Hard Choices

A buddy of mine worked for the Public Defender’s Office for a few years before determining that he would prefer a legal career with sufficient pecuniary compensation to allow him to live indoors. Jimmy is now in private practice as a criminal defense attorney. He still feels good about the work that he does and is able to pick up more lunch checks.

Of course not everyone agrees with providing “criminals” with a rigorous defense. Jimmy is often accused of exploiting legal loopholes to allow his clients to get off. His own mother even reproached him recently. “You and I both know your client was disgustingly guilty,” she began. “Why did you help him skip out on a technicality?”

Jimmy’s response was philosophical. “The state has tremendous power,” he said. “If the police and the district attorney’s office with all their resources can’t get it right, then my client gets to go home. It’s not just about the guilt or innocence of the individual. Every case represents our judicial process.”

I’m not sure Jimmy’s mom came around to his point of view. Her exact words might have been something to the effect of “I hope this marauding Philistine piece of garbage criminal, drug-crazed client of yours robs, rapes, and murders your little sister, you idiot. Then you’ll see.”

I will leave Jimmy and his mom to rethread their well-worn path and return to parenting. Long-time readers will hardly be surprised that there is an analogy coming.

Parents of little ones have absolute power and complete control over everything that happens in the life of their infant. The first nine months of life are actually the SECOND nine months of gestation because-let’s face it-the baby isn’t doing much of nothing for herself. As much joy as it is to have a child, she is basically a screaming shit machine for quite a few endless nights. Lots of work. Lots of laundry. Babies start to smile at six months because otherwise even the most patient parents would toss them out in the garden. Juries would acquit on a defense of sleep deprivation. A similar evolutionarily adaptive advantage is 18-year-olds becoming snarky and unbearable to live with. Otherwise parents would feel sad about seeing them go off to college.

But back to the first few years of life after two people go to the hospital and three people come home. Parents make every decision. The baby helps you figure out what to do by communicating her wishes. Her suggestions are seldom subtle. “I might like a little something to eat right about now,” she recommends. “Otherwise I will shriek so raucously and incessantly that the people down the block will put gravel in their ears to drown out my wall-shattering wailing.” But ultimately the decision to comfort (feed) or abuse (ignore) your child is yours. She doesn’t have the autonomy to determine that since breast milk isn’t available, she can send out for a veggie burger.

In reality, every time you child asks you for something across ages and stages it’s the same paradigm. Figure it out. Get it right. Feed. Solve. Answer. Or get it wrong. Neglect. Screw up. Abuse.

But how do we figure it out? Should I acquiesce to the demands of my toddler terrorist? Am I too lenient? Am I giving in too much? Or am I too strict? When I make parenting decisions, am I the channeling Joseph Stalin?

Rather than evaluating responses on a continuum of compassionate versus authoritarian, I suggest instead that you opt for the answer that is more difficult.

The hard choice is frequently the correct one. The more parenting makes you think, work, and sweat, the more likely it is that you’re getting it right. Should I stagger out of bed at midnight to feed my hungry, screaming two-month-old? Of course. Duh. Those comfy sheets of yours will still be there when your little one is fed and burped and back to sleepy-by.

Should I allow my 15-year-old to play a violent video game? Of course not. (Again, duh.) Every mass shooter in recent history has had a predilection for violent video games and who wants to suggest that there’s no causation connected to THAT correlation? But every “no” has to have a “yes.” “No, you can’t play violent video games, go sit on the hard floor and read the encyclopedia from ‘Aardvark’ to ‘Zygote’ instead” may not get much traction. “No, you can’t play violent video games. Let’s go take the dog for a walk” is a significantly better answer. “No, you can’t play violent video games because, as it happens, we don’t have any video games violent or otherwise in this house” is good too.

I had jury duty the other day. I listened to the reasons why none of my fellow citizens wanted to serve. The excuses ranged from the commonplace to the personal, from the banal to the bizarre. “Don’t wanna miss work” was the modal response. “I don’t believe in judging anyone” was a new one to me. “I have internal bleeding and I can’t sit still for over an hour” seemed unlikely, but what do I know?

The judge overseeing the jury selection became exasperated. She finally interrupted the slew of excuses and addressed all the potential jurors. “If you don’t want to be on a jury, go live in Iraq,” she said. “They don’t have juries there.”

Nice.

Being on a jury is a pain in the neck. Nobody wants to take time off from work to watch my buddy Jimmy find a loophole and help a sketchy character get out of jail free. But as Jimmy would argue, “that’s the price you pay for living in a free society.”

What are you willing to sacrifice to have kids who do the best they can in school rather than play violent video games 14 hours each day? What price are you willing to pay for the privilege of having children who respect you for having made the hard choices when they were growing up?