children – Memory Leak

Happy belated Father’s Day 2024.

A few years back, my younger daughter Brooklyn came home from school and asked me what “thats what she said” jokes were. She was probably 10 years old at the time. I giggled on the inside and said “Never heard of ’em” trying to avoid the topic. I guess some smarty pants at school had watched enough episodes of The Office without his/her parents supervision and these jokes became something of sideshow during class.

Brooklyn was not satisfied with my response and then asked my wife Sarah what these jokes were all about — to which, Sarah asked me if I could explain. Apparently, she didn’t know what those jokes were either. Facepalm. How do I get out of this predicament?

I gave Sarah “big eyes” and politely changed the topic. I went for the the nuclear weapon of child topic changes, “When should we go back to Disney World?”

<pause>

Brooklyn was not satisfied. In protest, Brooklyn decided to say “thats what she said” after everything followed by “did that work?” hoping to discover its true meaning. This proved very annoying and sometimes very funny. I asked Brooklyn nicely who was the fine young boy/girl that was sharing such jokes at school so that I could thank his parents. I promised I wouldn’t do anything with the information. Brooklyn leaned in and said quietly whispered in my ear, “thats what she said”.

Nothing really prepares you for parenthood or to become a dad. There are 100’s of parenting books out there trying to educate fearful parents on the perils ahead. Some are aptly named —

Once you get into it, parenting feels natural but awkward at the same time. Like going to Costco but forgetting to wear pants. Mother nature dials in enough parenting in our DNA and then the rest parents just need to figure out. I find it fascinating that the parenting formula feels different for every kid. Two kids with the same parents, raised in the same households can be entirely different people when they grow up. Two kids, raised in totally different socio economic households can be entirely different people when they grow up and not necessarily with the lives you might expect. There is a randomness to the variables involved in the equation. Thats probably why there are so many different parenting books with contradicting viewpoints.

Sarah and I had a few pillars we always drove home with the kids –

Find your passion — Find the things that creates a fire in your belly every morning.
Work hard — Enjoy the grind. There are no life hacks around just getting the reps in.
Have a growth mindset — Setbacks are growth.
Trust the universe — The pieces come together when you look back but never looking forward.

Molly and Brooklyn have big milestones this year. Molly graduated from high school. She will be attending MIT in the Fall and playing on the MIT Women’s Soccer team. She hopes to study Chemical-Biological Engineering + Business. Brooklyn graduated from 8th grade and will be attending Park City High School. She will be focused on academics, basketball (as a point guard) and soccer (as a goalie). Same parents, same household, two very different kids. Molly is like her mom. Brooklyn is more like me. Both are absolutely the two most amazing two girls a parent could ask for.