Geek Parenting on the Positive Parenting Podcast

Photo by Kyle Cassidy, 2016.

Stephen Segal and I talk about our new book, GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family, with Armin Brott, a.k.a. Mr. Dad, on Positive Parenting, followed by an interview with Deborah Heisz of Live Happy.

(I like the message of our book covers beside one another. 🙂 We have some interesting overlaps in our books’ messages: the importance of play, finding your tribe, being grateful, nurturing creativity. )

Click here to listen: GEEK PARENTING Positive Parenting Podcast

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So Say We All: Finding Our Way as Geek Parents

One of the many things that overwhelmed me as a new mother was trying to figure out where I fell on the spectrum of parenting philosophies: Attachment parent? Tiger mom? Ferberization fan? Dr. Sears subscriber? Bringing Up Bébé believer Not to mention a chorus of friends and family with their own sets of best practices. There were so many voices to sort through…from my mother to Mister Rogers to Super Nanny to Dr. Spock, and so many questions: Will you let your baby cry? Does she sleep in bed with you? How long do you plan to nurse? Will you do sleep training? Will you speak to her in different languages? Each question carried its own opinion and the answers seemed to place a parent in some camp or another.

I cannot speak for all new parents, but I certainly felt nervous and tentative. I was trying to do my best and secretly hoping I might find the “magic combination of rocking, swaddling, and shushing” that would help my baby (and me!)  to sleep better, or overcome whatever the next challenge was to come along

I felt like I should “belong” in some camp or another, because how I identified seemed to be important in helping me to figure out what I should do. So I did what I do in most unfamiliar situations–I read everything I could get my hands on and then considered the advice of people I respected. Mark and I tried a few different strategies (some worked, most didn’t), and we eventually fumbled our way into what worked for us: trusting our intuition.

We came to realize that when you’re sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, mentally-drained, and trying to care for your family, it’s really not the time to try on new philosophies or adopt a new world view. Not only did it feel unnatural, but it didn’t stick. Sure, there were things that could be learned, and there was value in educating one’s self about developmental milestones and needs; but we came to feel quite strongly that we needed to trust our instincts–drawing from our inherent strengths, gratefully leaning on the people who offered support, and being humble enough to ask for help when it was needed.

The thing we didn’t realize at the time was that we already did belong to a group, one that was built upon decades of wisdom that we had already integrated into our core being…We were “geek parents.”

We may not have specifically called ourselves by that title at the time, but we did discuss and draw from a common frame of reference that was shaped for years by a steady stream of sci-fi’s pseudo-familial starship crews, comic book examples of courage and persistence, and beloved fantasy characters full of compassion and integrity. Everything we had read and watched and loved had become a part of us and ultimately helped us to be better parents.

Children learn from the world around them, but their first and most important teachers are their parents. They are always watching us, and we teach them with our countless mundane, everyday examples. So in many ways, the path of trying to be a good parent was a continuation of the path of trying to be a good person.

Geek CoverWhen Stephen and I started working on the book Geek Parenting (What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), our idea was never to create a definitive book on parenting or a revolutionary approach toward raising children. Geek Parenting does not claim that any one philosophy should be adopted when making choices about development or discipline. On our pages, there are dozens of parenting gems from a wide range of sources from a diversity of voices, because at its core, that is what it means to be a geek parent.

Every geek parent is made up of a unique patchwork of geek ideas and ideals shaped by their own particular interests and fandoms. Very few are strictly “one kind of geek.” We may have started with Superman or Star Wars, but those led to other characters, other stories, other worlds.

In his “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman wrote some of my favorite oft-quoted lines:

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Of course Whitman was not talking about geeks. Of course we all contain multitudes. But geeks contain particular combinations of multitudes not often found in others: it may be fairy tales and robotics, or gothic architecture and zombies, or steampunk crafting and Slavic mythology. These highly speculative and imaginative stories show us different ways of envisioning the future, revising the past, and relating to all manner of humans, aliens, gods, creatures.

Geek Parenting celebrates those multitudes. It highlights just a fraction of the hundreds of relationships that have made an impact on geek culture and have provided geek parents with tools and examples for how to cope, how to heal, how to teach, how to forgive.

Geek Parenting is not a book that someone can read to understand the secret to being a good parent. Because there is no secret. There is no one path, no one-size-fits-all philosophy that works. Truly, it goes against the imaginative geek spirit to assert that there can only one way to do…anything.

As part of the promotion for Geek Parenting, we’ve launched a website (www.geekparentingbook.com) that will feature, among other things: quote cards from the book, reblogged parenting or geek material that seems pertinent, Geek Parenting memes, and real-life geek family portraits..

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This last part is the most exciting to us because it brings Geek Parenting to life. The portraits will show the beautiful diversity of geek families and the range of geek wisdom that has influenced them.

Geek parents have been outsiders and underdogs, lonely and misunderstood; geek parents have also been heroes and leaders, happy and victorious. Most of us fall somewhere in between. We are scientists, gardeners, teachers, programmers, baristas, firemen, writers, and electricians…Geeks are everywhere, and in many ways our numbers are growing. That gives me hope.

In his now famous TED talk (that has been seen by more than 37 million people), Sir Ken Robinson discusses at length his concern that the schools are educating our children out of their creativity. He argues that the future is going to need creative thinkers more than ever before. “You can’t just give someone a creativity injection,” Robinson said, “You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them.”

I would argue that geek parents are especially good at cultivating environments for curiosity. The multitudes that many of us contain are by their very nature visionary. Whether in life, on the screen, or on the pages of our beloved stories, geek parents have experienced a wide range of what is means to be human, and we have seen countless examples of different possibilities for our future.

That is what Stephen and I want to celebrate in Geek Parenting–the creativity, empathy, and innovation that seem to lie at the heart of so much geek wisdom.

If we can use those lessons to love our children and teach them to question and imagine and strive for a better future, perhaps we will give them the tools they need to make it so.

Photo by Kyle Cassidy, 2016.
Photo by Kyle Cassidy, at  Locust Moon Comics, 2016.

 

Virtual Authenticity

I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity, about what is genuine.

It’s something I look for and love about the people in my life: give me honest grumpiness over false pleasantries. I think that’s why I sometimes have a hard time with sarcasm–if I can’t tell what’s true, it makes me uneasy.

I’ve recently had a few conversations with friends about the internet and authenticity–the ways we portray ourselves and the quality of our online relationships.

Just last weekend, I was at a baby shower for a dear childhood friend, sitting at a table with my sister, my oldest friend, and others from the neighborhood. The conversation turned to the love-hate relationship many of us have with Facebook.

My sister refuses to join Facebook, while the rest of us use it to varying degrees. She teased me about some of my posts, brought to her attention by my cousin, who asked if I really do the things I post about (especially with three young kids).

The things I post about really do happen.

But it got me thinking.

When I post a photo or an anecdote about some small instance of joy, like dancing in the kitchen or enjoying coffee under canopy of trees or laughing with friends by a campfire, it’s not to point to them as examples of my everyday life.

My everyday is filled with a rather unexciting routine of kids, coffee, writing, kids, cooking, coffee, housework, relationships, writing, wine, frustration, bickering, procrastination, overcommitment, deadlines, and so on. The everyday is pretty typical. It’s messy, and I’m generally ok with that.

This is my dining room right at this moment--a mess of homework, Halloween, and the ever-moving piles of paperwork.
My dining room at this very moment–a mess of homework, Halloween, and the ever-moving piles of paperwork.

Sometimes I will post about the everyday, usually if I think it’s funny because I think it helps to know that other people are dealing with ridiculous moments of child stubbornness or homeowner frustration, but nobody wants to read about the everyday every day.

So most of my everyday posts are about coffee or wine. Because the sharing of those seems to be a recognizable symbol for “the routine”–a shout out to everyone else, as if to say “Cheers! We’re in this together, this grind of everyday”–without having to specify the details. It’s like a nod of recognition.

Those other moments: the ones that are silly or playful or creative–they are exceptions and exceptional. They are the moments that make me stop and feel gratitude, they remind me to keep perspective, they show me what the everyday is for.

When I share them, it’s because they are outside my norm, because they are not everyday or typical. I feel like they’re a  gift, so I share them.

I’ve been reflecting about why I post the things I post: on Twitter, on Facebook, on Tumblr, on the blog. Each one is different, a different tool.

This past year I’ve been trying to write as much as possible: fiction, short fiction, poetry, comic book script. Making a  commitment to writing means that I spend a lot more time at home alone on my computer.  When I take a break, I pop online. I read a post or some tweets. Then I go back to work.

Twitter? It’s about community for me, the larger writing/arts community, many of whom are not in Chicago. That’s where I can wave to friends who are also writing at 2am, learn about a new poem someone published, or give congratulations for an award or good review. It’s also where I get most of my news.

Tumblr? I post photos and stories that I find interesting and quotes that strike me as compelling. Much of what I post there if for myself, a sort of bookmark for the future. (I tend to use Google+ in a similar fashion).

Blog? I process the world by writing. When something is really important and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, I often write a blog post. It’s my way of working things out and also inviting a conversation from people I don’t get to see in person.

Facebook? This one is trickier.

Facebook is good for long distance friends and family, for birthday greetings and other milestones. I periodically check-in on people, pick a few folks I’m thinking about and read their posts, skim their photos.

But what about the things I choose to post?

There are the interesting articles and links. I try to only post things I think are compelling or important.

The rest?

I think it comes down to connection.

In her TED talk on vulnerability (and also in her book), Brené Brown says, “Connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives purpose and meaning in our lives.”

I think she’s right. Of course, connection means different things for different people. For some people it’s the close friendship of a handful of trusted friends, for others it’s crowds of fans and followers. Most of us are somewhere in between.

I think at its best, Facebook can be about those little nods that tell us we’re not alone. Especially when we are alone so much of the time.

That’s how I see “likes,” as nods, not in agreement necessarily, but in acknowledgment: I see you, I hear you. In this moment, you are not alone.

Of course, we are. Alone. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s what I loved so much about Louis CK’s talk on Conan.

Louis CK said:

“You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That’s being a person. Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty—forever empty. That knowledge that it’s all for nothing and that you’re alone. It’s down there.

And sometimes when things clear away, you’re not watching anything, you’re in your car, and you start going, ‘oh no, here it comes. That I’m alone.’ It’s starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it…And I go, ‘oh, I’m getting sad, gotta get the phone and write “hi” to like 50 people’…then I said, ‘you know what, don’t. Just be sad. Just let the sadness, stand in the way of it, and let it hit you like a truck.’

And I let it come, and I just started to feel ‘oh my God,’and I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch. I cried so much. And it was beautiful. Sadness is poetic. You’re lucky to live sad moments. And then I had happy feelings. Because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has antibodies, it has happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness. So I was grateful to feel sad, and then I met it with true, profound happiness. It was such a trip.”

I think Louis CK is  right. We need to be able to just stand in the way of moments without the distraction of the phone or the filter of the camera. We need to be able to feel them fully, to be present.

But after? After those moments?

After that profoundly sad moment happened, Louis CK shared it on live television, and it has been archived and passed all over the internet.

Maybe somewhere in there lies the balance?

We need to experience genuine moments–moments of joy or sadness or revelation. But after? Afterwards we can share them.

Facebook can never be a substitute for a face-to-face talk, a hug, the energy of a lively dinner conversation, but the internet does give us a starting point from which we can further connect.

I think it’s always important to remember that the virtual is only part of the whole.

When I raise my mug of coffee in the morning, know that I’m probably setting it down on a large pile of papers to be sorted. Just because I don’t mention them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.

When I’m singing to the Beatles in the kitchen, it may to be to drown out the sound of the kids complaining about homework or fighting over who gets to use the cool, sparkly pencil.

And when we’re dancing in the living room–I often close my eyes not to see the clutter –because sometimes it’s better to just be present in the moment. The rest of it can wait.