Parenting is an act of faith

Friends,

It’s a joyous time for us. Not only are we getting ready to welcome our fourth child, but many close friends and family are either having children themselves or moving out of the newborn phase of life.

When you’re expecting, love starts pouring in from all directions. The fraternity of caregivers—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, “aunts,” and “uncles”—is built on love. And when others join that fellowship, all you want to do is pay that love forward.

I feel that deeply right now.

As we all know, there’s no foolproof playbook or universal script for parenting—no single piece of sage wisdom we can all rely on. But what we can do is share our biggest mistakes in the hope that others might avoid them. After all, mistakes tend to be more universal than we’d like to admit.

Mine was this: I was a colonizer.

When my kids invited me into their world, I tried to reshape it—imposing adult order with schedules, tasks, and structure. I thought I was helping. But that approach cost me years of connection during our older kids’ youngest years.

This week’s episode of the Muscle Memory Podcast is about that very mistake—and what I’ve learned since. I hope you enjoy it.

With love from Detroit,

Neil

Backyard Ball

In the imaginative world of my son Myles, a simple makeshift field on the beach, outlined with big conch shells for goals, transformed into a grand Premier League stadium. As he dashed across the sand, he wasn't just a kid playing with his brother; in his heart, he was a star footballer, emerging onto the pitch to the sound of his name being announced, just like the heroes he admires on weekend broadcasts.

As the sun set on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Robyn announced, "Last play of the game," and Myles, Robert, myself, and their Mimi dialed in for one last run down our sandy field. As our clock expired and Robert clutched the ball insistently, he cried, "One more play! One more play!"

I didn't want the sun to set, ending our game, either. To play backyard ball is to experience pure joy. It's so pure, where the goal is to just have fun and play. It’s something I didn’t know I was longing for. As adults, after all, we are often robbed of the simple, pure joy of play, a vital source of joy and creativity that we unknowingly surrender in our pursuit of 'adulthood.' Play is not just a child's domain but a necessity for us adults.

As we returned from the beach, I was reminded of all the pick-up games I've played over the years. Like when I would call Al asking if he wanted to hit tennis balls, and hopped on my bike, rackets on my back, to meet him and some tennis teammates at the neighborhood courts, even if it was the dog days of summer. Or playing Ultimate Frisbee at the park, with Sunny tossing a lob to Herman, the person who was usually quiet, tall, gentle, and unassuming but then would outrun us easily with his gigantic stride.

These moments, seemingly trivial, were anything but; they were pure expressions of joy and camaraderie, free from the weight of adult responsibilities.

Some of my happiest adolescent memories were at the Lionas' house – either playing at the Whiffle Ball stadium – ring, scoreboard, and all – under the lights during summer break, or as a newcomer in the "Nerf Combat League" that Nick's older brother John started in their basement on February 4th, 1999 – a date I remember because it was in the league’s theme song, which we’d play after the national anthem every Thursday in the offseason between football and baseball, when we’d have matches after school.

At the time, I suspect many adults thought all this was charming – but still just something childish and suitable for teenagers but not for “grown” people. But what is the line between adolescence and adulthood, really? What makes play something that we outgrow? The weight of adult responsibilities is so deep sometimes; isn’t that when we need lightness and joy the most – to prevent us from forgetting what all these steps and accomplishments are actually in service of? I don’t want to believe that all we’re here for is to “win at life,” “grow our careers,” or some of these other myths we tell ourselves.

This is what I miss so desperately, all these backyard games, where playing the game – just playing – was more important than winning. In the backyard, the beach, the driveway, or the park is where you learn to love the game. It's where I, too, made some of my best friends – who are still my guys to this very day. And it's where I hope I'm becoming one of my sons' guys now. Maybe it makes me naive, but love, passion, joy, fun, and friendship have to be bigger than winning.

Maybe that's why I can't fully let go of watching football or throwing back a couple of beers with my buddies. Even though I’ve soured on tackle football and alcohol since my early twenties, those are the closest things to that feeling of silliness and play I still have. I sense such a deficiency of play in my life, akin to my lack of Vitamin D for which my doctor prescribed a supplement. Just like the supplement boosts my immune system, play would probably do the same for my spirit.

This blessing of play is one of the biggest gifts children give to us. My sons certainly have. They've reminded me how to play, taught me really, and made it easy for me to feel the silliness and joy of play, once again. I've realized so easily that I'm not the only one making a generous sacrifice in our relationships. My sons, also, are doing me a favor and choosing me, like the last kid at recess, and including me in their wonderful world of joy and play.

How did I ever get so serious, anyway? How did I let the dull and grinding world of adults make me so stiff? As we walk back from the beach, I feel like I did when those backyard games – whether it was soccer, football, tennis, capture the flag, whatever – ended as a kid. I'm so alive, smiling without needing to try.

"This was so fun," I thought as we walked up from our impromptu derby on the beach. "I can play. I'm allowed to play. I want to play again."

The best part is, we don’t have to ask the grown ups for permission to play. Because dang it y’all, we are the grown ups now. All we need to do is let the experts - our children - remind us how.

The Ball, The Boys, and Me: A Journey Back to Playfulness

Something happened to me, slowly, over years. I stopped being fun.

I was never close to being muppet-level fun, or even sitcom-level fun, but I was at least average. But this weekend, I finally realized how far I’ve fallen, and how much of a stiff I’ve become.

This realization, poetically, all started with a ball.

It’s as if it was magnetic. Within minutes of showing up at the park, a first or second grader approached Robert after noticing the ball at his feet.

“Hey, you wanna play soccer?”

And then, our Kindergartner began shedding his armor of quiet and shyness. His confidence and voice gradually returned, his personality emerging from behind his protective shield.

And for the next 40 minutes, he had a buddy. Sure, Bo came back and forth to the safety of outstretched hand. Mostly, though, he didn’t need me. The ball helped him transform - from being a little boy hurt by words and elbows on the playground, into just a little boy, running and smiling.

That’s the magic of the ball.

The magical, magnetic ball is his life preserver when he’s lost in a new place. The magic ball does the heavy work, bringing others into his world, when he’s too afraid to invite them in. The ball gives him a focus point, an entry point into friendship and being part of a group.

The magic of the ball, any ball, is that when a ball arrives, play follows. The ball is a vessel, the conduit, for the magic of play.

Play is liberation. It lets us run, skip, express, create, and be. Play is fun. It brings joy, relief, refuge, and laughter. Play is medicine. It helps us bond, repair relationships, recharge, and heal.

I also need this magic.

Bo already manifests my two biggest neuroses: the need to be perfect and the need to be affirmed by other people’s praise. I transmuted these shackles onto him because of something I’m role modeling - he’s too young to have just inherited these behaviors from the culture.

I’m not even trying to be, and I’m so damn serious all the time. I focus, plan, and do dishes in an almost militant manner. Do I ever have fun and play around? If I do, it’s when my sons are already asleep.

But how do I even play? How do I take a status meeting and make it feel a little more like play? How do I take the chore of washing dishes and make it into a game? Somewhere along the way, I became a robot that does tasks and managed a scheduled instead of a person who plays around.

How could I have let this happen? To be sure, I consider myself a lucky man. My life has a lot of comfort, joy, meaning, and love. But what happened to fun? Somehow, fun is something I used to be. Play is something I used to do.

I don’t want to live like this. How did we let ourselves live like this? When did it happen? How do I get out of these chains of drudgery and seriousness?

One answer, it seems, is right in front of me. I have to be more like them. I have three sons, and they play all the time. For some part of the day, I need to put my serious face away and just mimic them. I need them to be my role models, instead of me trying to be theirs.

They are the vessel; they are my conduit. They, my sons, are my magic ball. Through them, I can find the part of me that is fun again. They, if I let them, can be the liberators of the bondage of seriousness I didn’t even know I had.

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash