Father Doesn't Know Best

In another epoch, I spent a little bit of time in Las Vegas. I had thought that it would be a great place to work, given the number of shows that were done there, so after graduate school and a trip to Singapore to work on a show there, I went to Sin City.

Of course, there was also a girl there. But that’s a whole ‘nother story for a whole ‘nother time. Preferably when my wife isn’t reading this.

At any rate, it turned out to be a really crappy place to try to get a job. There was nothing hiring on the Strip unless you knew someone – and I didn’t, really – and unless you were in home construction, it was a dry town for jobs. So, I temped.

Oddly enough, one of the temp jobs that I had was, in fact, in the construction field. I didn’t have to use any tools other than a copier – not even my rapier wit and my razor-sharp intellect. (I aver that these things atrophy when you’re in Vegas. I have never been dumber than the four months or so I lived there.) I organized papers in the local office of a cabinetry company.

It’s not just the climate that makes Las Vegas arid, and not just the gambling that makes you dumb. When the best one can do as far as art museums is a collection by a casino magnate that charged $12 to see a few paintings, you know you’re not in a cultural hotspot. (Other kinds of hotspots, yes.) There’s a modest ballet company, a mediocre symphony, some smatterings of theater, and an under-supported NPR station. Even the legitimate musicals that made their way out to Vegas were shortened so that a full experience in the theater wouldn’t detract from a full experience on the gambling floor. My guess is that the chandelier in the Vegas “Phantom of the Opera” stayed on the floor for the whole show.

So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at the conversation I found myself tangentially engaged in with one of the administrators at the cabinet company. He was a perfectly nice guy, and was very excited about his new son.

At some point, the conversation got around to how he was going to expose his son to as many experiences as he could. That way, his son could decide for himself what he liked. I thought this was a great idea.

“Yeah,” the new dad said enthusiastically. “I’m hoping to take him to a World Series game. Maybe a Super Bowl or at least some pro football. We have the racetrack here, just down the road, and that’s on the NASCAR circuit. I want him to see everything!”

Um. That’s what passes for “everything” here?

I wanted to say, “Why not also take him to a play? Or a museum? Or a ballet? Or a book club? That would also be exposing him to everything.”

Then I realized I would have had to follow up that statement with “Oh, right. You live in Las Vegas. People live here because they HATE those things.”

As time went on, I married the right woman (who followed me! Ha!), and had kids of my own, I never forgot that conversation. As parents, we want our kids to have as many experiences as possible, most good, some less good, but enough provide them with cake-like layers of depth: rich in ingredients, variety, and flavor. (Me, I have an onion-like depth: many-layered and difficult to love. And I make you cry if you cut me.) I have every intention of having Josie experience sports.

But I’ve worked in the arts too long to discount their importance. They don’t just open up your mind, they open up your soul, open it to a fuller understanding of the pageantry and tapestry of life. You understand why things are they way they are in a way that no NASCAR race can show you. (Although the pageantry at such an event is a sight to behold.) To me, Josie taking violin or guitar lessons is as critical as her taking swimming lessons or playing soccer.

The problem is that we are often to willing to expose our kids to things within the limits of our own experience. I would love to have Josie take a liking to science and math in ways I was never able to. I would be the wrong person to help with that homework. I always thought that Avogadro’s number referred to the ratio of ingredients in guacamole. And I don’t like guacamole. But I would never discourage her from checking it out and finding someone who could mentor her, since I sure couldn’t.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a sportswriter. My dad told me that I should aim higher (although I’m not sure that there is a higher calling in journalism than to be the second iteration of Shirley Povich). It’s that lack of encouragement that can cause your kid to second-guess themselves. Mind you, I would never suggest that if she wanted to be an amateur vivisectionist or perhaps an arms dealer that I wouldn’t offer alternatives. But why wouldn’t we find a way to mentor our kids, or find mentors, if they want to go in a direction that is unexpected?

The father in Vegas was interested in exposing his kid to the world that the father knows. Which, in Vegas, is very small. Very bright and noisy, but very small. The world is bigger than anything he knows, or anything bigger than I know. I want MY kid to experience it on her terms, not mine.