How to raise a crybaby

The first time I held Isaac in my hands, he was heavier than I expected. He looked different than the small, fragile, howling infant I'd prepared myself for. My just-born son, looking like a three-month old, came into this world with thick arms and pudgy legs. When the nurse put him on the scale, Isaac weighed in at 9 lbs, 3 ounces. Substantial. And safe. For the first six months of his life, Isaac maintained his place in the 90th percentile for height. Any father that tells you that he doesn't take pride in his son's height and weight is lying (especially any father who was small as a child). We keep his growth charts in a file cabinet, and, over the past year, Isaac has been trending back toward the middle. This was probably inevitable: Anique and I are not big people. No one in my family is over 6' 1". No doubt Isaac will have to make the NBA as one of those streaky combo-2 guards, with "quick hops" and a strong work ethic.

Though no longer larger than his peers, Isaac has shown a remarkable ability to bounce back from the various scrapes and skirmishes associated with life as a toddler. Last month, when his teacher at daycare told me that Isaac had been bitten by one of his classmates, she noted that "Isaac didn't cry. He never cries." This past weekend, Isaac was playing on our bed and fell head-first on the hardwood floor. Understandably, he cried this time, but only for a second. Then he touched his head, exclaimed "Ouch!", and attempted to climb back onto the bed. Again, I found myself feeling an absurd sense of pride. Not that I want to raise a child who does not feel it is OK to cry. But, a son who is strong enough to stand up, shake himself off, and get back to the business of jumping on the bed? That's the kind of son I want to have. Hell, that's the kind of man I want to be.

Last week, two things happened that made me stop and question this feeling. The first happened when I got a call last Tuesday from the director of his daycare. At some point during the afternoon, Isaac's elbow had become dislocated (the nontechnical term for this is nursemaid's elbow). "We don't know exactly when it happened," she said. "Isaac never cried." When I got to the daycare, Isaac was sitting in a chair at the table, looking at the ground. There was puzzle on the table in front of him, all of its pieces in their original places. He was holding his left arm. He was quiet.

Nearly seven months earlier, Isaac had dislocated that same elbow. That time the circumstances were also unclear: the accident seemed to happen during the night. Perhaps while he was sleeping, Isaac rolled over, pinning the arm under his body. We don't really know for sure. That morning, he had screamed off and on as we drove, first to our family doctor's office, where three times the doctor tried and failed to pop it back into place, and then to Children's Hospital, where the physician's assistant in the Orthopedics department manipulated his little arm, twisting his forearm past that point where you imagine the arm might break. Almost immediately, Isaac began to use his arm again, and it was over.

Last Tuesday, we repeated this process. Again, the doctor at our pediatrician's office tried and failed to pop Isaac's elbow into place. This time Isaac, becoming more verbal every day, sat in Anique's lap, alternately crying and repeating "I go! I go!" That night, after he had fallen asleep, we lied awake in bed, hoping that the elbow would shift back into place. It didn't. When Isaac woke up that morning, his left arm hanging there motionless, we made the decision to drive to Children's. Or, more accurately, Anique made the decision. I busied myself with the little things that fathers do: preparing his bag for the drive into Boston, filling up his snack cup. These were the actions I took to cover up the anger, the sadness, and the shame: the anger I felt that our doctors could not fix Isaac's arm; the sadness that I could not keep my son safe; the shame that I was a man who could not protect his son. At Children's, the ER doctor quickly popped Isaac's elbow back into place. Though he required a little coaxing to test out the arm again, Isaac was soon batting at a star-shaped balloon with both arms. It was over. But it isn't over, not really.

In the New York Times this past Sunday, in the Sport Section, there was a long piece about Derek Boogaard. For those interested, I've included the link here: A Boy Learns to Brawl.

Boogaard was a 28-year old NHL forward, most recently for the New York Rangers, who died of an overdose this past summer. Most reports cited the effects of a hockey career spent filling the "enforcer" role. At the time of his death the 6' 8" Boogaard, nicknamed "the Boogey Man," was one of the most feared fighters in the NHL. Most commentators assumed that his many fighting-related injuries, concussions reported and ignored, contributed to his depression and his (likely) suicide. However, what I found most upsetting in this profile of Boogaard's childhood, save the picture of Boogaard as a two-year old (see below), is this quotation from the first line of the story: "DEREK BOOGAARD was scared. He did not know whom he would fight, just that he must." The article goes on to describe how, in large part due to his size, Boogaard was cast as a brawler, was made into someone who had to drop his gloves in order to secure a spot on a team's roster. Google Boogaard and here's one of the first photos that comes up:



In the photo, Boogaard has both fists raised. He is acting out his role as the "Boogey Man." According to the Times, he told his mother after one particularly gruesome fight, "It's OK. It's my job now." But Boogaard's size could not keep him safe. Nor could his parents. The picture of Boogaard that sticks with me is this one from the article:



In the two-year old Boogaard, I see my son. In the two-year old Boogaard, I think we see all of our sons. As much as I want to I will not always be able to keep Isaac safe. He will get scared. He will be hurt. Sometimes he will fall and not immediately pop back up and try to climb back onto the bed. As his father, I want to him to know that in those moments there is no shame in crying. There is strength in seeking comfort. I want him to know that in those moments I will be there for him. And in those inevitable moments, I will try to heed my own advice: there is not shame in crying. There is strength in seeking comfort.