I don’t know exactly when the OCD trait-afflicted side of me wrenched itself into existence, like the Eng to my scatological Chang (Chang and Eng were real American heroes…these two dudes were not handsome, were born as siamese twins in the era before Asian men were considered sexy by society at large–still waiting for that to happen, by the way–and they still managed to score two white girls!  *fist pump with a hai-yah karate chop in yoface, Rosie O’Donnell*) but Eng definitley rules the roost now.

Like most pre-millenial children I grew up rolling around in the mud, digging for gold in my nostrils and on many a sunny afternoon playing in the yard quenching my thirst with the garden hose.  Heck, even in the lost year between college and medical school I worked as a colonoscopy tech, which for those of you not in the medical field means that I spent a year cleaning equipment that was shoved up the bungholios of people over the age of fifty.  (Which is why I never had much sympathy for Occupy Wall Street.  If I can humble myself after graduating to earn a living cleaning up other people’s poop, so can you.  Sing it with me…You down with OPP?  Yeah, you know me!)  

But during medical school someone flipped the switch and I became deathly afraid of cooties.  So much so that so that to this day I wash my hands twice after making it rain and thrice after making it thunder.  If I had to hazard a guess the blame perhaps would lie in my surgery rotation, where the intern, resident, chief resident and attending would always remind me in succession to scrub very well with that betadine-ish stuff before going to the operating room or else I would be responsible for killing the patient.  Which seemed kind of overkill versus regular soap, because after scrubbing you would rinse off with water that was not sterile (perhaps one of my surgical friends can explain that to me).  Despite this I was gangbuster gunning for a GI fellowship until someone asked, “Frank, would you rather touch poop or urine?  Do you want to spend the rest of your life being an anal dentist?” 

ANYWAY.

Since then I have been poop-phobic.  I do not mind urine.  But get someone else’s poop on me and it would take the likes of Masahiko Kimura to hold me back from using an S.O.S. pad on myself.  Life, as anyone old enough to remember Reagan’s comforting voice would know, is not without a sense of humor, cruel irony, or a female dog named karma.  My wife, you see, gave birth to The Poopie Monster.  It is all poop, all day, baby.  As any of you parental units or former babysitters would know, it is virtually impossible to maintain a sterile field when changing them.  Cross-contamination is unavoidable. The worst is when some part of your face itches mid-diaper change.  Scratch and you get poopie cooties on your face. 

Which brings us back to Chang and Eng again.  (You thought I couldn’t bring it back around, huh, O ye of little faith?)  Obviously these dudes were not the respective versions of Tom Brady and Clint Eastwood in nascent America but they found partners who loved them for who they were.  Those of us who are fathers with sons fantasize that they will grow up to be Tom or Clint, expecting all the great highs without wanting to deal with the lows. Watching your son grow, eat, sleep on your shoulder and smile are wonderful parts of fatherhood, but you still have to clean up the poopie every few hours.  Likewise, as the years progress I will relish in his accomplishments but I am sure there will be an equal amount of poopie in the form of suboptimal behavior that I will have to clean up.  

But you know what? That is okay.  Fatherhood, The Poopie Monster has taught me, is not about liking this or that.  It is about loving your son.  Poopie and all.  

Potential. One of the joys of having children is that when you look at them, you see unlimited potential. President. Astronaut. NFL starting quarterback. (More often than not, these tend to be similar to the pipe dreams we used to have for ourselves but I’ll save that post for a time when I’m not as sleep deprived.) However, no one looks at their children during bath time and sings, “one day you’re gonna grow up to be a sadistic dictator, go get it, son!” in iambic pentameter.

What do Mother Theresa and Hitler have in common? Well, they were both born and they both died. So what happened during the dash on their tombstones that allowed one to evolve into good and the other to devolve into evil? How does one navigate the path from innocent, clean-slate newborn to become a tyrant or saint?

I won’t pretend to know with Astinus-level accuracy their respective life stories, but I think it is safe to assume that both Mother Theresa and Hitler received love from at least someone growing up, whether it was from a parent, distant relative, friend or authority figure. The same could be said for instruction in basic human morality (at least in the eyes of society’s mores and folkways).

So what happened to Hitler? More importantly, what produced Mother Theresa?

Tiger moms, panda dads, absentee parents, helicopter parents…the list can go on and on about parental archetypes that lay psychologists (read: everyone with a blog) praise or blame in retrospect for how a kid turns out. However, it is that very act of retrospection that a seductive quicksand trap of parenthood is revealed: we spend too much time loving the results of our children instead of the children themselves. And in doing so, we focus on parenting instead of being parents. We run around trying to find the latest and greatest programs, slurp up child-rearing theories and argue with fellow young couples about the merits of the Khan Academy, International Baccalaureate programs, ballet lessons, Mandarin classes and everything else under the Hagwon sun.

Do I have the answer as to what makes one a tyrant or a saint? Most certainly not. Like everyone else on earth I was not granted a practice round of life and am flying by the seat of my onesie pants. I do believe, however, that we place too much emphasis on our technique (read: stop feeding your ego) and not enough on the children. They are, after all, individual sentient beings and not pets or clones. They will turn out how they turn out, despite best–or worst–efforts. In no way am I advocating that we all join a hippie commune and let our scions roll around in the grass and let nature take its course. Double decka hecka no. I am going to do my best to not spoil my son, teach him right from wrong and call him out when he starts going down the wrong path too far (I’ll let him go a little, so that he can learn from his mistakes). I will also likely dabble here and there in extracurricular programs I seemed to eviscerate earlier in this post.

In the end I just think that we should enjoy being parents. Our children, after all, will grow up too fast, leave the house too fast, and marry too fast (but not have our grandchildren fast enough!). The more time we spend pontificating the less time we will be left with to enjoy the wonders of the human arc.

So will my son become a tyrant or a saint? That will be his choice and only God knows which one he will pick 20 years from now. But what I can promise is that he will navigate that path knowing that I will love him with all my heart, all my soul and all my mind.