A year without parenting milestones

As the 2017-18 academic year gets underway, my wife Terry and I find ourselves very much "in process" when it comes to being the parents of five children.

What I mean is, we've got kids going every which direction, but no one is graduating or necessarily reaching any sort of academic or vocational landmark in the coming year. Yes, one kid is starting college, but compared with graduation, that's a relatively tame thing, if only because we've been through it before at different levels.

We stand thusly in the Tennant household as summer 2017 wanes and the first signs of autumn make themselves evident:

Elissa

My 23-year-old eldest child has earned her bachelor's degree in marketing from Cleveland State University. She works for a great little strategic branding agency called Hey Now! Media as a digital strategist/social media manager. That's a very Millennial job title, and come to think of it, that exclamation point in the name of the agency is pretty darn Millennial, too. Elissa has officially moved out, though she lives only 5 minutes or so away in a rented house with one of her longtime friends.

She is, by almost any standard you care to name, an adult. I'm good with this, but I'm also not. She was ready to be on her own and all, but I miss having her around. I will always miss having her around. That's the way this game is played. (And hey, you can see my pretty little girl here and read her very professional sounding bio while you're at it.)

Chloe

Little Chloe is nearly 21 years old, which makes me think I probably shouldn't refer to her as "Little Chloe" so much anymore. She is a junior biomedical engineering major at the University of Akron who has designs on attending medical school and becoming some sort of doctor, possibly a pediatrician (though she also talks on occasion about becoming an eye doc...I think she would be good at either). She is at the point of her engineering studies where everything gets pretty intense and serious, and as a result she is no longer a member of the Akron marching band, which is sad but also necessary. Engineering students, I'm told, regularly drop out of band at Akron once they hit that third year. She is in the process of moving into a just-off-campus apartment as I type, and will be officially gone as of Sunday evening. She's a hard worker, that one is.

Jared

The Boy begins his college career next week as a freshman at THE Cleveland State University. OK, CSU doesn't use the "THE" like Ohio State does, but it just sounded good so I went with it. Anyway, I've only seen him for short stretches throughout this summer because he spends a lot of time working at the Cleveland Indians team shop. And hanging out with his girlfriend. This is what happens when you have an 18-year-old son. By all accounts, though, he's ready to start this college thing and plow ahead with his intended major in business administration. I have no idea what he's going to do with his life, and maybe he doesn't, either, which is just fine. I never understand why we push 18-year-old kids to make decisions that could affect the course of their professional lives for the next three or four decades. Jared will find his way. He always does. Let's give him a few years to sort things out.

Melanie

Mel grew up suddenly – jarringly even – in the last couple of years. She's a junior at Wickliffe High School, a class officer, a soccer player, and so far a straight-A student. This year she is spending half of each school day out at Mentor High School taking a few general classes and participating in Mentor's business/marketing program, then the second half of the day back at Wickliffe. I can't keep up with her. Next thing I know, she'll be graduating. I would rather not talk about it, but between you and me, I'm super impressed with this one.

Jack

Ah, Jackie. My Other Boy. My 11-year-old, thin-as-a-rail, cross country-running, class clown. Yes, apparently he's the class clown, at least according to his seventh-grade math teacher Danna Huested. I've known Danna since 1975, when we both started kindergarten at the old Mapledale Elementary School, and she is among the best teachers my kids have had. So I found it part amusing and part alarming when I attended middle school open house the other day, and with a smile she said to me, "So you saved the class clown for your last kid? He doesn't fit the (Tennant) mold!" A month or so earlier, Jack's cross country coach (another Wickliffe classmate, the awesome Todd Calic) said something similar: "Everyone on the team loves him. He cracks everybody up."

And it all makes sense to me. Jack is the youngest of five kids, which in itself means he has always had to work to carve out his own identity in the chaos of our house. But when you consider that he skipped a grade back in elementary school, it gets even tougher for him. He's an 11-year-old in a class full of 12- and soon-to-be-13-year-olds. This is a funny age to begin with, and being the youngest one in the class has to make it even trickier. So Jack copes by being the funny guy. I'm OK with that as long as he doesn't become disruptive in class or during team cross country activities. And I think he knows that. He's doing fine, but I'll admit I worry about him a lot.


So anyway, that's where things stand for us. We're just going about the business of living life and continuing to raise a family. With each passing year, thoughts of what happens once we reach The Other Side (i.e., the empty nest) creep into my head, but they're no more than thoughts. We still have a long way to go, with plenty of homework, school projects, sports practices and games, band concerts, and yes, graduations and big milestones to go.

For now, that's good enough. Exhausting, but good enough.

No offense, but you most likely have no idea what you're talking about

I'm not a confrontational person, so I don't especially enjoy arguments or online debates. You will understand, then, how much it pains me to have to tell you that you are clueless when it comes to the major issues facing the world today.

You will also understand that I'm right there with you. I fully count myself among the clueless. I'm not saying I have the right answers and you don't. I'm saying that together, we barely understand the questions let alone the answers.

When it comes to almost any issue on which people are likely to take a stand these days – things like Charlottesville, global warming, North Korea, immigration, any random thing tweeted out by President Trump, etc. – I frankly do not trust your judgment, nor should you trust mine.

The reason is that all of these are stunningly complex problems, and unless you are:

(a) a trained expert with access to and understanding of the relevant information needed to form an intelligent opinion, and

(b) someone who does not take a knee-jerk position to the political right or left

...then I have no choice but to discount your take. And since I know virtually no one who fits both point (a) and point (b), I'm forced to conclude that you're full of poop. I actually hate the word "poop," but this is ostensibly a family blog and I'm not about to drop even a relatively mild S-bomb here.

Take global warming, for instance. You can certainly correct me if I'm wrong (I don't think I am, but again, what do I know?), but climatology is an immensely complex science, is it not? Concomitantly, global warming theory is also very complex and nuanced. Yet every time it's cold in August, some uninformed jack-wad is on Twitter with his "Hey, so much for global warming, huh snowflakes??" take.

There is no need to point out to this person that nothing in the concept of global warming precludes a cold day – or a long stretch of cold days – in what is normally a relatively warm time of the year. They have "won" because something happened that seems to support their supremely uninformed and simplistic opinion on a given topic, and any "facts" that get in their way have been made up by the biased liberal media or are being propagated by right-wing corporate fascists.

This is not intelligent debate. This is a bunch of monkeys with keyboards typing about random things of which they have little to no understanding.

And these same monkeys are called upon to evaluate the opinions of political candidates and vote for the ones they believe are right.

Yet they have virtually no idea what "right" is or how to get there. They (we) are unfairly expected to have a big-picture view of questions and problems that go far beyond anything they (we) are trained to analyze and understand.

Now, having said all of that, I do realize the seemingly inevitable conclusion of this line of thinking: That there's no need to have an opinion on anything, that we should trust our fate to a small handful of experts on each issue, that we should just stick to playing online poker on our phones and watching "Game of Thrones" and let the really, really smart people decide everything for us.

And I have no counterargument to that. That's terrifying to me and it's not at all what I want, yet I still feel strongly that very, very few of us are equipped to rationally and thoroughly pass judgment on the big issues of the day. We just aren't. We can gain some small understanding, but we don't have enough context, knowledge or training to be able to say definitively what course society should take on any given important question.

This, by the way, is why I'm supremely comforted by my belief in the God of the Bible. I am convinced there will be a "happy ending" to all of this, but I'm also aware that I live in a country in which people are free to believe that or not. You are permitted to make fun of me for putting my faith in "sky fairies" or whatever, and I'm free to ignore you because, as I've said, you don't have any more idea than I do what you're talking about.

I need to stop talking now, especially since you've come this far and have realized I have no firm advice for you. This is, I think, an unsolvable question. You either shut down and let yourself be guided by politicians and power brokers, or you take a strong stand on everything, knowing you ultimately lack the capacity to fully understand the question thoroughly or to appreciate opposing viewpoints in an objective way.

Life's crazy, isn't it?

I wish school didn't start so early, but I get why it does

At the risk of turning this into a "BACK IN MY DAY" old man rant, I will point out that my youngest two children go back to school tomorrow, which is a full three weeks earlier than they would have returned using the system under which I grew up.

That system – also known as "The Right System" – dictated that school didn't start until right after Labor Day. Which meant that the month of August was entirely devoted to summer vacation unless you were a fall sport athlete who had practices in August. And that was perfectly fine.

Then, round about the time I was in high school in the mid- to late 80s, they pushed the start of school back into August. It was late August, mind you, but still...August. That took some getting used to.

And now it seems every year they just keep messing with us. More for their own amusement than anything else, they keep seeing how far they can move up that first day of school before someone starts to notice. This year, Day #1 is August 15th, which as far as I can tell is the earliest the school year has ever kicked off in Wickliffe.

I will readily note that school has started in early August in Florida and other southern states for years. That's what they're used to, so they don't count in this discussion.

We in the Midwest lived for decades under an academic calendar that didn't commence until the Labor Day picnics were over, and that always seemed like a good way to go at it. At least to me. Labor Day was your last hurrah. As I recall, it was the last weekend during which the city pools were open. Or at least the last weekend they were open under summer hours.

You would watch the Jerry Lewis telethon on Labor Day and then you would go back to school the very next day, or maybe on Wednesday of that week. We were all good with it.

Of course, having said all of this, I realize school districts are subject to forces they can't necessarily control in making this decision, chiefly the state testing schedule that requires you (or at least makes it a very, very good idea) to have a certain number of instructional hours before the dreaded tests begin. The earlier you start, the longer you have to work with the kids before they take the tests, which go a long way toward determining your district's grade on state report cards, teacher and administration performance reviews, funding, etc.

Plus, at the high school level, an earlier start allows a clean break between the first and second semesters. You can finish off first-semester exams before the kids go off for their holiday break, and then start fresh with second-semester classes and material in January.

On the other hand, we somehow for years managed the not-quite-so-clean process of January review and exams at Wickliffe, and I'm guessing we could somehow get through it again if a calendar switch would force us into it.

I always think twice before I criticize school board members and administrators, because I frankly find that most of the people who do that do it out of ignorance. I would like some of them to spend a day in those jobs before they spout off. That's not to say people in those positions are beyond criticism. Not at all. But having the facts in hand first is probably advisable.

In any case, like so many things in life, this whole start-of-school question comes down to this: I wish it wasn't this way, but I get why it is. Things change. Life goes on. You can all get off my lawn anyway.

There are now more adults in my house than children

There comes a point, when you have kids, when they are no longer kids.

Actually it's not so much a "point," since that suggests a precise time at which they move from kid-hood into adulthood. And of course it doesn't work that way.

What does come about all of a sudden, though, is your realization that the transition has happened.

I came home from work one day recently to a completely empty house. Understand, this rarely happens when you live with six other people, two of whom are legally considered minors, especially in the summer time. If it's not a school day, someone always, always, always seems to be home.

But not this time. I walked in and...bam, no one. So I ran down the mental checklist of everyone's whereabouts:

• Terry was working at the library. It's only 22 hours a week, but it feels to me like Terry is always working at the library. Anyway, she was gone.
• Elissa was somewhere between her job and, I supposed, her boyfriend Mark's house.
• Chloe was working one of her two jobs, I think the library one with Terry. Or maybe she was attending one of her summer college classes. Or maybe she was with her boyfriend Michael. I don't know. The point is, she was nowhere to be found.
• Jared was at his job at the Cleveland Indians Team Shop at Progressive Field, hawking overpriced caps and way overpriced jerseys to suburbanites who had already dropped an awfully pretty penny on tickets, parking and concessions.
• I didn't know where Melanie was. If I remember correctly, I found out later she was out with her boyfriend Dylan.
• And what about little Jack? Little 11-year-old Jack who is usually at home? Off camping with the family of a friend of his. He's at the age where he's developing an entire existence that has nothing to do with us. We've been through this before as the other kids have grown up, of course, but it's still always shocking when they become, you know, actual people with social calendars and everything.

And so there I was, absolutely alone at home for one of the very few times in the past 20 years. Jobs, boyfriends, college classes. It was all a far cry from the toy-strewn floors, the Winnie the Pooh videos, and the randomly dropped sippy cups of not too long ago.

And if I'm being honest with you, I'll admit I kind of liked it.

Or at least I liked it for about 15 minutes. And then I got lonely. It turns out I like having people around the house, even if I'm not interacting with them directly. I realize that one day the constant hum of conversation and activity will become the exception rather than the rule, but borderline chaos is all I've known for many years now.

I grumble about it when it's happening, and then I get sad when it's gone. I'm apparently one of those people you just can't please.

Anyway, the point I guess is that I'm suddenly the father of at least one actual working adult, a couple of on-the-brink adults, and two more who, while technically kids, are growing up at an alarming rate.

It's kind of cool. And kind of sad.

So it goes.

Reflections of a man who has somehow been married for 25 years

There are two amazing things about the fact that my 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in a few days:

   (1) Twenty-five years is a long time. I can't believe it has been 25 years.
   (2) Even after that quarter-century, every morning I wake up and look to my left and my wife is still there.

If I were in her shoes, I might have bolted by now.

Well, not really.

I think.

I mean, my general impression these past 2½ decades has been that she is as happy with the overall state of things as I am. As far as I can tell, she's as much with the program as me.

But then, I know myself. And honestly, I would probably get a little irritated living with me every day. I'm very well-intentioned – maybe too much so. I suspect my constant earnest attempts at being agreeable could verge on "grating" from time to time.

So occasionally I worry she'll wake up herself one day, look to her right, see me there, and it will finally dawn on her that maybe she married down. Or at least that she just didn't make the best long-term choice when she married at the age of 23.

And then suddenly that space to my left will be empty.

Which, OK, is a stupid way to think. You don't live life in fear of "what if." You live in celebration of "what is."

And "what is" is pretty darn good, let me tell you.

I have said this before but it bears repeating, and I've always meant it in all sincerity: I won the Matrimonial Lotto. And I did it at the age of 16. That's when this wonderful woman and I first got together.

At the time, of course, I had no idea we would get to this point. I only knew that this pretty girl had decided that maybe I was sufficiently presentable to go out with, which was more than enough to make my clueless 16-year-old self happy.

And I've pretty much stayed that way ever since: happy.

I complain, of course, because that's what we do as human beings. No matter how good we've got it, there's a part of us that wants to complain about something. Anything, really. It just makes us feel better, I guess?

But when it comes down to it, I have no room to complain. I am wildly and undeservedly blessed, and it starts with the woman on the other side of that bed.

I have, in the wise words of Stevie Nicks, built my life around her. At some point I figured out she was a person worth doubling down on, so I did.

And the payoff has been, by all accounts, tremendous.

My wife is my best friend. She is beautiful both inside and out. She is funny (something that took her years to realize about herself), smart, loving, loyal, dedicated and an absolute joy to be around.

I don't just say these things because it happens to be a milestone anniversary for us, or because tonight we're having a blowout party in our backyard to which absolutely anyone who reads this is invited. I say them because they are true, and because in saying them, I force myself to realize the true meaning of "grace" in my life. God has given her to me not because I "earned" such a blessing, but pretty much just because He loves me despite the fact that I'm a big giant goof.

So today I celebrate all that is right with my life – which is to say, just about everything – and it starts with the beautiful young woman in the white dress who said "I do" 25 years ago.

That was one giant risk she took, and I only hope I can supply some small return on her investment of trust in me.

Five things I want to tell my son on this, the day of his high school graduation

Tonight my son Jared graduates, the third of our children to do so. Three down, two to go.

I will tell you I'm not pleased with the way this post turned out. I earnestly believe everything I'm trying to tell my son below, but none of it came out quite right.

Maybe that's because, while many life lessons are universal, the way we each learn and experience them is unique. So that even as I describe my own thoughts around a particular nugget of wisdom, I'm acutely aware that Jared's perspective on it is likely to be a bit different.

So I guess this list isn't perfect. No list of supposedly transcendent life lessons ever is. I hope the boy, and anyone else who happens to read this, accepts it in the flawed-yet-sincere spirit in which it is offered.

Jared, we bought you the laptop for graduation, and now here's the gift that comes without a receipt:

(1) You've got to try even when you don't feel like trying: Whatever you do, whether it's a job or a marriage or anything else important in your life, you have to be present and you have to be actively engaged. That means showing up and really trying. Every day. Sometimes that's going to be easy. Sometimes it won't be. You often hear it said of pitchers in baseball that they "just don't have it today," yet many times they stay in the game and "battle." They may not feel great, they may not feel motivated. But they have a job to do, and so they do it. Even when they don't feel like doing it. That's the essence of being a responsible adult: You show up and you work hard every time without exception.

(2) Feeling sorry for yourself is tempting, but it will get you nowhere: Sometimes you're going to feel like everything and everyone is against you. You just will. And you can safely allow yourself to feel that way for maybe 15 minutes. Then you need to move on. Seriously, you need to get over it and move on. Not everything is going to go your way. Not everyone is going to like or appreciate you. Oh well. There's not much you can do about that, so keep doing what you know is right. Keep showing up (see item #1 above), keep plugging away. It sounds simplistic, but it's the only way things are going to turn around. In essence, quit your crying and suck it up.

(3) Sports cliche #147 – "Worry only about the things you can control" – is real: You hear athletes talk about this all the time. They say they can't concern themselves with the things they can't influence. Instead, all of their focus is on the items over which they have specific control – their attitude, their preparation, their game plan. It's the same for those of us who don't get paid to play a sport. In your career, in your personal life, in everything you do, there is a long list of things over which you exert control. Concentrate on those things. Don't worry about other people's attitudes. Don't worry about external circumstances you can't change. Don't concern yourself so much with the unchangeable things that simply are. Direct your time and attention instead to what could be.

(4) Have a plan: Even if it only covers the next few years of your life, have a plan for what you want to achieve and how you're going to get there. Develop a vision for your life and what you want out of it. Otherwise your existence will be a series of randomly connected activities with no real end goal in mind. You'll get somewhere, to be sure, but probably not where you want to be. Just set aside some time every once in a while to think about the future, both short term and long. You'll be glad you did.

(5) Be grateful: You have so much in your life. You have a family who loves you more than you can understand (though you will understand if and when you have kids of your own). You have a roof over your head, a car to drive, food to eat. Lots and lots and lots of people in this world lack one or more of those things. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth whether or not you recognize it. If you spend your time lamenting the things you don't have, you will be one unhappy individual. I'm telling you, you don't want to be that guy.

 Happy graduation day, buddy. Enjoy every minute of it, because you've earned it.

You're only as happy as you want to be, and I'll admit I hate that

There's a quote you've probably heard, usually falsely attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that says "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Whoever originally said it, boy, there's a whole bucketful of truth to that, isn't there?

Yes, there are external forces in your life, things beyond your control, that affect you. Those things have always been there, and they always will be there.

What many a life coach will tell you, though, is that you can control how they affect you. If you choose to let them affect you negatively, they will affect you negatively. And if you choose to just roll with it, take the punch, and move on in a more or less positive manner, they will probably affect you positively in the long run.

And man, I hate that.

I want to be able to point to this, this, this and this, and say, "I would love to be happy, but look at all of these things that are wrong in my life. I can't be happy as long as all of that is going on."

But I can't do that with a clear conscience because I have finally learned, in 47+ years on this planet, that you absolutely choose your outlook. Happy people are happy because they choose to be happy.

Which is fine, except it takes real work to be happy. And that's where the inherently lazy part of me that doesn't particularly like trying hard at anything rebels.

Happy people are happy not only because they choose to be happy, but also because they choose to work at being happy. Every day.

You don't have to be a Pollyanna and ignore all of the ugly things in life. By all means, acknowledge them. Deal with them. They're there whether you and I like it or not.

But you do have to make the active choice to be mostly contented with your existence. You cannot be someone who constantly laments their lot in life and be a generally happy person at the same time.

Feel sorry for yourself if you want, but it's a miserable friggin' way to live, let me tell you.

Because here's the thing: Unless you believe in reincarnation (which I do not), then you must acknowledge that you get one shot at life. One shot, that's it. How you choose to use that shot is entirely up to you.

If you choose always to wait for things to get better someday and then you'll be happy, you won't be happy.

You won't. There's no maybe about it. You won't be happy. Why? Because you have full control over what "things getting better" means to you. And maybe it's time for you to reconsider your personal definition.

It cannot and should not mean that you're waiting for all things to be aligned and perfect, or even near perfect. You and I both know that only leaves you waiting for a bus that will never come.

Again, there are three key facts of life that you have to accept if you want to be a happy person:

• I can control my happiness (or lack thereof).
• There will always, always, always be "bad things" in my life. This has always been, is now, and always will be. There is no changing this. "Bad things" will happen. I cannot alter this essential tenet of human existence.
• I must choose to be happy anyway.

I don't know how else to say any of that. I don't know how to couch it in a way that doesn't require you to make the mental and emotional effort every day. It's just what you have to do. Suck it way up, buttercup, cuz that's how this whole thing has played out since the dawn of human existence.

God sets the rules, and He always gives you a choice.

This effort does not come naturally to me, by the way, yet lately I've been making it. And I'm genuinely a happier person. I feel less tired, less bogged down by my daily obligations, less overwhelmed by the challenges of moment-to-moment existence.

I'm still learning, but already I see a world of difference in myself. All because of a simple daily choice.

I felt the need to share this with you because, if you're like a lot of people I know, this realization (simple to understand, more difficult to execute) can be life changing.

Happiness isn't a confluence of fortunate external circumstances. Much like love, it's a personal choice to be happy. A choice that must be consciously made each and every day.

So make it.