Risky Living Daddy
sometimes you should have a rope
We can all agree that climbing 101 stories up the outside of a building with no rope is, ah, “risky” right?
Squirt and I sat down to watch this the night after Alex successfully climbed the building. I didn’t watch it live with the 10 second delay because I wanted to know this dude lived before I got invested, you know? And he did! He conquered! It was pretty fucking epic. I cannot imagine the feeling of standing on top of that building having accomplished such a task.
Also, though, pretty fucking risky. One slip, one gust of wind at the wrong time, one second where the flow breaks or concentration slips and you die. Understand this: on a long enough timeline you will die. Simple math says so. That doesn’t mean every free solo climber dies (though many do), it just means some of them happen to step off their timeline before they reach the inevitable end.
But consider this: every free solo climber still alive has never made that fatal mistake. They’re still on their timeline. It reminded me of a quote from a book I was reading two days ago:
Everyone you ever fight to the death is undefeated.
~ Jim Butcher, Twelve Months
Alex Honnold has gone up against many a mountain (and building now!) and he’s always won. He’s undefeated. Amazing. And amazing to watch, I really do highly recommend watching it. On mute. Where you don’t have to hear all the blathering from random folks who don’t actually do climbing. It is rare to get to watch a world-class athlete in their element and entirely in control of their domain. It’s humbling to watch such a thing. I sat in awe of his discipline, training, and skill.
…I also found myself thinking he was a goddamn fool. So that’s what I’m unpacking here.
Parenting
I’ve heard it said that parenting is simply borrowing the child from the adult they will become. Similarly — you don’t raise a child, you raise an adult. So doing the job of being a parent means assisting them in finding adulthood. If you do this job right then you create a fully realized human that no longer needs you. Childhood, and what we might call “true parenting,” are temporary.
Let’s say it one more way just to drive it home. A good parent is someone who prepares their child for the day the parent is dead. Dark but also true. It’s a definition I come back to over and over.
Of course in an ideal world this is the work of decades. And because humans are complicated the preparation is multifaceted. Are they confident? Are they able to operate in the world as it is? Do they have financial support? Education? Are they prepared for pain? Realizing that complexity and uncertainty are part of life? Will they be a good adult, and hopefully even a better adult than you are?
It’s a big fucking job if you take it seriously.
Much of this Substack is simply trying to capture my attempts at doing this job. Trying to raise Squirt to be an adult that can succeed in this world without me. It’s a “parenting” blog just, you know, filled with profanity and ambivalence. I hope to be writing it for another 40 years and discussing these with a grown Squirt who sees me more as a friend and trusted companion. But right now I write it because…my job is not done. If I were to die tomorrow I would see my job as a parent as being unfinished. It would suck, but hopefully I have many a mile to walk alongside my son before he has to continue his journey without me.
Living Foolish as a Dad
So it is the work of years that isn’t finished until my knees creak and my kid is embarrassed at my old man vibes. What I’ve been muddling is what could possess a father with two significantly younger children than mine to climb on to the side of a hundred-and-one story building without ropes? How fucking foolish is that, to walk up to the edge of a cliff and say “one mistake and I’ll leave my children adrift to figure out life without me.”
It ain’t for me.
If I had to break my life into epochs it falls about like this:
Childhood - when my parents were borrowing me from the adult version of myself. They were responsible for my foolishness not getting me killed or maimed.
Adulthood - when I became responsible for myself alone. I could, and did, be very foolish but I wasn’t going to hurt anyone but myself.
Marriage - when Spouse and I decided to share our lives. Here again foolishness can destroy a shared life.
Fatherhood - when I borrowed Squirt from the adult version of himself. Now my foolishness impacts someone I brought into the world who needs me much more than another complete human partner.
[Future] Father-of-an-adult - when I go back to just being responsible for me and sharing my life with “only” Spouse. Foolishness risks a shared life again.
Naturally this is reductive, but the broad strokes should make sense. I was brought to life, I grew into an adult and took the wheel on my life, I shared my life, I then brought a life into the world with Spouse. And someday I’ll watch Squirt take the wheel from us and start his own journey. The responsibilities, and what foolish risks, change with each of these epochs.
And right now the bolded epoch is where I (and Alex Honnold) live. We are responsible for little lives and, in my mind, that means we cannot live entirely for ourselves. Our children are utterly unprepared to live on their own at this very moment. Deliberately risking that life is no longer just a risk for yourself, it’s a risk of your child losing your guidance.
Of course, just climbing into my truck and driving down the street is risking myself. Not eating perfectly. Spending too much time sitting at the computer. There is no such thing as living without risk. But some risk is more risky than others, innit? Risking a fatal truck wreck isn’t exactly at the same level as climbing a skyscraper without a rope or pumping your body full of drugs or any of the other things that makes a life insurance actuary wake up screaming in the middle of the night.
The level of risk matters.
Living for Yourself, Living for Your Son
Opposed to this is the idea that every parent should still be able to live for themselves. Spending your child’s entire childhood making all of your own needs and desires subservient to theirs would be unhealthy in a different way. And therein lies the tension. Every parent should be able to live for themselves as well as for their children. And part of that living, at least for Alex, means living in a very risky way by doing something that he is beyond capable of doing. For me that might just mean asking Squirt to occupy himself while I finish that newest Jim Butcher book.
But there are lines, I guess. And each person has to answer them for themselves. I am not a person willing to step onto the short timeline of climbing buildings without ropes while I have young children. Others are. It’s great the world can have both kinds…but suffice to say I came away both impressed and a little judgmental.
Squirt Says…
I like how you use the phrase borrowing a child from them as an adult. Your childhood is what defines you. It's what you become. From the child taking their first steps to the same person watching their child taking their first steps.
Dad Responds…
First steps to first steps. Great metaphor, child mine.
