Jack of All Trades
I'm feeling a little wistful right now because Monica and I are preparing to move away from our favorite landlords. The home we're leaving is a cozy little house where we rent the second story. The family on the first story consists of two very cool, very hippie-type parents and their twelve year-old "whoops, we're in our forties!" son. It has been a real pleasure to get to know them over this year. All of us (the twelve year old excepted) have killed many an evening on their cool, shady front porch, killing appropriately southern and alcoholic cocktails.
Despite all the fond memories I have of my landlords, I do have to feel for their boy.
I always see him been shuttled to and fro. Currently, he is:
- In an advanced school, taking subjects years beyond most kids his age
- Preparing to test for his first degree black-belt in Tae Kwon Do
- Taking piano lessons
- Taking trombone lessons
- Actively participating in Boy Scouts
- Doing regular community service
- Playing little league baseball
In short, the poor kid doesn't have a single damn moment to himself. He is overscheduled enough to make my head spin, never mind his own. Speaking of that, he is also one of the few eleven year-olds I know currently going through a psychological meltdown. The other day, his mother came to me seeking advice on where to find a good shrink for him (I'm guessing he's got at least an hour or two free that he's not sleeping, eating, or taking care of necessary bodily functions). Evidently, he is very upset because he is not doing as well in everything as he wants to do.
The whole business really highlights a trend I see in aspirational American parents these days: the desire to have your child perfectly well-rounded and "good" at everything he does.
I know I experienced this in my own childhood. My parents and their compatriots would sit around and engage in pissing contests involving, of all things, their children!
"My kid can do this."
"Yeah, well, my kid can do this and this, all while doing this."
"My kid was ranked number one over-all in this."
Now, I should qualify my critique before I make it. I have no issue with parents being extremely active in their childrens' lives. In fact, I am a strong proponent of that behavior. If such interest was more prevalent, I think our society would not be having nearly the broad array of problems that currently afflict us.
But there's extremely active, and then there's using your kid to try and satisfy some weird desire/illusion cooked up by your own ego. The latter is what I'm addressing here.
I clearly remember a year in my teens where I was involved in lacrosse, wrestling, football, weight training, theater, youth orchestra, christian life services, Catholic CCD programs, and the latin club. My parents used to love rattling off that list to people, and I always felt like I had done right by them by having such a massive list.
There were a number of problems with that list.
To start with, I really had no genuine desire to do the majority of the things on the list. The result of this forced activity was a nasty little bed of resentment towards my folks that I'm still not sure I have burned through entirely. I feel fairly certain that the emotional baggage caused by my list wasnt' healthy. I think an important part of parenting is not just making your kids try different things, but actually paying attention to discover what they enjoy.
Also, it is worth mentioning that one of the best parts of being a kid that age is what you end up getting into during the spare time you're supposed to have at that age. Without spare time, my brother and I would never have created a river of fire in our driveway, nor blown up an outhouse in the Tennessee Valley, nor made a very ill-advised attempt to snare a raccoon and both end up getting rabies shots. While exploits like that will never be in a textbook about parenting, those goofy adventures are really a precious part of childhood... and they come from having too much damn time.
But I digress. The lack of spare time isn't my biggest bone to pick with the process.
The real bone I have with these child "mega-lists" is the end result: a nation filled with half-assers. People that very self-importantly claim experience in about twenty different areas, but their knowledge is about as deep as a kiddie pool and their ability to actually execute in any of these activities is virtually non-existent. Is this really the kind of populace we want? People that consider themselves vastly educated and sophisticated, but lacking real ownership of anything?
Looking back on my life thus far, one of the most gratifying parts of it was the moment where I accepted that I could not be good at everything. In fact, I narrowed my number of pursuits down to three: being a good family man, being a good budo man, and being a good lawyer. Everything got a lot better after that. No longer was it a bad thing for me to be a poor musician or a largely ignorant historian. Those aren't my pursuits, so I don't stress about them too terribly. If I have need of those things, I've got enough brains to seek out someone who really does pursue them. I don't feel that freakish obligation to be skillful at everything I touch.
In some part, I'm fairly sure my world-view on this topic is colored by the Japanese. In Japan, people have made art forms out of shooting arrows, serving tea, and even burning incense. The point is always the same: studying one thing in depth, coming to know it on a profound level, yields character and insight unavailable to dabblers. All the different pursuits are fingers that point to the same ultimate truths.
I really do believe that.
Because of that, I lament the years I wasted sporting my impressive dabbling list. I feel like they would have been much better spent devoting myself to the study of just one or two things I really cared about. A common trend I see in the folks I really admire is their ability to pick something, and totally invest themselves in it.
What I want to explain to my landlord's son is that he doesn't have to be good at everything. It is not bad to try out a wide variety of things (that's necessary, in fact), but then find one or two things that touch your heart and really try to know them deeply. Don't worry so much about having a big, impressive list.
The most impressive people I know have pretty small lists, as a matter of fact. They're a lot closer to the truth than any dabbler I've ever met.
- Ken