The Child Rises – Part 3

For Part II Click Here.


I promised you I would write about The Jammer’s Philosophy on Parenthood. Honestly, I simply don’t have one. Before you get disappointed, just bear with me. Any parent who says they have a comprehensive philosophy towards parenthood, I’m convinced is full of it. No one truly knows exactly how he or she will do things with their child. They only have ideas of what they’ll do. But ideas and principles are extremely abstract and once the child actually arrives, all bets are off.

I’ve seen some godly people have miniature a-holes for children. I’ve also seen young people come from the most difficult types of backgrounds and home lives yet they turn out to be some of the most outstanding individuals I’ve ever met. As a result, I’m not sure how much “parenting” is really an influence. In the end, like in all things, it’s all God’s grace.

Of course that doesn’t excuse me from the responsibility of attempting to be the best father I can possibly be (I wish it did). So here are some of my half-baked ideas of parenting. I know it’ll almost certainly be in a constant state of flux, but I don’t mind it. It gives me full deniability.

Besides, I’m a guy who saw Scarface at the age of five. When I started Kindergarten, I didn’t know how to spell my name but I knew what a Cuban drug cartel was and the phrase “Say hello to my little friend.” I’m going to need some deniability.

School:

I might offend some readers here, but first, remember that it’s only my humble opinion. Second, if you were easily offended you wouldn’t be reading my blog to begin with so let’s just move on. I know it’s popular among Christians to “home-school” their child. It’s a form of “protecting them from the world.” Also some of my most respected elders from my church home-school their children. However, I don’t think we’re going to home school Joelle and it isn’t a result of the stereotype that Christian home-schoolers end up socially awkward, riding unicycles barefooted, dress up like Wizards, Elves, and Star War characters and attend Comic Con (although that may be true).

I just don’t want my child to miss out on all the opportunities in the public school system (e.g., basketball, influence on non-believers, experiencing real temptation but resisting, etc.). Am I worried my daughter might get hurt or negatively influenced? Of course I am. But I’m not going to hide her from it but teach her to confront it the way Ra’s al Ghul taught Bruce Wayne to confront his fear in Batman Begins.

Grades:

Graduating High School was a complete miracle for me. Actually, I think my teachers passed me because they didn’t want to deal with me anymore. I’ll take it. So if my daughter comes home with bad grades, who am I do tell her she should do better? I’ll defer to her mother for that. Since she has half of my wife’s DNA this shouldn’t be an issue. Although if you take my F-average and my wife’s A-average do you only get a C-average kid? I would be fine with that. That’s what I wish I had but my wife might have a problem with it. We’ll see what happens.

Boys:

Never! I would post a clip from Bad Boys II but my editor (aka. My wife) wouldn't let me because of the offensive language (you were warned). Moving on.

Sports:

After getting over my initial disappointment with having a girl I started looking at some of the positives, one of them being sports. I don’t feel the pressure of getting her to play basketball. Actually, I don’t even care if she wants to play or not, but she’s not allowed to be a cheerleader. However, if she picks something like golf or soccer I’ll be bored out of my mind watching her play and I won’t even try and hide it. I’ll just be streaming Lakers games on my iphone.

Music:

I’ll certainly expose her to musical instruments (e.g., the piano) and see where it leads. I’ve always imagined my daughter really taking music seriously and leading worship at church someday, although if that doesn’t happen, it wouldn’t bother me. There’s no pressure at all.

Again, these are only half-baked ideas. My daughter has half of my DNA so I can assure you she’ll have some of her own ideas. Some of the ideas may cause me to bang my head against the wall but isn’t that a part of parenting?

On a special note, I find it absolutely amazing how much I love my daughter. She wasn’t even here two months ago. I catch myself thinking about her throughout the day wishing I were by her side. It’s like falling in love all over again. And if I were man enough to admit it, I would admit I sometimes get emotional just looking at pictures of her. Since I’m not man enough to admit, that doesn’t happen. I remember being single and watching screaming children and thought, “Why would I want one of those?” I had parents tell me parenthood is difficult but it’s worth it. My response was always, “Whatever.” Now that I have a child of my own I “get it.”

(Cutting to: Parents nodding in agreement)

I didn’t think I was even capable of loving a child at all, but life is always changing and sometimes you change with it and in this case, it’s for the better.


Stay tuned next week for Becky’s Wedding blog!!!

The Dark Night – Part 2

For Part 1 click here.

The first night Joelle got home, she screamed, cried and dropped baby F-bombs most of the night. The doctors said this would happen because of the traumatic experience of exiting the womb. Even though the doctors warned us, it didn’t make the dark night any easier (sorry, I didn’t know how else to work in the title).

It’s been six weeks since little Joelle Penny Jamreonvit arrived into our lives. I’m excited to see where the journey of parenthood takes us. I’ve been asked several times, “How’s it feel to be a father?” or a question of the same variety. It’s interesting because I don’t know how to answer that question in just a tweet or two. So here’s me attempting to answer that question with a little more than a tweet.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know my background was a little rough to say the least. I never really thought about and dreamed of having children like most people. I just wanted to survive myself. Why in the world would I spend time thinking about providing for other people when I was just getting by myself? If you were to have told me when I was in college, “We’ll give you a million dollars to NOT have children” I would’ve said, “You outbid yourself. I would’ve taken $50.”

When I found out our baby was going to be a girl, I was initially disappointed because, well, how do I relate with a girl? Having grown up without a father, I now know exactly what I was lacking as a child and all the issues they caused once I got older. As a result, I felt confident knowing exactly what to provide for a son. A girl, however, felt like a whole different ball game. Now what?

Once Joelle was born all that stuff didn’t really matter to me anymore. The abstraction of it all was gone. It went from being the “idea of parenthood” to “Oh Sh**! She’s here!” My background felt nonexistent. I didn’t care what gender the baby was. I was simply grateful she was healthy, my wife was okay, and that we had so much support from friends and family. So do I feel any different? The short answer is, “No.” I still have bills to pay and life is still happening. The long answer is “I’ve been more reflective on issues I hardly reflect on.” For example, I’ve thought much more about issues like child neglect, abortion, and the philosophy of parenting. My conclusions are these: 1) It takes an evil person to neglect your own child, 2) abortion is evil and 3) I don’t yet have a philosophy on parenting (I’ll save this one for part 3). However, if you’re curious, this was my old one: click here.


My role as a man has certainly expanded, and I embrace that responsibility. I know this flies in the face of my motto “Avoid responsibility whenever possible” but child neglect isn’t an option. My wife told me last night how much she appreciated how I’ve embraced fatherhood (she was a little nervous about this, I guess). In her words, I’ve been tender and patient with Joelle and even more helpful around the house. Things have been coming naturally, and I haven’t really thought about “What do to” much at all (Unless it’s time to change the diaper… then I make like a ninja and disappear.) Joelle is still a baby, so it’s not all that complicated at this point. She eats, sleeps and fills her diaper with regularity. The true challenge begins when she can start thinking for herself and actually drop real F-bombs. For now, I’m just enjoying this moment.

In addition, watching my wife tend to Joelle makes me love her even more. She’s an amazing mother. It’s interesting how that all indirectly works. She’s not taking care of me directly when she’s caring for Joelle, or vice versa, but as we fulfill our responsibilities as mother and father we grow closer to each other. That’s probably been the biggest surprise in this whole “having children” thing.

Part 3 will be posted next week and it will be The Jammer’s Philosophy of Rising Children.