One step forward, one step back

My parenting is often like crab walking, achieving progress by scuttling sideways back and forth to move forward. This foreshadows the M. story that follows. Be forewarned, there is no heartwarming ending.

You’ll recall "Rug-o-nomics”, my way of imparting some financial discipline in my kids and their taking responsibility for their actions. Continuing that activity, during the Christmas holidays I finally ran out of patience waiting for Marina's promised speech and issued an ultimatum. She had to finalize her Responsibility speech text, practice it, and deliver it by the restart of school in January. If not, she'd lose the chance to recoup her old monthly allowance level. 

The days ticked by with fun and merriment aplenty. I reminded Marina about the speech deadline and she’d giggle or grimace and say, “I’m working on it, Dad.” We both knew she wasn’t. I wanted her to succeed so we spent a couple of nights working together on the text, structuring her persuasive essay and morphing into a speech text.  

But it was hard going and I had to press her to do the work and take it seriously. In the end, we pulled together a text that was 90 percent her words. She learned about structuring her thoughts and writing for her audience. A small victory and one step forward.

Finally, it came down to the last weekend of the holidays. We told her if she didn’t practice and give some effort we’d flunk her and that would be it. Upon hearing those words, she nodded as she headed out the door to play with her friends all day. Uh-oh. Marina did deliver the speech before the deadline that night. Naomi and I sat down and listened intently. It was a rote performance. We agreed it wasn’t good enough. Yet, against our better judgment, we decided to give her one more opportunity to get it right on her own. Her reprieve was five more days to practice; one last chance.

Five days later, it was Speech Day. I knew she’d read the speech aloud a few times that morning based on my suggestion. Come the evening, it was painfully clear M. hadn’t truly believed we were serious that she had to focus, practice, and convince us she had learned something about responsibility. “It’s obvious Marina didn’t do much even though we gave her an extension,” said Naomi. As she neared the end of the second attempt of her speech, Marina knew it wasn’t going to be successful. To her credit, though, M. persisted through her emotions to the end and accepted the thumbs-down outcome.

With a heavy heart but clear head, I told Marina our judgement that she hadn’t exerted herself and we wouldn’t accept this half-baked last attempt. Naomi and I promised we wouldn’t nag her again, but she had failed. I felt gloomy the rest of the evening, with a dull hurt when I saw the defeat in her reddened eyes, puffy cheeks, and hints of tears. We left her in peace and said nothing further. What’s done is done. One slip-up due to laziness--one step back.

We would not be doing Marina any favors by letting her off the hook and being overly nice or ignoring the reality that she’d been lazy.

We are not SuperParents. We do our best, and sometimes we fail. We aim to set an example how to treat others; establish boundaries; preach delayed gratification etc. And to try to turn a stumble into a lesson learned for our kid…

I am working on the next step forward.

2021 in review: Mending our Nets

When fishermen cannot go to sea, they mend their nets is an old proverb I read recently that struck a chord. I was driven to delve deeper into its meaning. Truth is I’ve been seeking a way to succinctly condense the significance of 2021’s events for the Rising Family™. The gist of this saying reminds us things happen in our lives that are far beyond our control such that we cannot live the way we have always lived, or do things we want to do. It doesn’t have to mean we're powerless, just tamed by circumstance. In this sense, this family did our best to take the power back by fighting malaise as best we could this year. Small victories, people!

Nevertheless, the COVID hangover from 2020 still required aspirin throughout 2021. We got through it.

The Big Picture is the pandemic continued to kick the ass of many people. The prospect of normalcy was repeatedly dashed against the hard facts of the Delta and Omicron variants with no endgame yet in sight. The Rising Family navigated these difficulties with resigned sangfroid, keeping in mind that so many others have lost loved ones and have been affected far more than us. 2021 remained a time of uncertainty and challenge, but we managed to scrape out a few fine memories. Here are a few images that represent the year.

January 

Optimistic beginning to 2021 with a New Year visit to a popular Shinto shrine in Yokohama. 

Photo credit KDKA TV Pittsburgh

February

Seems I never have decent photos from February. So here’s the dumpster fire amid a flood. Because it symbolizes my feelings for February in general, but especially in 2021!

March 

Sign of the times: masks and house keys together in the landing next to our front door.

April

I snuck out to a social occasion and returned home aboard a nearly deserted train at 2100. Government measures to prevent the spread of COVID were tough, so most social gatherings were prohibited. Most people supported that and followed the rules.

May

Marina started enjoying hoops—this game center fun foreshadowed her joining the basketball team.

June

This is an energetic Marina jumping down the Mt. Ogusu trail in the Miura peninsula (in January). This is a continuation of our family hikes started in Tennessee state parks.

July

The warm weather ushered in lower infection rates and open-air attractions started to open up again. Here’s M. about to be drenched by a splash boat hitting the skunky water at the FujiQ Highland Amusement Park. A bit of summer heat and children’s delighted squeals helped us forget the pandemic for a few hours.

August

Lady E. and The M. setting off Obon fireworks with their ji-chan (grandad) and baa-chan (granny) during their first get-together in two-and-a-half years.

September

The ladies at the Fushimi Inari shinto shrine in Kyoto (in August) on the way back from our summer trip to Hiroshima.

October

This was our first family movie together at a cinema since we returned to Yokohama. We saw M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old.” We were the first in the theater room; a few more people came in a bit later. It was a freaky feeling to see Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen” symbolizing “no sit” seats to keep social distancing rules.

November

I rented a motorcycle and took a day fandango tour to the Izu Skyline. It’s a famous toll highway and a fun drive that runs south of Mt Fuji. I am pointing to where Mt. Fuji is…behind the clouds that magically appeared when we wanted to snap this picture.

December

A “COVID Christmas” Zoom call with my family back home. I was full of Christmas cheer despite the time zone difference. Great to see and talk with everyone.

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