Posting tweet...
It seems bizarre that our new public relations manager is Dave Dederer, one of the guitarists for The Presidents of the United States of America.
“I want mustaches, and clothes from the Goodwill, tight clothes — and fake guns.” I say all this, making big gestures with my hands, to the bemused expression of exactly one person. ”Then, someone — I don’t know who, it’s not important,” with a dismissive wave; “does a roll over the hood of a car, comes up with the gun out and flashes a badge: ‘PTPD! Freeze!‘”
This is hard for me to admit.
When I’m at work, I’m a buoyant fount of comedy and helpfulness. I’m significantly less so at home.
I now generally have a tendency towards low self esteem. I default to Deny, Failure, and Loss. But as far as my fatherhood, I take it seriously. I put time and thought into my actions. I put a lot of work into it. To confess less than peachy at home is hard.
There was this conference I was going to go to. The Mankind Project. More of a ‘finding yourself’ retreat, but I imagine it as something with mannish versions of The Trust Game. One of the testimonies in the brochure I had read something like this:
“I was in wonderful relationships with my family, but I wasn’t expressing who I was. I had lost the exuberance of my youth, and this weekend I found that and am now sharing who I am with my family. It’s been life changing.”
I found some truth in that, in relation to the work/family dynamic. I mean, what is it about my Dadness that can’t be as lighthearted? A visitor wouldn’t see it. They’d see that I get down on my hands and knees and play – often, too much even. I get grass stains on my work slacks because of it. They’d see I let my kids climb all over me, and I make jokes often with my wife.
But it’s not the same, it’s not really me. It’s just a part of me.
The old me, before kids, was a bit flamboyant. I took better personal care of my self and how I dressed. I was a wise-ass, all the time. I was very upbeat and lighthearted. I really enjoyed being around myself.
I can’t tell where the darkness creeped in. I somehow became someone different at home. Please don’t misunderstand me – I don’t prowl the halls at midnight like a savage beast with blood dripping off my fangs. I get home and immediately pick up my kids in my arms, and go play. We set the table, we all have dinner together. I usually get to bathe both of them and put them to sleep. I Am Not A Dad Who Comes Home And Sits In A Recliner To Unwind. I strongly reject that concept.
What I’m trying to say, and what I fear will be misconstrued, is this:
I don’t understand why I act differently at home and feel less like myself. I don’t know where the real me goes, and I’m uncomfortable scared about that.
Having admitted this to myself, for the first time, I wonder what tonight will be like.
For those of you who don’t know, I work at a non-profit that gets jobs for disabled people. Physical and mental. We might find some jobs, but we make a lot more. We have contracts with the military to do vehicle maintenance, fleet management, sani-cans, grounds work, issuing, janitorial, those are the major ones. Most of those workers are disabled in some way. And most of these contracts were taken over from companies that were not non-profit, did not hire disabled people, and had much lower levels of customer service.
I’m very proud of the company I work for.
I never thought of myself as having problems being around mentally retarded people, and I still don’t. But I can now realize that I wasn’t, and often am not, comfortable.
When I first started working here, there was the Jump Rope room. The Jump Rope room is full of mentally retarded employees. Some are severely mentally retarded. Most are very excited when people come through. I had to go through that to get to the server room.
At first, I avoided it. Then, a few weeks later, I started parking in back so that I would go through the room. When my family visited me (which is often, it’s a family-friendly place) I’d have us enter, and leave, through the Jump Rope room.
I got to know several of them. What’s interesting, to me anyway, is the number of times someone says “They’re like children.” The first part, they, establishes a comfortable distance. The second part implies sympathy.
The analogy works only to a certain degree. I’ll give you a case where the analogy diverges.
Our CEO, who started this company with many of the jump rope employees, had a birthday party recently. All of the folks from jump rope decided to make him a birthday card, and one card had Greg sign it. Greg signed his name with GERGEERG. It was really sweet, when it was explained “He’s been learning how to write.”
This is where the analogy breaks. Greg’s learning how to write is sweet, by in a painful way. When my daughter tries to write her name, it’s sweet in a potential way. She will be able to write her name. At first, she’ll falter. Then she’ll get better and better until she takes her place as someone who is literate. Greg’s improvements have been on behalf of some hard work. I don’t think Greg will ever write the way you or I do, and that’s sad. That’s limiting. That’s where the phrase “They’re like children” falls flat, because of the potential. But it’s a comforting thing for people to say, so they say it anyway.
There’s also a perception of ‘not quite a person’. Or ’shadow of a person’. That’s a more bitter analogy, that mentally retarded people are missing something, some part of them or their mind. And while it might seem more accurate, it’s also most insulting.
What is, is. Who people are, they are.
This is easier, in a sense, for me since I’m exposed to people with radically different mental stats on a daily basis.
It’s easy to do with words, but not so easy mentally. To accept that Greg is all that he is, he is who he is and he’s every bit a full person, was not easy. I do think I’ve done it, though. That doesn’t mean I’m comfortable, and I don’t think it needs to.
Here’s your homework. You know that woman that works at Safeway, the mentally retarded woman, who bags groceries? When have you ever said “How’s your day?” Ask her, and listen to her answer. Don’t couch your words. This is something I’m working on, too.