more than we do and think we're not as successful as we should be. Nicer cars, bigger houses, brighter jewelry, fancier clothes. Don't feed that monster. It's just one more way that society makes us feel less than we are. If you think about it, advertising exists to make us think our life sucks, and to make us compare ourselves to some consumeristic ideal that, when you look at it, is all veneer and no structure.

If you know someone perpetually feeling stressed about their wealth or feeling inferior to those who have more things, help them stop looking up the economic ladder for a bit. Help them look down and see how high they really are. (With 1.6 billion people living without electricity, if they can read this blog post they're already in pretty good shape.) Then, go a step further and help them understand that they should not define themselves by the things they possess. And prove it by caring about them, not about their things. Be a good friend.

5. Be patient.

Not everyone develops at the same pace, so be patient. I see parents getting so frustrated with their children because things seem so much easier to adults than to kids. The kid has only 15 years of life experience instead of the 40 or 50 the parent has, after all. The kid isn't going to automatically know or be able to do things adults take for granted. It starts early, with new parents fretting that their baby isn't walking as early as those other babies... give it a rest. All kids grow up. Parenting is a constant exercise in seeing the world from the kid's perspective and helping them grow up. Same thing is true with adults. We are all growing and developing every day, facing new challenges and trying to learn new things. Don't get frustrated that they're not expert in everything right now.

6. Let them fall... but be ready with the first aid kit.

We've all seen the graphics going around the internet that success can't be reached by a straight path. Success is reached through a multitude of missteps, learning with each one. Parents and micromanagers have difficulty seeing their children and workers fail. It could be because they think the failure would reflect badly on them as the parent or manager. Or it could be that they don't want the task to go undone or be done incorrectly. Or, they might just be uncomfortable seeing their kid or worker feel bad at falling short of the goal.

But if you do everything for them, they'll never grow. They'll never feel the sting of losing or the elation of achievement because it will always be dampened by the knowledge that someone was there to fix it and make it all right. Sometimes, you have to be there to catch them before they get hurt. Other times, though, it's more important to stand by and watch, then pick them up and apply the first aid afterwards. Either way, you have to let go and allow them to grow. But let them know you're nearby.

7. Don't try to make it all about you.

It isn't about you. So don't try to make it about you. When they're telling you something, don't hijack their story and tell your own. When they're telling you what they want out of life, don't compare it to what you want out of life. When they're working out a problem, don't try to make them do it your way. So what if they want to load the silverware into the dishwasher upside-down? So what if they want to drive the back streets when you would take the highway? It's not about you, and you can't successfully make it about you. When you try, all you do is make people feel that you care only about yourself and don't care about them.

And maybe that's really the case. But it doesn't have to be.

I left my wife and kids for the US women's national team #the99ers #NineforIX

I just finished watching the awesome documentary Nine for IX: the 99ers. While I adore our current national team and totally support our resident Golden Bear, that 1999 team was something truly special.

In 1995, still flush from the thrill of attending men's World Cup games at Stanford Stadium, I caught every moment I could of the US women's national team on TV as they made a great showing and finished in third place in the second ever women's World Cup. I was 28, a new homeowner, married five years, and only just beginning to think about having kids.

I fell so in love with the women's game, and with the US team in particular (not a fan of Norway's super physical style but loved the flow, precision, vision, teamwork, and heart of the US squad) that I began hoping our first child would be a girl so I could teach her soccer and somehow take part in this movement I felt growing all around us. (A year later, our first son was born, and even though he doesn't like to play soccer, I still love him.)

Fast forward four years to 1999, when the US women's team was charging into the World Cup with incredible talent and experience. The team even featured a local girl, Tiffany Roberts. As the final approached, a friend I played pickup with suggested heading to the finals in Pasadena.

So I left my three-year-old and three-month-old with my wife and jumped in the car with my buddy and another guy. We drove all night, arrived a few hours before the third place game, and slept in the car in the parking lot for a couple hours before the early game.

The atmosphere was fantastic. Kids everywhere, especially teen and preteen girls with their parents. Unlike the rough reputation of men's championships overseas, this was exactly what sport should be. I don't remember much of the game itself. What I remember best is the walk into the stadium and the feeling that this was a pivotal moment in the growth of soccer in the US. (A year later I watched Eric Wynalda take over the inaugural MLS game with a beautiful goal that announced soccer's permanence in the US. But I don't think that goal would have meant as much without the magic of this women's team in 1999 and the dramatic world cup win over very, very good competition.)

More than a decade later, I found myself sitting across a dinner table from two of the members of that team, Julie Foudy and Mia Hamm. And, for the first time in my life I was star-struck. I'd met some pretty famous people before, had given presentations to some powerful people. I tend not to be that awed by fame. But this was different.

These women didn't have million dollar contracts. They didn't play full time in a professional league. They didn't have the infrastructure, financial support, or TV coverage of other athletes. Those weren't their reasons for playing and winning. What they accomplished was not just win a few games, but inspire an entire generation of kids, who now are growing up and having kids of their own. Without downplaying the importance of the men's team and the efforts of MLS, I think it was the 1999 women's team that was the spark that kindled the fire of soccer passion in the US.

If you haven't watched the documentary, try to check it out. Maybe it means more to those of us who were electrified by the team at the time, or maybe its effects are universal. Either way, I think it's a great inside look at the team and their reflections today.

she's a girl, not a woman. fifteen will get you twenty, dude.

Remember way back last week when a man was arrested for having sex with a minor?

A women's water polo team.
I am sad to say I did not
personally take this photo.

The man was a girls' water polo coach at our local high school. I don't know either the girl or the man, but from the rumors shoved down my throat, this seems to have been consensual. (The law, of course, insists that a minor cannot consent, so  the dude is in big trouble for his galactically awful judgment. I don't excuse him. Not one bit.)

But here's the thing. The high school administration, and the local sports community at large, are as guilty as anyone in this.

I'm a writer. I think words matter. The difference between "infant" and "toddler," for example, is huge. An infant isn't mobile, can't pull an unattended knife off a kitchen counter and stick it into an electrical outlet (or into a little brother). Infants are cute when they cry. Toddlers are Terrible, all the time. We all know it without any more information than the words infant and toddler.

What about the difference between "girl" and "woman"? Girls are innocent and naive. They're Laura Ingalls. They fantasize about being Disney princesses swept away by Prince Charming, and they wear fairy wings even when it's not Halloween. Women, however, have a gritty, world-wise toughness. They listen to All Things Considered, count points, and have credit card debt. They understand that romantic comedies are shelved under Fiction.

The article linked above, you may have noticed, referred to the arrested man as a "girls' water polo coach." Our high school, however, consistently refers to our girls' sports as women's teams. When I was growing up, I was on the boys' track team, not the men's track team. Why are we in such a hurry these days to treat our kids like adults? Why can't we let them be kids?

Kinda says all we need to know about that, doesn't it?

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when the participants are minors, I think they should be called boys and girls, not men and women. The coach was told, over and over, that he was coaching women. The girls were told, over and over, that they were women. What, exactly, did the administration expect to happen?

Boy Scouts: Going from wrong to still just as wrong

Me when I used
to wear the uniform
of a Scout leader.

On Friday an email from Diversity, Inc hit my inbox with an exciting subject line. Because of my display settings, the ending was cut off, so I saw this:

BREAKING NEWS: Boy Scouts to End Gay Ban for...

Even though I was already a couple minutes late to a lunch meeting, in excitement I opened the email, only to find the rest of the sentence:

... Members, Not Leaders

Essentially, gay boys can participate in Boy Scouts, but gay and lesbian adults cannot. (The Board of BSA still needs to vote on this new change.) This makes no sense. None whatsoever. Go ahead, I dare you to try to make a rational argument that convinces me this makes sense from any perspective. Any perspective at all.

"A step in the right direction?" I guess. But this paragraph in the above linked article gives me pause:

In making its announcement, Boy Scouts spokesperson Deron Smith said the decision would be that “no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference.” The choice of language alone indicates the cultural disconnect of the Boy Scouts: The term “preference” is anathema to the LGBT community, since it indicates that being LGBT is a choice, which it is not. Even mainstream media organizations like the Associated Press and the New York Times no longer use the term “preference” in relation to orientation.

I wonder how "equal" a gay boy's membership will be in many troops. Also, it's unclear whether individual troops will have the ability to keep a boy out, simply shunting him over to a different troop.

But yes, a step in the right direction. At least BSA is no longer saying that being gay is inherently morally wrong.

Oh, wait, yes, they are.

Still hiking, camping,
and all that as a dad but
not as an ASM.

By keeping gay and lesbian adults from participating as scout leaders, BSA is perpetuating their paranoid bigotry. The message is that a gay adult is somehow a danger to the boys in the troop. How could a gay father or a lesbian mother be a danger to boys in the troop? Being gay does not make someone a pedophile. Gay people don't try to recruit children into being gay. Being gay does not mean you have a harder time with camping, tying knots, building fires, or any other activity I've been trained to do as an Assistant Scoutmaster.

This compromise makes no logical sense. I don't see how the religious conservatives will be okay with it. And I don't see how anti-discrimination groups will be okay with it. I certainly am not.

From a funding standpoint, BSA must have cleared this with the Mormon and Catholic churches. They can't afford to lose that revenue without gaining corporate donations, and I can't imagine any corporation that currently does not give to Boy Scouts changing their policy based on this.

BSA is still discriminating. They're still wrong.

And I'm still not wearing the uniform.

robot battle - a #VEX ing day (blog with photos)

Last Saturday, I was part of the small team that hosted a robotics tournament featuring at least 300 participants and spectators, 28 teams, three live displays, two playing fields, and a qualifying spot for the World Championships on the line.

Although we had only a vague understanding of the equipment and software before setting up Friday night, it's amazing that we got the tournament underway only one hour delayed. Huge thanks to Dougherty Valley High's team for bringing the second field control unit; without that, we might have ended at 8 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. If we were lucky.

Friday night we set up the two fields and tested out the network, the three projector displays, and the fields. We didn't have all the equipment to actually run a practice match, so we quit setup around 8:30 p.m. and resumed about 6:30 Saturday morning. The kids were a big help setting up the fields, but the rest of it was up to the three adults who were the least clueless about technology... and who were also the least clueless about not volunteering.

The first field went up quickly. Notice it's not wired yet.

It took surprisingly long to figure out where the tables would go to control the flow of the matches.

The second field didn't arrive until 7:30, but it was up in 15 minutes.

The finished field, 

My schematic of the setup. Fields, laptops, projectors all clearly diagrammed.

I'd attended portions of VEX tournaments in the 2011-2012 school year, but I'd never hosted one. It's an enormous task, far more complex than I had imagined. And chaotic. When you have dozens of teams of high school geniuses vying for top honors, you get some questions like, "When will you have the schedule done?" And, "How about now?" And, "What about now?"

Our club would be fielding three different robots, the A, B, and E teams. They set up shop in the location closest to the concession stand, and they spared no effort in making their space comfortable.

The kids brought the sofas from the school library. Guess who had to put them back?

The work pit was also productive, though, with mods going on all day.

Once we got the first competition underway, however, there were very few glitches. The second match was rerun because a bad cable put one team at a disadvantage. Other than that, our fields and network worked pretty reliably all day. But there wasn't a single second I felt relaxed because if anything had gone wrong, I wouldn't have had a @#$!# clue how to fix it.

The first match is underway! And... it all works!

Most impressive to me (besides the fact that we got the equipment to work) was the behavior of the teams. I did not encounter a single student who behaved badly in any way. One team had a complaint about the field not working (we decided it was team error, not field error), but they were courteous and gracious about it despite their disappointment. A couple of adults got a bit feisty from time to time, but for the most part everyone was civil and helpful and quite pleasant.

Even though the competition was cutthroat.

Look at the intensity on Ethan's face as he drives the bot!

Teams paired up in a 2-on-2 competition, red team versus blue team.
The team to score the most beanbags in the goals won the round.

The spirit of competition was trumped only by the spirit of collaboration, with
teams helping other teams overcome technical anomalies throughout the day.

The least likely robot, the E Machine, made it to the quarterfinals on the strength of
great driving and the luck of being paired up with excellent partners in the late matches.

The E Machine tended to get stuck on top of the beanbags and had some trouble
lifting them up to the goals, but in the end it did better than either of the A or B bots.

This competition is a great event, and it makes me sad that it's not more aggressively promoted to the high school community. I get constant emails about fundraisers and events for all kinds of sporting events at the high school, yet only two or three faculty and none of the school administration came to the event (that I was aware of).

We had about 15 or 18 schools represented from all over the region, fielding 28 different robots. Throughout the day we had at least 300 people participating or spectating or working the event. The club president, a senior at the school, did a fantastic job under great stress, as did the parent volunteers and our faculty advisor. The kids in our high school robotics club didn't fare so well in the competition, but in my eyes (and in the comments from everyone I spoke with), they represented well with great sportsmanship, a solid effort, and good hospitality. No awards for Northgate this time, and a thorough trouncing in the quarterfinals. But an event everyone should be very proud of, and which was terrific fun.

If I had to miss coaching my other son's 5-2 soccer victory over one of the best teams in our league, then this is what I would want to be doing instead.

Good job, Northgate Robotics! We'll get 'em next year.

why I think my brother is a genius

You may think that my brother is a genius because he cures cancer. But it took a nine year old with a Polaroid camera to illustrate his true genius.

Way back when, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and Santa was still clinging to reality, my nine year old nephew, Max, armed with a Polaroid instant camera, approached his father on Christmas Eve. Young enough to still be skeptical of skepticism, he said to his father, "My friends say Santa isn't real. So I'm going to leave this camera here next to the Christmas tree, with a note for Santa. So he can prove he's real."

The note said, "Dear Santa, please take a picture of yourself in front of our tree. Thank you, Max."

My brother put his son to bed and set out the Christmas presents. He ate the cookies and drank the milk. And he worried and worried what he would say to his son in the morning when there was no photo of Santa in front of the tree.

In the morning, my nephew ran to the living room and, ignoring the presents, went straight to the camera.

The camera was still there. The cookies and milk were gone. Max's note was still there. But scribbled at the bottom of the note was this answer: "Max, thank you for the milk and cookies. Mrs. Claus will love the photo. Sincerely, Santa."

Max looked heartbroken as he wailed, "I should have told him to leave the picture!"

That is why I think my brother is a genius.

for Christmas all I want is fewer dead children

The holidays are approaching. Oh hell, they're here already.

This means relatives visiting, tight travel schedules, crowded supermarkets and honking horns at the mall, office parties, and end-of-year deadlines. It also means we're approaching the darkest day of the year. What does this all add up to?

Stress.

Every red light seems to last longer, doesn't it? Every dinnertime seems to bring more telemarketer calls. Every commute seems to have twice as many idiots in twice as many cars.

Am I right?

Yesterday, a child riding his bike to our middle school got hit by a car. The kid went to the hospital but will be all right, thank goodness. I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. But I do know from personal experience how distracted parents get this time of year and how impatient they are behind the wheel.

Your kid is slow to wake up, slow to get ready for school. He'll still be barely on time, but now you're five minutes late and that means you could miss the start of your 9 o'clock call. Or your yoga class. Or your coffee date. Or your housecleaner's arrival. And there are all these people driving slowly in front of the school and just freaking hurry your ass up you morons!

Or maybe you're approaching the school and you just found out Johnny left his all-important history presentation poster at home. What do you mean I have to go home and get it? I've got things to do!

A few years ago I volunteered as a crossing guard at our elementary school. You'd be shocked at how many people make illegal and ill-advised U turns during the busiest pick-up and drop-off times. And how many drive 35 or 40 miles an hour through a crosswalk when kids are standing at the curb. Normally sane and intelligent people suddenly decide traffic laws are more like suggestions and don't really apply when you're in a hurry anyway.

After all, 11 year old kids are so aware and responsible and careful. Right? What could go wrong?

Despite my fashionably reflective orange vest and the huge STOP sign I was holding and my very cautious nature, I was nearly hit four times as a crossing guard. Once, a huge SUV barreled through the crosswalk at about 30 miles per hour while I was standing on the double-yellows with the STOP sign out. The mom was looking behind into the back seat at her kids, yelling at them as she pulled from the curb and into traffic. Had there been a kid stepping off the curb at the same time he'd have been killed. Had I been two feet more to my left, I might have been killed.

Seriously, people. Slow down. Pay attention.

The uniform comes off: @BoyScouts and @bsamdsc, you got this WRONG.

Sometimes an event happens that clarifies a difficult, murky situation. Such an event happened today. I got an email. That in itself is not unusual. This email came from our local Boy Scouts council leadership. That is a little unusual, but not terribly. But when I received this particular email, I swear I could actually hear that other shoe hitting the floor.

My last blog post was about BSA's national anti-gay policy. That post focused on the meaning of leadership. How can BSA profess to teach young men to become effective leaders when they're saying that roughly one in every ten boys (or one in every twenty-five, depending on which experts you believe) need to be excluded?

I think BSA's policy is morally wrong, ethically wrong, and also wrong-headed. It's ass backwards from a leadership perspective, from an American perspective, and from a management perspective. Why are gays excluded? Gay does not equal pedophile. Gay equals gay. Pedophile equals pedophile. BSA's history is littered with documented cases of covered-up child molestation. The anti-gay policy didn't do any good then in protecting the boys. Only in the past few years has BSA put in place strong policies to protect boys from predators, including background checks, biannual youth protection training, no solitary one-on-one contact, etc. Had those policies been in place, policies that protect against pedophiles, then maybe that abuse could have been prevented.

But that's not my point. My point is the email I got today. You may have read about that boy in a town nearby who is a shining example of all things Boy Scouts. Oh, wait, sorry. There's this one thing. He's openly gay. And for that, he was denied his Eagle rank, for which he accomplished all the requirements. The Scoutmaster of his troop refused to sign off on the boy's excellent Eagle project. And now, in this email I've received, the Council stands behind the Scoutmaster's decision.

I've heard this argument made before. We were just following orders. People might disagree about the policy, but there's nothing we can do. Our hands our tied. It was a "good faith" effort. (Which is an odd use of the phrase here since faith (in the religious sense) is typically correlated with gay discrimination (see: reasons Prop 8 passed).)

Anyway, this email hit my inbox hard. I'd imagined the policy to be a result of BSA being headquartered in Texas. Everyone in California knows that Texas is a wacko tea party Bible Belt kind of place, right? That could never actually happen in the Bay Area. (Ooh! Ironic prejudice alert!)

Well, it did. It happened here. In my own council. And they aren't standing up for the scout. They're backing the adult leader. Which is what has happened for decades. Too bad for the 17 year old boy who did everything right and trusted the adults around him. Too bad they are kicking him to the curb. But the adults, they made a good faith effort, you know?

No more for me. I cannot wear the uniform any longer. I cannot hold an official position in the BSA organization, no matter how puny and insignificant my role as Assistant Scoutmaster of a troop of 35 boys is. When a boy as courageous and upstanding and model as that boy is (according to what I've read... I do not know the family personally) is crushed just for being who he is, it's wrong. As an organization, we should be celebrating his leadership and accomplishments. As a society, we should be congratulating him for overcoming the bullying he's experienced.

In Michigan, an unpopular girl is made fun of by her peers, and she gets a huge rally of support from her community. This boy accomplishes all he has done, and the adults around him tsk-tsk and suppress him further, rallying around the poor Scoutmaster who was put "in a difficult position."

It's all so backwards and wrong. It makes me really sad. Shame on you, BSA. Shame on you, Mount Diablo Silverado Council. I know you will grow up and change one day. But today? Today's a bad day.

Donation report for June #ebook #contest blog with photos from camp!

You all might remember that I'm running two contests during the summer, and also that I'm donating all my royalties from all sales of SEMPER between June 9 and August 18.

By any measurement but mine, the response so far has been, well... Underwhelming. Disappointing. Pitiful. Lame. My measurement, however, indicates that things are going really well. Because, well, some people are reading my book, and there were two new unexpected 5-star reviews posted to Amazon recently. Plus, the effort I've put into promotion has been, well... Underwhelming. Disappointing. Pitiful. Lame.

You might see the cause and the effect there, if you look really hard.

Anyway, on to the Results So Far (excluding free downloads):

Semper e-book sales (US)	19 copies	$32.64
Semper e-book sales (other)	0 copies	$0.00
Semper print sales	5 copies	$13.58
Total	24 copies	$46.22

So, not a lot. The good news for all of you is that there are very few contest entries so far, and the contest runs another 6 weeks or so, so you've got plenty of time to win a $50 donation to a teacher, and a $10 gift card for yourself.

Oh, and I had the very, very great satisfaction of learning that the boy scout camp where my kids go one week every summer has a library. So of course I inscribed a copy and donated it to the library. I hope some of the kids read it.

Sequel Update

Going well but slowly. I'd hoped to have it out in November, but that's looking unlikely due to things like Day Job obligations and really awful stuff like spending quality time with my kids in the wilderness of the Sierras (last week) and the heart of our nation's capitol (next week).

Photos from camp!

The Program Office and flags

Lovely mountains surrounding this gorgeous valley on the Stanislaus River

Finally arriving at camp after 2+ miles hiking!

The boys getting ready to break down camp after a week.

My truck. Probably the only 1994 Toyota SUV in the country with
stickers for Obama, Glacier National Park, and NaNoWriMo.

Easter poem

The challenge at this contest was to write something about Easter. I came up with the following. OK, it's more about parenthood than Easter, but it at least has Easter as a backdrop.


The... um... Resurrection?

The rev'rend thought it might be fun
To have an Easter play
And give it to the kids to run
Cuz we were in his way.
On Easter when the curtain rose
The Rev let out a roar,
"That isn't how the story goes!"
And up when gasps galore.
Samantha, dressed up as a nun
Went into Jesus' tomb.
Tom said, "Hey, sister, take this gun.
There’s zombies in that room!"
But then Darth Vader blasted her
and Tommy shot him dead,
and Princess Jasmine (Jennifer)
cut off poor Tommy's head.
"A cowboy? No!" the Rev'rend cried
As Billy galloped in
With Snow White standing by his side
(but it was just Corinne).
A werewolf howled at the door
Before the curtain dropped.
We all yelled "Wait, we got tons more!"
As in the Bunny hopped.
The Rev looked like about to burst
And growled through his tears,
"This Easter, it’s the very worst
I’ve had in sixty years."
But someone started clapping then
And everyone joined in,
And then my dad screamed out "Amen!"
above the glorious din.

Mexican ice pops

Yesterday we went to Mi Pueblo supermarket in Pittsburg to get burritos for dinner, some Mexican bread (pan dulce), and a few other things.  It's a lovely market, bright and big and clean and very festive.  The food court is quite good (Ethan gave the burritos 9 sombreros out of 10).

On the way out, Sam noticed a huge bin of ice pops and begged to get some.  It was just a buck fifty for a big pack of them, so we figured even though the unfrozen liquid glowed like it had been packaged in Chernobyl, we could try it.  I knew we'd be in for some hilarity, however.

How the #@?# are you supposed to eat an ice pop in this shape after it's frozen?

First, Sam cut off the thin end.  He quickly realized that unlike with an Otter Pop, you can't squeeze the thick frozen part out through the tiny opening.  Also, sucking on the end of the plastic was somewhat less than satisfying.  We ended up slicing the whole thing open and dumping it into a bowl.

We've puzzled over it for some time.  The boys even googled the manufacturer to see if they had an owner's manual or instructions on how to eat the damn thing.  Personally, I'm fascinated by the crimp in the middle.

So how about it, friends?  How does one effectively eat one of these things?  I am baffled by the design.

I don't think "Asteroids" had the same effects

Our Wii is on the fritz.  I think the laser is off track or something.  At first, it caused minor withdrawal symptoms in #1 Son, but he soon got over it and found other ways to occupy himself (notably his iPod Touch).

Apparently, according to science, this is also destroying his ability to drive in fog.  He's only 14 and doesn't drive yet, but don't let that fact cloud the issue at hand.

The NPR article linked above references science done by researchers that, quite frankly, could have come to me first and saved some of their grant money for a truly kick-ass publication party.  This research shows that shoot-em-up action video games, like the Call of Duty series that my boys and I enjoy, enhance certain skills such as focus, multitasking, and the ability to take in visual data and process it quickly.  The end of my blog post linked above theorizes exactly what this science shows.

Which of course highlights the subtext of this post:  I am a genius.

Predictably, however, NPR readers went ape shit at the suggestion that action video games could have any effect on society other than to create the next crop of war-mongering misogynistic philandering neanderthals--i.e. Republican Congressmen.  (But let's be honest, without war-mongering misogynistic philandering neanderthals, who would protect The People from gay marriage?)

Be that as it may, I believe this research, and I've always thought that video games are not entirely useless.  I can see these skills in my boys.  There may be other ways to enhance these skills (football, hockey, soccer, and basketball come to mind), but I think today's child needs both physical activity and video games.  Plus books, theater, and social groups.

Video games should rarely be taken as more than a special kind of toy, but people also need to realize that toys build skills, and these toys build a lot more skills than the ability to grow up into a successful and productive psychopath.