If I were granted a do-over for the whole establish-a-household-and-rear-children thing, I’d equip my house with a corded landline and then bar cellphones from anywhere indoors other than the mudroom.

Other people’s kids always seem to grow up faster than your own.

There are many kinds of love. The most extraordinary kind is the love God has for us—it’s eternal. And then there’s the love parents have for their kids—bigger than you can possibly imagine. There’s friend love, which can be magical, but it can also change over time. And then there’s married love. This kind of love is extraordinary, because it requires so much, and also gives more than you can imagine.

— Amy Low, to her kids • “New Eyes” (2024), an essay published in Comment

Name a movie in which there’s a disagreement between child and parents and the parents turn out to have been unequivocally right.

I’ll wait.

The difficulty in answering this question is representative of a major cultural problem. Filial piety is miles better than whatever it is we’re doing now (just-try-to-keep-the-kids-safe-and-happy-ism?), but it stands zero chance of ever working if it gets zero support from culture machines.

Familiarity breeds laxity.

By this I mean that in my relationships with my wife and kids, I am not consistently stanced to apply the same effort toward socially sensitive demeanor and diction that I do in my relationships with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. My habitus outside the family is more disciplined and sympathetic than that within. There’s a certain alertness and natural effort to fit with other people that seems to arise only outside the comfortable confines of home.

I’d like to reimport that stance back into my home life. Sure, home is for relaxation. But I sense in myself a slackness of love. Carla, Sullivan, and Éa deserve better.

I have occasionally found myself wondering whether journaling and posting as frequently as I have been is good. Doing so requires time and attention that I could deploy toward other, more directly interpersonal matters. And it’s probably sometimes a neurotic response to the fear of death. But the fact is I do feel more fully alive when I have been writing. And just now, as I was grabbing a late-morning protein snack from the kitchen, it occurred that I would pay a non-significant sum to have access to the collected written output of my parents, my grandparents, or my great-grandparents. The more voluminous and representative of their psyches I knew their output to be, the higher sum I would pay. I want to know them. It would be good for me to know them. It would be good in the way similar to how reading a great novel is good: You get to know your fellow humans, you cultivate sympathy, and you get to know yourself, all of which foster loving, harmonious, sympathetic, self-controlled interactions with others.

If I can provide my descendants with a thick account of who I was, I find myself suddenly quite confident they will be the better for it. And not because I’m a paragon. No, even if I were a scoundrel, I think they’d be the better for it.

Just re-listened to: Cusp (2018) by Alela Diane. A gentle yet sometimes haunting song cycle foregrounding self-harmonized alto vocals delivering maternal lyrics over perfectly understated instrumentation. Indie piano folk with just enough vocal reverb to make the songs feel old—which is weird because in the era these songs lightly evoke, no one made records with reverb on them because they were doing it on wax cylinders. But hey, it worked for Fleet Foxes, and it works for her, their obvious fellow Pacific Northwesterner and tourfellow.

A mid-hoc surmise I surmise will be of some encouragement to current and future fellow parents of teenagers: Our relationships with our teenage children, especially those of the same sex as us, are likely to go through an extended span of thinness. That is, it’ll seem there is no relationship, that we’re just a chauffeur and a cook and a money tree. But don’t panic. Don’t press to hard. You know what to do. Just keep doing that and be patient. The kids’ll come around.

Reading Jeremiah 7 helps me make sense of Jesus’ saying that He speaks in parables expressly to obfuscate the truth for some of His hearers. If my children have been acting up for so long that I’m about to punish them, I will stop giving them instructions meant for their nourishment for the time leading up to their punishment lest they get the idea that they can just always push me to the edge but I’ll always relent immediately upon their tidying up their act. If I never delivered a punishment, we have impunity, and impunity is bad.

Pretty much everything written in this book about adolescents could be written about any of us (except the course of development stuff and the added intensity and volatility it brings).

I take it that it is normal for an adolescent to behave for a considerable length of time in an inconsistent and unpredictable manner; to fight his impulses and to accept them… to love his parents and to hate them … to revolt against them and be dependent on them … to be more idealistic, artistic, generous, and unselfish than he will ever be again, but also the opposite: self-centered, egoistic, calculating. Such fluctuations between extreme opposites would be deemed highly abnormal at any other time of life. At this time they signify no more than that an adult structure of personality takes a long time to emerge.

Anna Freud is quoted as saying the above in 1958 in the front matters. It is good to keep in mind.

Perhaps most important, this book will ditch the dangerous view that adolescents are mentally healthy only when they can sustain a sense of feeling good. In its place, we’ll get to know a truly useful and psychologically accurate definition of emotional health: having the right feelings at the right time and being able to manage those feelings effectively (xxiv).

The above is the main point of the book. And a good one not only for adolescents, but for all people. A good corrective to some of what you hear out there, and a good corrective to how I think sometimes (although I never put it in the exact term “mental health” but rather in my constant quest for happiness).

First and foremost, we want our teenagers to regard their feelings in this important way: as data. Whether painful or pleasant, emotions are fundamentally informational. They bubble up as we move through our days, delivering meaningful feedback. Our emotions give us status reports on our lives and can help guide decision making (10).

Love the above.

Emotional pain promotes maturation Feeling the emotional impact of difficult experiences helps us to grow up (17)

Ethan? Paging Ethan? She wrote that one having heard it from you.

People stop maturing at the point when they start abusing substances…when substances come into the mix…maturation halts. Whatever else can be said about drugs and alcohol, they are very good at blocking emotional pain, and therefore the maturation that comes with it. (17)

Handy to keep in mind when interacting with anyone.

Remaining calm when teenagers become undone communicates the critical point that we are not frightened by their acute discomfort, and so they don’t need to be frightened by it either (20).

More good advice above! Read it again!

“I can tell you from both the research and my own clinical experience that emotional intensity actually peaks around age thirteen or fourteen and then slowly tapers down from there” (78).

Got it.

As for effective apologies, researchers have found that they include six components: explicitly saying that you are sorry, offering an explanation, acknowledging responsibility, promising not to repeat the mistake, trying to make amends, and requesting forgiveness.

Memorize the above! SERPAF is a good mnemonic.

[S]leep is the glue that holds human beings together (160).

Hear ye, hear ye!

Sullivan said yesterday that every conversation with me feels like an argument. That’s the sort of comment that prompts change in me, I hope!

“Since all his visits were beneficial, his step or holler through a doorway got a bright welcome“ (Toni Morrison, of her character Stamp Paid in Beloved).

I’m very rarely Stamp Paid with Sullivan. I need to change.

“With.”

— God, in answer to another round of “What should I do?” or “How to decide what to do?”

Parenting Scriptures

• “Fathers, don’t exasperate your children, but nourish them in the Lord’s paideia and instruction” (Ephesians 6:4, mine).
• “But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return” (Luke 6:35-38).
• “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).
• “I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other” (John 13:35, CEB).
• “While Jesus and his disciples were traveling, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message. By contrast, Martha was preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. So Martha came to him and said, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself? Tell her to help me.’ The Lord answered, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won’t be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:38-42).
• “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently” (Proverbs 13:24).
• “Be glad in the Lord always! Again I say, be glad! Let your graciousness show in your treatment of all people. The Lord is near. Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:4-7).
• “…[Jesus] in [me] and [the Father] in [Jesus], that [we] may be perfected in unity, so that [we] may be perfected in unity, so that the [kids] may know that [the Father] sent [Jesus], and [the Father] loved me, just as [the Father] loved [Jesus]” (John 17:23).

All of the above except for the Martha and Mary bit, the excerpt from Philippians, and the substitution-heavy quotation from John came to me last night on a walk I took up and down Balmoral Way by myself just after a similar walk Carla and I took in which I was grumpy and we discussed, seemingly to little good, how it is that I feel so frustrated with the kids sometimes and speak them accordingly. It was seemingly to little good because Carla took it as another opportunity to insist that I see a counselor. Perhaps more helpfully, she did say that she thinks I expect too much of the kids and out of the kids.

But Lord, You are a wonderful counselor Yourself, and you proved it yet again last night.

The fact is, I’ve been worried about Sullivan and Éa. I worry that our relationships don’t look like the kindred feeling I have with, say, Ethan. They’re not enthusiastic about the same things about which I’m enthusiastic—namely, You. They’re wrapped up in television shows, Minecraft, and carbohydrate-heavy foods. I’m worried I’m going to leave them without a spiritual legacy because I didn’t lead them correctly to You.

But what is it I really want of them? I want them to be loved and know it, both as an end in itself and that they may love You and others in turn. The only way to inculcate that is to quit wringing my hands over their performance and demonstrate the Love! Monkey see, monkey do! Right now, the only good they seem to know of me am to them is as a provider. They need to know it’s more than that: That I joyfully care about and care for them and caringly enjoy them. They’ll know where I get the Love if I love them. The greatest apologetic argument is a life lived abiding in Jesus.

I’ve already grown more gentle this morning as a result of Your input, and their response and responsiveness to me have already improved.

So don’t worry about them. Don’t worry about anything. Be gentle. Be patient. Don’t fret their salvation. Just love them. What kind of education and instruction is Jesus’? Think about that? How would Jesus treat Éa and Sullivan?

As for life more generally, I asked You whether I should abandon my scheduled approach to life. You said no, my structure is good. But I should just listen for Me all the while. Hold on loosely to your plans. Don’t be greedy or anxious about accomplishment or checking off boxes. Dismiss the oughts and act in grateful, joyful love only. Sullivan and Éa will feed on that easygoing, lighthearted life in Love, in Jesus.

I like retelling the events of the day with the kids and Carla. It is enjoyable. Plus, it helps me remember later.

Yesterday on our drive home from Sullivan’s band concert at Park Forest Middle School, Carla asked what our distinguishing traits were within the family. We ended up calling her hilarious, Sullivan inventive, Éa strong, and, after “stinky” was offered, “kind” and “loving.” How about that! My life is complete.

Sullivan: Mom, can you snuggle me?
Carla: I already snuggled you.
Sullivan: But that one didn’t take.

Mom, why is mama’s milk discontinued?

— Éa

[five minutes after bedtime lights out]
Sullivan: Mom?
Carla: Yes?! [long pause]
Sullivan: Why, when, or how did burritos originate?

Éa: So when I was on my way home from the park, and old man and an old woman were walking on the path and they said, “Are you all by yourself?” So I told them, “Um, no my mom said my brother and I could go to the park and she’s just right over there,” and I pointed to my house.

Carla: But I didn’t know you were going to the park. You didn’t tell me.

Éa: I know. It was just the easiest way to get a worried old man and and old woman out of my way.

We are ready to send Everett and Oak home. But we’re not. I’m sure these are the typical feelings of a foster parent. Life is going to be different. Quieter. This evening without them because they’re with Mommy and Daddy makes that sure. But as Everett would surely reciprocate, “I will miss you, Everett.” And I will miss you, Oak. We still have three weeks with them, so let’s make them count.

We asked Éa and Sullivan today whether they’d like to foster again. Sullivan said, “I’d like a year.” And Éa said, “Yeah, in like, five thousand weeks.”

A home is fuller if you’re stretched for the sake of relationships. Let us dig in to more people. Let us “love [our] enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35). Then I will live without regret.

What could be better than co-ambulation with your mother?

— Scott, suggesting to Carla that she join Sullivan on a midday walk

One thing that pleases me—well, two: First, Mommy and Daddy snuggles. And second, rock dust on my hands.

— Sullivan

I’m in no mood to journal: I feel disappointed in myself today for underaccomplishing, mostly because I didn’t make time to exercise today and haven’t managed to wheel back to get any post-launch work done on Frank’s website.

But Ethan and I had a stimulating conversation about how to live our lives following Jesus while we watched Sullivan and Everley take swim lessons and Éa and Anthem clamber around the bleachers. Unfortunately, it makes me want to get Carla to quit her jobs so we can more readily foster children.

Being a Christian family man can be confusing (see 1 Corinthians 7:32–35).

“The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.”

— David, Psalm 9:9. A motto for foster care.