Affirmative Action

When I was in college, I would sometimes listen to the Dr. Demento radio program. With a name like that, you can imagine it seemed extremely subversive on my conservative Christian campus – which of course was part of its appeal.

If you’re not familiar, it’s not as bad as it probably sounds. Each week the Doc played an assortment of comedy bits, song parodies, and the like; I won’t deny that the guy definitely has one table leg that's shorter than the other three, but it was pretty harmless. Perhaps his greatest crime was that he introduced Weird Al Yankovic to a wide audience, but that’s not indictable.

I vividly remember one routine of a guy going through a drive-thru window. The kid on the speaker is virtually unintelligible and keeps mangling the order; the driver repeats it again & again, a little louder, a little slower, a little more agitated… and then finally goes berserk. You hear the car rev up and drive into something – then, garbled through the speaker: “Can I take your order?”

I thought of that bit recently when I was musing about being a dad: some days it feels like you’re hollering into a microphone but the party on the other end isn’t quite hearing (or maybe listening); other times it’s like listening to that fuzzy speaker. Especially when my four-year-old gets going – she can ramble at length, and it’s all subjects and verbs and subordinate clauses and prepositional phrases and everything; complete sentences, perfect grammatically, but when she’s done I have no idea what she’s talking about.

There’s also one form of parental communication that's almost unique to parenting: the incessant stream of “nice job”, “way to go”, and “I’m proud of you” for tasks as basic as sharing a toy, pushing oneself on the swings, or going potty (hence the expression, “way to go”). I’m not that easily impressed as a rule – some would say I’m probably more blasé, in general, than I need to be – but I recognize the importance of affirming my kids. I also see how much they like to check in with us and receive our approval, and I want to keep that going as much as possible. I know the day is coming when the Parental Seal of Approval will feel more like a condemned sign to them, so I’ll enjoy my position of oracle while I can.

In a neat twist, I find myself on the other end of that sort of ego-boosting, because for several months I have been taking piano lessons. As I’ve mentioned, I’m reasonably adept on guitar; not a pro by any means but able to keep from embarrassing myself. And I know enough about music to know what piano-playing is supposed to sound like. Once in awhile, when the stars are aligned right, and the light hits the paper just so, and my fingers are optimally limber, I play something that sounds like the song in my head (well, one of the songs in my head, at least). Most of the time…not so much.

My piano teacher, of course, is unfailingly encouraging. Often she’ll tell me how much progress I’m making, how well I played the song, and …“I’d like to hear it for one more week” (thus giving me the option to imagine it’s because she’s enjoying hearing it so much). And sometimes, after I’ve struggled to the end of a piece for the umpty-umpth week in a row, sweaty like I just ran a lap, she’ll check it off (and sometimes add a smiley!) and I know in my heart: it’s not because I’ve mastered it, it’s because she knows I’m about to go crazy from the effort and the frustration and the sheer Chinese water-torture sensation of playing the same thing over & over & over again -- especially the mistakes, of course.

I don’t suppose the kids get much objective joy out of sharing toys; the praise is supposed to reinforce the habit. And until I can consistently play a basic piece without sounding like my fingers (or the keys, or the notes – pick any two) have all been removed and reattached in random order, I won’t have that many moments of true musical satisfaction either – so I need all the sunshine pumped in my direction that I can get.