“You’re getting married tomorrow.”

“Yes I am, Pop.”

Grimace, grimace. “You … have any questions?”

“No, Pop.”

“Thank God.”

And that was the sum total of the sex ed I received from my parents. The rest was from neighborhood friends: “You can get a girl to do anything you want; just take your right index finger and rub the back of her neck.”  With advice like that, it was a wonder any of us ever got dates.

In light of my stellar education, I decided when I wanted to talk to my kids about sex: early and often. At the beginning of their 12th  summer I sat Seamus and Nunzio down and announced that I had to “talk to them seriously about something.” The Wife went pale. “Sex.” She fled to the next room. The big macho tough guy teacher Dad proceeded to have a dry, technical lecture using words like “insert,” “penis,” and “vagina.” It even sounded boring to me.

The kids sat stone still and said nothing for quite a while. I looked at each of them, “Any questions?”

Nunzio spoke very quietly. “May we be excused?”

Okay, not the Best Dad in the World moment I was going for, but at least the ice was broken. It doesn’t matter if The Talk is perfect, as long as they know you are trying, and you are there for them.

Now when they mention Health class, I get to ask, “Did you discuss erections?” and watch them blush, or dive under the dinner table. Clearly they have. Check that awkward discussion off the list. “Hey, did you guys learn about ejaculations yet?”

“DA-aaa-AAD!”

Check.

The most recent “sex talk”  burst forth while watching an episode of Bones.  The story line dealt with a bunch of cheerleaders getting a nerd to impregnate them (don’t ask).  The final scene featured David Boreanz’s character, FBI Special Agent Sealy Booth, sitting across a diner table from the teen, explaining the concept of parental duty. “Your kid, your responsibility … for the rest of your life.” He said this over and over, shocking him into realizing his new reality.

At the end of the episode, the fellas got up to go to bed, I sat them back down, hit rewind, and replayed that scene three more times. “You understand? ” I asked. “You get this?”

Seamus hid his face. Nunzio seemed baffled. “Dad, we don’t even have girlfriends yet.”

I hit rewind once more. “Well, when you do, remember this voice.”  Booth repeated, “Your kid, your responsibility….”

At least I didn’t ask about ejaculations again.

I was proud to share a source of spiritual sustenance that helped me through my teens, from the lush complexities of Yes’ “Close to The Edge” to the power of Dylan’s words to the emotion of Rick Danko’s voice, Bonnie Raitt’s slide guitar, the Allman Brothers’ transcendent rhythms, Aerosmith’s energy, Earth, Wind and Fire’s harmonies and horns, and so on. 

Until one of my sons told me the truth: to them it was all just “Dad music.”

I was stunned, and just a little destroyed. They heard my diverse collection of beloved sounds as one irrelevant, incoherent noise. It made no impact whether I played classic Faces or The New York Dolls. The Temptations sounded as corny as Billy Paul or the Four Seasons. Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Jimminy Cricket — it made no difference to them.

I fought the truth for awhile, explaining the meaning of songs, telling them stories behind various songs and albums and artists. Nothing mattered. I was crushed.

I showed them DVDs of classic concerts or performances. They waited a respectful amount of time, then quietly slipped out of the room.

I wasn’t alone in my desperation to have this music make an impact on my sons. The Wife and I took the boys to shows. Early on, they fell asleep. Later, they begged out of seeing certain concerts.  No matter what I did, I couldn’t enlighten them, couldn’t make them hear what I heard the way I heard it.

Because it is impossible to install your exact experiences into your children. We all hear music not only with our ears, but through the experiences we have while the music first speaks to us. There is simply no way my sons will ever experience what I did the night I first saw Peter Gabirel lead a crowd through the chanting finale of “Biko.” They will never feel the transcendence of U2 exploding through “Until The End of The World” , “Bullet The Blue Sky” and the devastating waste and spirituality of “Running to Stand Still”. They can’t because they weren’t there.

But slowly I came to realize they didn’t have to connect with my music the way I do. I’ve exposed them to the experience of loving something beautiful. What they do with that knowledge is up to them. 

And they’ve discovered their own sounds, and downloaded them (there’s another difference — buying music in a store is foreign to my boys). Now I’m subjected to the All-American Rejects, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, The Fray, T.I., Lil’ Wayne. And while I was concerned about content, they have the edited versions, and happily listen to bleeped out songs (a topic of another post?). 

I don’t like every song (okay, most), but when I really hate something they are listening to, I remember back to when Kiss or Angel were my musical gods. We all learn and grow, yes?

And every once in awhile I catch them singing along to ”Dream On,” Yes (“I get up, I get do-ow-own…”) or Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”  When that happens, life is truly good.

Rock on, kids. Rock on.

But should 13-year-olds be on Facebook? I didn’t know.  I had just about gotten over needing to have the “sexting” talk (which absolutely floored my guys; they couldn’t believe kids would send pics of their “junk” to each other), I didn’t know what to say about this more exploitable technology.

When I was a kid, we didn’t text, we hollered up to our friend’s window. Now kids can send pics of their privates to each other, unknowingly chat with pedophiles, even get killed by some guy on craigslist if you want to get paranoid about it. So, yeah, I was wary about letting my sons wander around FB.

They cured me of that, dragging me into the new reality. Turns out that when they asked to go on FB, my sons failed to tell me they had already registered. But that lie of omission will be the subject of an upcoming post. Let’s stay with the Facebook question.

When I discovered the truth, I held my inner Hulk in check, and asked one of the co-conspirators to sign on, thinking I’d find a sad, barren page with a few goofy friends being foul-mouthed clowns on their updates, and that would prove my point. We live in a relatively small town, how many FB “friends” could my son have?

Three hundred and seventy-six.

I was shocked. Fear followed quickly, as I imagined all sorts of sordid tomfoolery being discussed, twisting my poor sons’ minds (did I mention I can overreact at times?). I immediately started reading their friends’ updates, sure this was the mother lode of nightmare excess. I imagined the worst, but experienced something far different: some updates were funny, some dull, a few were incoherent mid-situation comments, but only one included a curse. A beautiful young Indian girl was apparently ready to walk right out of her house, she was just so f&#ing frustrated.

That was all the scandal I could find. Now I understand that I might have stumbled upon a quiet period, but I was amazed and relieved at how the behavior of 376 local kids was so consistently okay, so normal, so harmless. I was delighted to discover my sons were surrounding themselves with pretty good people.

Putting the lie of omission aside as a separate issue, I cut a deal with my sons: if they could handle us scouring their pages every once in awhile to make sure there was no unacceptable content, and (by The Wife’s request) if they would agree to “friend” us, then they could be on Facebook.

Why did I change my mind? I let the sheer number of their peers and the general appropriateness of their actual updates influence my decision.

Will things always be so positive on their pages? The odds are against that. There will always be the needy kid who goes too far, or the wanna be tough guy who laces his or her updates with vulgarity, or the rebellious or experimental teen who uploads a little too much information (be it written or visual). But I know my sons a little better now, I’m learning of their suddenly vast network of peers, and so far, I’m impressed.

With their knowledge and participation, I’ll check up on their pages just like I check up on the neatness and cleanliness of their rooms, and I’ll deal with missteps as they happen, but this is part of the new reality — their reality. Part of becoming a better Dad is forcing yourself to deal with the fact that your children’s world is far different than yours when you were their age.

The truth is there’s no going back. Here’s to the future, nerve-wracking as it may be.

What do you think? Please share your concerns or experiences with your kid on Facebook in the comments section.

I hope this helped.

Well, they’re older now, and my godlike status has faded. I still impress them occasionally, but it’s closer to Batman than Superman. Pretty soon, I’ll be as threatening as Jimmy Olsen, but that’s a nightmare for another post.

They still don’t lie much, and never well, thank God, but they have learned to … avoid the truth. It’s not really lying if you don’t actually say it, right? Wrong.

Recently I had to teach my sons what a “lie of omission” was. If you’ve read the other posts on this blog, you may already know the background , but basically they failed to tell me they had registered for Facebook when I had decreed that at 13 they were still too young to be on Facebook (see “Becoming Dad: The Facebook Question” for the rest of that adventure). I took the issue seriously, and separated it from the Facebook question to be dealt with on its own merits.

The situation was this: of my twins, one son was far more agressive in trying to convince me to allow them onto FB. He was also the one whom I discovered already had an FB page. The other son folded under cross-examination, and admitted he knew of his brother’s clandestine FB page. He became a co-conspiritor, even though I admired that he backed up his brother (coming soon: fatherly duties vs. Bronx pride!) . 

Upon further research, it was revealed that son number two had in fact been more than an ally; he had also registered for an FB page, but forgot his password! Son number one knew all about those shenanigans as well. So, both were guilty of ignoring the Big Dog’s decree, both were involved in a conspiracy of silence, both had committed of lies of omission. My fatherly radiance dimmed further.

This could not stand.

What was at stake?  Judgement. Moral choice. Lifestyle. Dignity. Honor. Trust. It was important to me that my sons understand what they had done, and see my actions not only as punitive but as opportunity to right their ship.

But what should be the proper discipline? Corporal punishment was out (see related post). And after considering exhiling them from the internet, The Wife and I concluded FB was a separate issue, and a potentially positive social experience for them. It was the lie we had to correct.

After much consideration, we settled on community service in the form of manual labor. Days and days of it, helping to clean out the monstrous abyss that is our garage. Both sons were informed that they would be required to give up play time as a direct result of their lies of omission. But we are trying hard not to shame them, only to note the mistake and require they to correct it.

Is this the best way to address the problem? I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist, I’m just a guy trying to become a better Dad. I do know this solution is better than my initial instinct to yell and scream and punish them severely. That’s part of the process.

My sons aren’t the only ones learning from this incident. And that’s part of the process too.

I grew up in a strict household. My father was Baltimore Catechism all the way, served in World War II and Korea, and spent 28 years in the NYPD.  A reserved Irishman, he could be loud, but when he got quiet, that’s when we knew we were in trouble.

And yeah, he believed in corporal punishment.

That was then, this is now.  We live in different times. We’re supposed to be better than the kind of people who would hit their kids. And that sounds simple enough to accept, but to be honest, this sometimes creates a problem for Dads. When we parent, we cannot help but draw upon what we’ve known. So what happens when what we know is corporal punishment? That is when the struggle begins.

Knowing that physical discipline is wrong is different from feeling the learned behavior well up inside of you when you are called upon to be The Authority Dad. Too often, for me at least, the urge is to do what my own father did when serious discipline was called for. To become a better Dad, I’ve had to push that urge aside, process it out, reject it, and turn to reason. But the instinct is always there, and that is disturbing.

To conquer the call to be like my Dad, to be strong, strict, unwavering, physical, I thought long and hard about what I learned from receiving corporal punishment.

I learned how to avoid pissing off Dad.

But I didn’t learn how to be a good man from physical punishment. That came from years of observing the more dominant traits my father carried: the willingness to go out of his way for his neighbors,  to be quick to share a laugh, to read almost as often as he breathed, and to take a stand for what he believed was right, and be able to explain why it was.

In 1978, I was 16, and New York City was hit with a major blackout. I remember my mother freaking as my father got dressed. She demanded that he stay home, protect his family, keep safe. He quietly explained that the family was safe, that we had enough flashlights and candles to light Yankee Stadium, and that he was NYPD, and everybody had been called in to work.

My mother argued that we didn’t need the overtime. Pop said it wasn’t about the money, or the bosses, or being with his friends from work. He looked her right in the eye and told her he was going in because it his job, because the people living in his precinct were going to need all the help they could get, and because it was the right thing to do.

With that he stepped out into the blackest night I’ve ever seen, and headed down to the wild heart of the South Bronx, which was being burned down that summer by its own people.

That’s how I learned to be a man, and all the corporal punishment in the world paled lamely behind it. As I strive to become a better Dad each day, it is that version of my Dad whom I want to become, and it is that Dad who wins out over the physical disciplinarian every time.