Halloween, the Final Season

 

Asher is at prime trick-or-treating age, so today we'll be attending our neighborhood's outrageously fun Halloween parade, followed by a quick bite to refuel, and then going door-to-door as long as our legs will take us. I have gotten into the habit of being the "chaperone dad" for Asher and his friends, going around with flashlights, making sure everyone gets across streets safely, and saying hi to other haggard dad neighbors along the way.

I wonder if, as soon as next year, he's still into trick-or-treating but wants to go around with his friends without parental accompaniment. Which is followed not long after not wanting to trick-or-treat anymore but still wanting to around with his friends, this time to parties and maybe with a little romance in mind. Which means that, since Asher is our youngest, we are nearing the end of a cherished childhood milestone activity. So you'll excuse me if, tonight, I take a few extra pics and wipe away a few tears.

Slow Down

 

 

Though it doesn’t quench my enthusiasm for the sport, I must admit I’m a terrible golfer. Perhaps that’s why I like the game so much, but that’s a thought for another post. 

One thing I’m realizing is that I’m particularly bad when I feel rushed. Golf is an activity that requires extreme concentration for a very short amount of time, over and over again, a level of focus that I often am unable to muster, distracted as I am by all the thoughts swirling around in my noisy head. 

Every round seems like a futile fight between my trying to tell myself to slow down and my inability to do so: 

* If I’m playing with good players, I don’t want to hold them up. If I’m playing with even worse players, they take a lot of time so I feel a particular need to accelerate lest we be on the course all day. 

* If there are groups behind us, I hate the notion that I might be holding them up. If there are groups in front of us, I know I’m supposed to keep up with them to maintain brisk pace of play. 

* If I’m playing solo, it feels like an indulgence that I’m not allowed to luxuriate it because I should be getting back to work or family. If I’m playing with others, I don’t want to hold them up. 

* If it’s extremely cold or hot, I want to finish the round as soon as possible because I’m feeling physically uncomfortable. If it’s pleasant out, the course is invariably crowded so I need to keep things moving. 

Based on the list above, there’s never a time when I’m not feeling a visceral impulse to rush. And we haven’t even gotten to the real reason I can’t slow down: my schedule is crazy. People are always impressed I’ve been devoted enough to my new hobby that I am able to carve out the time every week to engage it, which yes it’s something I work hard to make time for. But, at this stage in my life, “making time” means that to fit the several hours (including driving there, warming up, playing, and driving home) into my schedule, I have to race through a bunch of other obligations in my life before and after: wake up, work out, get groceries, get back to the office, and so on. 

Indeed, one of the great joys of my first ever golf weekend with dear friends was the ability to not only play golf but do other multi-hour activities back-to-back-to-back without having to compensate for such indulgences by racing back to real world responsibilities. Even then, I had to remind myself that I don’t have to rush, because my body and brain are so used to a breakneck pace. 

Kids and work will remain a big part of my life and a challenging thing to juggle in a finite amount of time. But, as we get older, those responsibilities evolve. And, as we get older, our realization of the importance of slowing down and taking time also increases, as does our ability to execute on that realization. I am not yet good at that. But I at least acknowledge that I am not good at it, and that I need to do better. Maybe getting better at golf will be sufficient prod in that direction!

Pre-Teen Asher

 

With Jada in Taiwan and Aaron in Kansas, who would’ve thunk that the biggest transition in the Huang household is that Asher has been replaced by pre-teen Asher? Whether or not Asher’s evolution into a surly teenager-in-making has anything to do with being the only Huang kid at home, his arrival in this phase is pretty much right on schedule. 

Doesn’t make it any less jarring for us his parents. Sure, he still has his sweet moments where he wants to hold hands and do kisses, or walk together to school, or read bedtime stories. But, as we observed with his two older sibs, and as parents have experienced since time immemorial, we are also getting out-of-the-blue outbursts, requests for freedom, and of course a deeper voice. 

“Untangled” is a book about adolescent girl development which I found helpful in understanding what is normal about girls growing up into women. Girls are different than boys, but there is something transferrable about the book’s central metaphor, that growing up is akin to multiple aspects of a child sending out a search party to explore an older version of themselves, and based on what they observed they decide whether to stand pat or move forward. I say “multiple” because (and this is what is often confounding for us parents) this happens along more than one dimension – physical, social, emotional – and are often not synchronized, so someone can act more mature socially than they are emotionally, for example. 

I think this is more pronounced for girls than for boys, but the central premise holds, which is that the pre-teen years for boys and girls are about exploration of a larger version of yourself. Asher is, like all boys his age, trying to figure out who he wants to be as a 5^th grader that is different from whom he was as a 4^th grader. Which means that, when we try to block that search party, it’s frustrating for him because he is desperate for information to know whether to stay the same or move forward. 

There’s no doubt that, as his parents, we sometimes have to block his desired paths for his own safety. But, as hard as it is to launch into the unknown with him, we are trying to give him space where appropriate to experiment and expand. That means giving him freedom, albeit with guardrails and consequences at times, but nonetheless freedom that is oftentimes scary for us to grant since he is still so young. Every day, nay every interaction, seems a tense negotiation of his pushing for more freedom and us either saying sure or alternatively bearing the brunt of his rage when we say no. 

Asher is also getting bigger physically, which is its own dynamic since he is a future large Black man in a world that too often suspects and fears and acts with force against large Black men. Which is something we need to mind in this calculus around giving our pre-teen the appropriate outlets of freedom. To cite one example, we’re really leery about letting him leave the house with toys that look too much like real weapons, which may be good policy for all kids but is especially fraught for our Black boys. This too is a source of tension, as Asher is rightly frustrated that he is hemmed in because of his race and because of the existence of racism. To which we can only and consistently and sympathetically reply, “yes, it’s not fair that some of your friends can do this and you can't, but it’s what we need to do so you’re safe.” 

As with Aaron and Jada, we will blink and pre-teen Asher will give way to teen Asher and then young adult Asher, and we as his parents will need to parent and adapt accordingly. We are to love our kids at every stage of development, and help them in and through every stage of development, and by the grace of God and with the help of our extended village, we are doing our best to do that for Asher in these pre-teen years.

Happy Gotcha Day to Jada

 

Twenty years ago today we met this beautiful human being and became parents for the first time. The process from the phone call we received that "you have a daughter" to that moment involved a few weeks, several administrative steps, and a long flight, and it has all been worth it to watch Jada grow up into an ambitious young woman who is not afraid to want things and work hard to get them. Happy Gotcha Day, Jerds! 

And a Thousand Generations

At home, I've had on repeat this YouTube video of a worship song, including when I am having some solitary time in prayer and Bible reading, and particularly when I am lifting up our children to God. With one in Taiwan, one in Kansas, and one in fifth grade, it distinctly feels like our kids are further away from us in physical distance and in personal influence.  Being a parent means loving another human being more than yourself, wishing good for them more than your own good, and as they grow up realizing that there's less and less you can do to secure that for them.

Amy and I have prayed for our kids since before they arrived in our family, but in this phase our supplications are more raw and visceral. We wish to protect them and increasingly can't, for them to make good decisions even as they are freer to make bad ones, for them to be kept from harm though they have never been more susceptible to it. And so, with a little bit of faith and a lot of desperation, we find comfort that, through the bumps and bruises of life, God's hands are upon them.

What is so moving about this worship song is that God's presence extends well beyond our reach into our children's lives. "A thousand generations" is an unfathomable word of blessing to speak into our existence. "And your children, and their children, and their children" is but three generations, and yet it is such a wonderful thought, that the same God who has blessed us will be in the same business for our great-grandchildren. No wonder why I savor this blessed thought.

 

Failure is a Data Point

 

Stand-up comedians are some of the bravest people around. Their craft involves standing in front of an audience, just you and a microphone, baring your soul and hoping you get a few laughs. Indeed, many comedy clubs are tough crowds, eager to heckle someone off the stage and quick to smell blood in the water when someone is floundering. 

Failure is an essential pathway to success for the stand-up comedian. A good joke never arrives fully formed, but rather needs to be told 100 different ways, the first 99 times bombing and yielding you a torrent of boos. A whole set, let alone one good enough for its own special, therefore involves an almost unimaginable amount of bearing failure. 

This is not an unfortunate byproduct of success, like medicine that is good for you but happens to taste like crap. It is in fact a necessary ingredient in getting to success. For without failure, the comedian doesn’t know how to change the joke so that it will land. As one stand-up comedian said on a podcast I recently listened to, “failure is a data point.” 

I firmly believe that success in life is the same as success in stand-up comedy. You have to want to accomplish something. And you have to be willing to bear many data points in the form of countless failures, in some cases quite painful and public in nature. Putting those two things together, that means you have to want to accomplish something enough that you are willing to bear many failures. 

Failure is hard for a kid in 2025. Nobody likes to fall on their face. Very rarely do we see the people we admire fall on their face. Young people desire success no less strongly than past generations, but they have very little support in the hard parts of the journey to success. 

Which is why good parenting is so important. Are we the kinds of parents who, day in and day out, are helping their kids believe at their very core that no matter what happens in life they are loved and accepted by their parents? Are they seeing in how we live our lives a humble acceptance of failure, an embrace of the painful process of going through failure to get to success? 

I fall short on all these things. I will extend myself grace that I do have my good moments. And I will hope our kids also extend themselves grace, to fail over and over again as they stumble towards success.

Jada Huang World Tour Arrives in Asia

 

 

Amy and I joke that Jada's love for travel was birthed during those long days in the orphanage, when being stuck in that plain crib for months compelled her to think to herself that if she ever got to move around she would see the world. Well, 20 years in, she's already been to Europe on five separate trips, one of them being an epic 5-city 16-day jaunt that she planned, paid for, and experienced all by herself. (The spreadsheet she made, of every minute and every penny, is one of my singularly "proud papa" moments.)

This month brings her back to Asia, the continent of her birth, and specifically 10 weeks abroad in Taiwan through a program Drexel has. She'll be living on her own and honing her Mandarin, as well as visiting as many of my family side's relatives as she has time for and accomplishing as many side trips as her budget can accommodate.

We miss her dearly already but are proud of her having ambitions and being willing to put herself out there to achieve them. Spread your wings, Jerds!