5 Things To Learn From The Descendant Dad
Recently, Brooke and I were finally able to sit down and watch The Descendants (2011) starring George Clooney. Alexander Payne directed this authentic portrayal of a family dealing with loss and betrayal in the setting of beautiful Hawaii. I have always been a fan of Payne’s earlier films, About Schmidt and Sideways. His films are far from plastic Christian family films and are R-rated, full of characters who are busy, frustrated, but also have had a taste of what joy could look like in life by their ambitions. These three movies are representative of a fallen world yet a world full of real people with real flaws we all can relate to. Any movie willing to remove the mask I can appreciate. I’ve written about this before but in all of art, I try to look at where Christ can teach us about how to live, even through a movie like The Descendants.
Years ago I asked an older friend of mine how he was doing with his kids. He said something like “You know, I have been spending a lot of time with my kids but the hardest part isn’t that, it is how to best engage with them.” I wasn’t a father then but it stuck. I thought of my own parents and the times we bonded best and it was almost always when there was true engagement through conversation, experience, and genuine discussion.
The Descendants reminds me of how I am supposed to be engaging with my kids. As I write, my girls are only 2 and 4 but it seems evident that if I don’t start doing this now, it will be more and more difficult to do like what we see in George Clooney’s character.
As a parent, I am learning these 5 things about what I need to do to be a good parent:
- Be present. You can’t be a parent without first establishing that you are there for them. Your job may be important and incredibly busy but there is no more important job than being there for your little ones.
- Listen. The more I ask the girls questions, the more I discover about their hearts through what they like and don’t like, etc. Sometimes this requires me to be extra attentive when they start talking about the most trivial things but they want our full attention.
- Be patient. There are days that my kids won’t want much to do with me. Sometimes they just want their mom more (like what The Descendants implies). Never feel like what you are doing is a waste of time because by being there for them, there will be the right time when they come to you.
- Pursue. Don’t be too frustrated if they push you away. Continue trying to engage. Whether kids admit it or not, they want us as parents to show continual interest and keep that hand extended no matter how bad things get. You may have a broken relationship with your child and I can’t imagine how hard that would be. Give healing some time and never stop your pursuit.
- Join them. Go on adventures together. I read a great story in Meg Meeker’s book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters about a father who despite not having a good relationship with his daughter, he did what he knew best and took her camping. Even the trip it didn’t solve everything, the shared experience broke barriers and opened up the relationship to grow again.
Ditching the Pacifier
The past few weeks my lovely wife Brooke and I have been talking about a strategy to get rid of “The Pacifier”.
Duh duh duh…
Yes, any parent out there knows exactly what I’m talking about. The pacifier is just about the best and worst invention created for a young child. We have a 19 month and recently turned 3 year old. We knew that if we tried to get rid of these things both would need to do it at the same time.
No turning back.
Truth is we have been trying to do this ever since our oldest was 17 months old and our youngest was born. It just didn’t stick. They love their pacifier. It soothes them. I get it. I like a nice cup of java every morning because it does something similar to me. Our girls call the pacifier a “Bobby” anyway. We keep asking “Who is this Bobby?!?!” Can we punch this kid because we hate this thing you so eloquently call ‘Bobby’?” Our oldest girl just picked up the name “Bobby” from a friend of hers. It has stuck. (In the future I sure hope she doesn’t date some guy named Bobby because I’ll immediately dislike him.) Nevertheless, I read here about 150 other variations of names that kids call them. I hate them all and you should too.
As suggested by some friends (I think), we bagged up all of the pacifiers in our house and took them to a toy store. We promised the girls they could exchange their pacifiers for a baby doll of their choice. We tipped off the person at the cash register that we’d do this and when we made the “exchange of goods” the girls had no problem whatsoever. But we knew once nap time would come all hell would break loose. Oh and it did. The house became like “Nam” as portrayed in the movie Apocalypse Now. It’s been pure psychological warfare since with lots of crying. The kids scream out for their beloved “Bobby” and we fight the urge to give in. When faced with stressful situations like this I get a little bit like Clark Griswold and well…lose it. If it weren’t for Brooke’s patience with me (her other man-child husband), I don’t know how else we would get through. Brooke and I have been committed to this so despite the kids’ screaming fits we’ll get through it. Last but not least, we prayed for strength and lots of it. God has delivered.
It has been almost 3 days since “Ditching the Bobby” and all is quiet on the Western Front. We suspect that most of this week they will still ask for it. It’s a lesson in life I suppose.
I pray that our oldest girl doesn’t lose her naps because of these but this is all part of the growing up experince. She’ll get through it as will we.
My advice to other parents out there. You’ll make it through. We all will.
What will be your living legacy at age 65?
On July 26th, my mother, Barrett Martin Schroeder turns 65. She may or may not want me mentioning this milestone in a blog but I am proud of her and thankful for those many years she has been in my life and impacted it. She represents a living legacy to both my sister Sarah and I. We are readers because of her. We try to be forgiving to others because she is of us. We have traveled so much because of her leading the way. We are educated because of her (and Dad). We are a close family because of her example. Yep, we even look a lot like her too. Both my sister and I have kids now so we feel that it’s our responsibility to continue on a living legacy and always tell her story. We love you mom and have a Happy Birthday. Here’s to many more ahead.
And yes, I’m sorry I threw a plastic chair at you when I was 5.
Me, Mom, Sarah, and Dad
Last year when my father turned 65, he sent out this letter to everyone and I hope you will enjoy it. He is the definition of “nostalgic” and loves looking back to figure out what “today” means. It’s no shock about why I love history as do they do too. I hope you enjoy as it is quite humorous. He is the “real” Dave Schroeder.
Some Thoughts on Turning 65
Sunday I celebrated my 65th birthday in Chicago with Barrett and our daughter Sarah. While I did not say anything to them, I kept on thinking “What was it like in 1944 and how can I explain it to my children and grandchildren?”
For the first 14 months of my existence, I live with my mother in the second floor apartment in South St. Louis. The apartment had a kitchen, bedroom and living room. The total square footage was about as big as most people’s family rooms today. We had a radio and a phone for communications. The phone was a “Party Line” which meant we shared the line with two or three other households. Today if you said Party Line your probably meant 1-800-GOT-SEXX.
We did not have a television for almost seven more years and that was a big box with a round black and white screen. No HI DEF. There was no Internet (I am a few years older than Al Gore), nor e-mail, Twitter or Facebook. We communicated by writing letters. I still have the one from my dad when he found out I was born. The reason he was not in my life for those 14 months was that he was in England waiting to be shipped to the Ardennes in Belgium to fight in the Battle of the Bulge that December where he was wounded just a month later. I recently asked a young man checking me out at an office supply store if he had heard of the Battle? He replied, “No, but I am going to study it next semester as I am taking “Ancient and Medieval History.”
I finally met my father in January of 1946. Instead of flying home from Europe in six or eight hours, he came home on a “Troop Ship” which took six to eight days and then had to take a train from New York to St. Louis which took another couple of days. Legend has it that I leaked all over his uniform. Those old diapers just don’t measure up to today’s Pampers.
When dad got home, we did not have a car and it took another year or two before they were available because of rationing. My Grandfather Moberg had a car. I figured he was rich. Dad took something called a trolley to work or we walked to shop at the neighborhood store right around the corner or took the trolley to Tower Grove Park.
We finally got a house in Webster in 1951. Three bedrooms, all brick for the whopping price of $15,000. We had to build on a garage a few years later with the help of my parent’s friends. It is amazing what you can get for a few cases of beer. But life was good and we were happy.
I was not happy when I had to repeat 1st grade. Since I started in the city school at midterm, when we moved to the county, I was a semester behind and could not read. Best thing that ever happened to me! I went form being the youngest kid in the class to the oldest and I learned how the read, write and do math. Little did we know at that time that our principal, Mr. Rose, was doing the dirty deed with Miss Bright my third grade teacher. It was a big scandal years later.
No need to cover the high school or college years or the forty-one years since then. Today I am married to my college sweetheart, Barrett, and we have been blessed with two wonderful and productive children, Sarah and David. They have continued blessing us with two grandchildren and another one on the way. Yesterday, we actually saw a Sonogram of the soon to come grandchild. Did we have those in 1944? (since then, she was born and doing well)
And to top things off, our children and their spouses gave me a Garman GPS for my birthday. Without it, I never could have found my way back from Chicago.
God bless all our relatives and many friends. It is amazing how fast 65 years can fly by. But I feel like I did thirty years ago other than a few aches and pains. I can live with that, as I have been blessed.
Age 65 is a lifetime away for Sarah and I but a lifetime of memories to build and share. We are already started.
Where do you see yourself at 65?
What do you see yourself doing?
Who is with you?
What do you see as your living legacy?
It’s about the person next to you
I confess that I am a war movie junkie. I understand why many of you are not.
It is brutal. It frightening. It complex. It’s definitely not a date movie. It usually is not going to make you laugh.
When I was 8, all I wanted to be was a soldier. Until I watched Oliver Stone’s Platoon. God bless my parents in a way for letting me watch that movie. As a parent now, I’m not sure if I’d let my children watch it but if they expressed interest in wanting to know about what real combat is like, at the right time I’d show them movies like The Thin Red Line, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Hamburger Hill, The Hurt Locker, Gettysburg, Glory, Black Hawk Down, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Memphis Belle, Gallipoli , Enemy at the Gates, yes even Braveheart and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I acknowledge that some of these movies could be argued as propaganda or that they over-sensationalize war but they do teach us something to the core about our own lives. And if you think your life isn’t interesting, open your eyes.
We are at war. We always are. We always will be.
In life, if we pay close enough attention to the details, it isn’t that much different. There may not be actual bullets flying over your head but the metaphoric ones can still cripple or kill us from living life the way it’s mean to be lived.
We must stand and fight together.
The Thin Red Line, painted in 1881 by Robert Gibb. Painting showing the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders in battle with Russian cavalry at the Battle of Balaklava 1854.
Here is what I’ve learned in my years of closely observing what most war movies best communicate. I recently read an article in PASTE Magazine reviewing Sebastian Junger’s latest, WAR that got me pretty fired up. I have not read the book yet but the journalist in his review challenged a core piece in the book; glorifying brotherhood in the midst of battle. What if brotherhood in battle is reality? Most people I know in the military who have seen combat do not talk about it much. I can only understand why. But from what I’ve read about war and the movies I’ve seen, there is a theme that exists in all. I’ll explain further.
In the movie Black Hawk Down, Eric Bana’s character “Hoot” shared his perspective on why he does what he does: “When I go home people’ll ask me, ‘Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?’ You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a god**** word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.” -Hoot, played by Eric Bana. What a simple way to put it. I highly recommend this movie and how it represents brotherhood as well as the depiction of modern combat. The book was incredibly detailed and written by the talented Mark Bowden, from Webster Groves, MO where I spent my high school years.
If you also saw the recent HBO Miniseries “The Pacific” produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, you witnessed one of the most honest and horrific portrayals of the war in the Pacific in World War II through the eyes of 3 Marines.
Eat your heart out, John Wayne, you won’t see many other movies portray war reality so well. The series predecessor, Band of Brothers, emphasized the role of brotherhood so well in combat but this one was different. There is a critical episode when a core character, Leckie, was taken away from battle to “rest.” In reality, he was placed with other soldiers dealing with what we now know as “post-traumatic stress.” During WWII, my maternal grandfather “Papa Jack” Martin had a difficult assignment at Fort Lee re-training these types of soldiers. I can only imagine what the men he encountered went through. Leckie and the other Marines in the film quickly recognized that the war’s idealism of fighting off imperial Japan was forgotten and it became more about fighting to protect the man next to him.
Memorial Day approaches. We are losing WWII, Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Gulf War & Iraq War veterans everyday so if you see one, honor them well. Listen to them. Ask them if they want to share their story. Try to understand what they have experienced. You will appreciate this wonderful nation more. If they don’t want to talk about it, honor that and ask what you can do for them. My father spends a lot of his time volunteering with the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge in St. Louis, Missouri. His father (my grandfather) received a purple heart while fighting in Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944. My dad sees this as his part of honoring “Grandpa Branch” and those many others who fought for us. My father shared a story with me today from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about some WWII veterans in their 90′s recently honored in St. Louis. There are so many still serving today. My cousin Shane and his wife Tiffany have together served 4 tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. They have given much of their 20′s and 30′s to the military. There are so many more like them still protecting us. Honor those who went before us this Memorial Day.
Thoughout life I’ve had several people whom I’ve felt are “the person next to me.” Whether it was my best friends in high school and college when I was in Young Life or today’s amazing men’s small group I’m in, I recognize that we are all never alone if we fight together.
Brooke and I are celebrating our 6th anniversary on this weekend. She is that person next to me when there is calm but also when the bullets start flying. We’ve been reading John and Stasi Eldredge’s Love and War this month. It has helped confirm that especially in marriage, we must rely on each other in this complicated life.
When the bullets of life start flying, who will be by your side? Who is the person next to you?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you would also like to share a story about a loved one currently serving in the military or is a veteran, please do so in the comments.
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