Brian Townsend's Blog

Last Day

Neatly organized in the front corner of my classroom, in the same spot it’s been for four years, March 17th classwork is still waiting there unused. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it much until yesterday, the day our Governor declared that schools would remain closed for the rest of the school year. The students I taught this year will never see that lesson, in fact, they’ll miss over two months of lessons I would have given them face to face. It’s not that we aren’t teaching them, but every teacher will understand that the lesson we’re giving students online will never be the same lesson they would have received in person. 

            As I try to navigate trying to be an excellent educator online, I’ve found myself leaning heavily on the relationships I’ve built from August to March. In reaching out to parents, and students, I’ve had the most success with those who:

Know how much I care for themKnow how hard I’ll fight to give them a good education

I did not think about these families or students when it was announced that schools would close for the rest of the year. Instead, I thought about the ones who might not know or believe those statements. 

What was the last thing I said to each child?

Teachers are in the trenches daily. We plan out a school year, plan individual lessons, analyzing data in the moment, anticipate misunderstandings, pivot instruction to meet the students’ needs, all while holding firm expectations and nurturing students. I’m not saying it’s difficult. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy it, but we wear so many different hats that sometimes one or two fall off. Sometimes we deliver great lessons but misinterpret student misconceptions. Sometimes we are so focused on nurturing students, that our lesson fails to deliver them the instruction they needed. Sometimes we hold such a firm bar, that we push too hard to get them to meet it.

Not one day are we ever perfect and I can’t help but sit here and wonder what imperfection I displayed on our last day together in person.

Did I make sure they left knowing how much I care about them?

Did I make sure they left knowing how hard I’ll fight for them to get a good education? 

We don’t always get another opportunity with people. For some reason, we live like we will. Some of these students will move, or transfer, and I may never see them again. Unlike previous years, we never shared the joys of finishing a year together, of reflecting on our time together before we parted ways. Yes, we chat on the phone, text, video conference, and I’m still a daily presence in their life, but that last day we spent together, that day is the last day I will ever get to stand in front of that exact group of students and make an impact.

Hindsight it 20/20 and truth is, I don’t think I took advantage of that day. I’m willing to bet most educators don’t think they did either.  We all wish we could have that day back.

You don’t have to be an educator to wish for a day back. I’m sure we all have one, but it won’t ever come back.

This day, however, this day is happening right now. This is your chance to make that impression, to apologize, to forgive, to love, to be who you were meant to be.

Make your impact. 

Now.

Because no one really knows when you’ll get your next chance.

Priorities

I have a tendency to disengage with society when life around me becomes too overwhelming to process. It isn’t something that happens often, maybe only a handful of times in my life, and it’s a tendency, or habit, that has never been too impactful on others. I have one vivid memory of this disengagement impacting someone, and it really only impacted this person because it was less of a moment and more of a two-year period of total disengagement. However, my life is quite different now than back then, and prolonged disengaging would disrupt the entire structure of our family.

Now, thankfully, I’m also at a point in my life where disengaging from society doesn’t feel necessary. My wife and I have worked diligently to take care of children, each other, and most importantly ourselves. 

Then the coronavirus happened.

I picked up on the signs right from the first week. The prolonged amount of time on social media or absorbing COVID-19 information, the lack of involvement in parenting day-to-day, and then the distracted parenting when I was physically present. The signs were plastered all over the wall for everyone to see, yet I still found myself falling into those bad habits during those first few quarantine days.

I don’t share this to expose my poor tendencies, but simply to point out that we all have them. Maybe your bad habit when you’re overwhelmed isn’t disengagement, but it’s alcohol, or smoking, or just being rude to those around you. Whatever it is, this is the easiest time for it to surface and also the easiest time for us to excuse it. I often found myself thinking, ”This is an unprecedented situation, so I’m allowed to act this way.”

Yes, it is unprecedented and each day it’s both heartbreaking and stressful, but at the end of the day, I woke up to the fact that I can control none of the stuff happening in the outside world. Unfortunately, consuming massive amounts of information about the pandemic isn’t going to stop the number of new cases, and isn’t going to stop people from dying.

We can’t control this, but we can control how we respond to it. We can control the example we set for our children, our friends, and our family. The way I’m doing that is by setting priorities.

Priority number 1: My children. When I spend massive amounts of time on my phone they don’t’ see an informed father. They see a father who’s telling them his phone is more important than they are.

Priority number 2: My responsibilities. When I stop co-parenting, it sends the message that whatever my wife needs is less important than my own needs. She sees a partner who’s telling her that his support is conditional.

Now, when I find myself wanting to disengage, I just think back to my priorities and the message that my actions send.

The truth is, we’re all overwhelmed, stressed, and concerned. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be human, but half of those emotions are caused by things we cannot control. The only way to ease them is to focus on what we can control. We can control our priorities, and we can control the message we send to others through our actions, or lack thereof.

Acknowledge your tendencies, make your priorities, and control what you can control.

A New Normal

I had a math teacher in college who gave us an end of semester project. This project was a pretty massive undertaking requiring two people, a math book, and a whole lot of technology. The first day he described it to us, he told us that it would seem like a lot, but he his message to us was simple:

People have done this before you, therefore, you can do this also.

It sounds simple, but I’ve actually thought of that quote anytime I’m about to embark on a new, challenging, or anxiety provoking task. I thought about it before I started graduate school at Columbia. I thought about it when I accepted my Teach for American position and moved to Chicago. Most recently, I thought about it when I decided whether or not to write my book, start this blog, or even think about the idea of working towards a goal.

During this moment in time, however, I find it very difficult to apply this logic because the truth is not many people, if any, have experienced such a situation before. If I’m being honest, it’s never been a concept that has crossed my mind. Now, however, over two weeks since my family has sheltered-in-place, it’s becoming our new normal.

At first, man it was rough. I think the first few days out daughter watched more television than she’d watched her entire two years on this earth. The amount of time I spent on my phone jumped over 100%, as I spent every waking second scrolling though Twitter feeds soaking in any information. Our family went from an almost perfect clean eating routine, to burgers and fries, and lots of ice cream. This lack of normalcy, structure, and, to be honest, good parenting, led to every single person in the house being more irritable, grumpy, and unhappy.

For the first few days I was pissed that this was happening to the world, to our country, and to my family. I was upset that I couldn’t see friends, go grab a drink, and live my normal life. The whole time I was angry because I felt like this…thing…was ruining the life I’d been accustomed to living.

Then I thought of another quote that’s always stuck with me: Why is this happening for me. Even though people before me haven’t done this, doesn’t mean I can’t be the one to get through it. Instead of thinking about all the normalcy I had lost, I started thinking about all the things I’ve gained. Things like getting to spend more time with my children, taking advantage of the time to reconnect with my wife, and being able to write. I’ve connected with friends, and family members in a way I haven’t done in years because I’ve been given the time to do that.

People are struggling out there. It is a scary world to be living in. People have missed weddings, funerals, graduations, first birthdays, and so many other events. Families are separated, friend are separated, and people are out of work. The first thought every morning is always: how much worse will it get today? If I let that question dictate my day, though, I’m going to have an entire month of too much TV, hours more screen time, and an irritated family.

The only thing we can do is try, as difficult as it may be, try to find a way to grow from this moment. That doesn’t mean we can’t be afraid, lonely, or anxious, but if we live in those emotions, we’ll get stuck in them. There has to be a way out and that way out is no longer to look to those who have done it before because they do not exist. The way is to be the ones to make it through, so that god forbid there’s ever a moment like this again, we have help others get through it.

Find the light. Be the light.

Routine

In our house, our days are planned down to the very last minute. We have a calendar that lists our meals, workout plans, appointments, and everything in between. We meal prep every Sunday, so all our meals are ready to go before the week even starts. My wife and I even have a scheduled television time right before bed. It sounds crazy, but without this schedule, we wouldn’t be able to make it through our week successfully. Our schedule provides consistency, transparency, and helps us make sure we are taking care of each other and ourselves.

Bottom line: our schedule keeps me sane.

…but then we stopped following it.

It started with school being cancelled. I no longer had to wake up at 5 each morning, so I stopped making my meals for the week.

Then we pulled the kids from daycare, so we stopped setting alarms to wake up before them.

Last, we decided to social distance ourselves from others, so I had no reason to get dressed each morning, or even (in all honestly) shower.

Over the course of a few days, our home was in a free-for-all. We’d all get off to a slower start in the morning, which made our day feel lazier and less productive. We watched a little too much TV the first few days (thanks Disney+), so we found everyone held onto a ton of pent up energy. Before we knew it, it was 10:30 and neither me nor my wife had worked out, or done anything productive for the day.

The impact this unstructured day had was evident from day one, but I especially noticed the impact it had on me. No structure meant I found myself scrolling through my phone all day long. I wouldn’t go five minutes without picking it up to “check something.” Every now and then it would be spent liking photos on Instagram, but a majority of my time was spent falling into a coronavirus spiral on Twitter and news websites. I’d obsess about all the information, all while using the excuse that I needed to stay “informed.” 

By the end of the night I could feel the physical effect of all this anxiety. I would not consider myself an anxious person, but consuming all this information, stressing over things I could not control, and refusing the disengage from the topic, caused my head to hurt. I was moody, less patient, and overall a worse husband and father than I wanted to be.

I think as parents it’s always expressed how important structure is for children, but I think sometimes we forget to mention it is also important for us. I hated how our first few days went, and I knew I wouldn’t like myself if things continued going the way they were, so we quickly adapted. We made plans, structured the day, and focused on what needed to happen for us to not go crazy.

This is an unprecedented time. It is important to stay informed, but I found getting the information once a day was just as productive as getting it every five seconds. 

If you feel similar, or know someone who does, focus on making a schedule. Set an alarm, workout, and take care of yourself. If you do, you’ll find everyone around you benefits from those choices. Adjusting to my new quarantined life, and making a schedule, has allowed me to focus on those around me.

We don’t know how long we will be living this life, but we do know that each morning we can wake up and only focus on what we can control. 

NO

The word “no” is typically a word most people don’t want to hear. I recognize that in certain situations the word is welcomed as positive news, I’m willing to bet most of society views the word with a negative connotation. The word “no”, however, is also a word that should always be respected. There is one subgroup of the population, though, where the word “no” typically isn’t respected.

Children.

Usually the word “no” coming from a child is a parent’s nightmare. I’m picturing a flailing child screaming the word in the middle of the toy aisle, the candy aisle, or anywhere that’s very quiet and crowded. (If you haven’t experienced this yet, I promise you will one day), but we often forget that the word should still carry meaning.

Even if you don’t have children, you can probably name a time a child has screamed “no” or “stop” while being tickled excessively, or even a time a child has remained silent while being forced to give someone a hug or a kiss.

The truth is sometimes people just don’t respect the word “no” when a child says it. When that happens, what message does it send the child? There’s this belief that children should do whatever it is an adult says. Don’t get me wrong, I expect my child to listen to me when I give directions, or set rules, but why does my child need to accept kisses from me? Why does my child need to give in to anything I want him/her to do? If i’m enjoying a tickle fight with my child and she says stop, I stop. If she isn’t in the mood to give me a kiss, I can ask for a hug or high five. Then, if she doesn’t want to do any of those, I can tell her I love her and walk away.

Sure, there are certain times when you need to change a disgusting diaper and a child telling you no isn’t going to work, but just think of all the other moments children say “no” and get ignored. In our house, we’ll say “I’m going to change your diaper, OK?” and believe it or not, our child always says yes (because who wants to walk around with a dirty diaper).

We are by no means perfect in our execution. There are many times I reflect back on my day as a parent and realize I missed a few opportunities to allow my child to have a voice. It takes a lot of conscious though, but how else am I going to teach my children that their words and others words matter?

Spread the Love

Love is in the air and on the top of my mind lately. I listen to Oprah’s 2020 vision tour podcast on my way to work last week and in one of her interviews she talks to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. In his interview he talks about loving his children unconditionally, which I hope (and believe) most parents would say. This is nothing new, but I was struck by the way he talked about texting his older daughter telling her he loved her and expecting nothing back. When he said that I knew I had to write about this idea of saying “I love you” and expecting to hear it back.

News flash: we all do it. 

There are probably few people reading his who have never expected or hoped to hear those words back. I have expected/hoped to hear it back more times than I can even count. However, with my children, I’m trying to make a more focused effort to do things differently.

As children we crave a certain type of love/affection. For some it may be words of encouragement, gifts, hugs/kisses, or even just spending time together. We also don’t always get the love we desire, so we turn around and seek it elsewhere. People seek it with physical/emotional partners, but my focus is how we seek it with our children.

I tried to think of how many times I told my daughter “I love you” with the hope of hearing her sweet voice say it back. Then I thought about what I do when she doesn’t say it back. I’m shameful to admit, I do the exact thing that pisses me off when others do it. I say it over and over and over again until I hear it.

But why?

Well, there are a multitude of psychological reasons why this happens, but I’m not going to dig through my past to explain them (that’s where therapy comes in handy). The simple answer is at some point, I didn’t get the love I needed. This doesn’t mean I had a life without love. It can be, but for most people it simply means that day, or week, or month, they didn’t get the love they needed.

Everyone wants love each and every day, I sometimes don’t feel that love at work, so I come home and crave it.

Well, there’s a blaring problem with that. My daughters is two and doesn’t really understand the concept of love anyway. She knows who takes care of her, who plays with her, and that’s who she loves. There are only two people who do that and I am one of them, so I know she loves me.

I realized that I need to change my mindset around love. Instead of craving it, I need to give it. First, I need to give it to myself. I need to love myself and give myself the love I need. Secondly, I need to love others unconditionally. I need to say “I love you” to someone just because I want them to hear how much I care about you. 

I need to expect nothing back because the purpose of love isn’t to receive it from others, but to give it out. 

I need to love unconditionally.

Finish It!

The earliest writing document you can find on my Mac is from 2007 which was the year I got my new laptop for college. I’d assume there are others stored somewhere in the hard drive of my family’s desktop, but no matter when they are from every single writing project had one thing in common: none of them were finished.

My routine year after year was disgustingly consistent. I’d get a good idea, think it out for a while, decide to try and write it out, get through some of it, and then insist that it wasn’t good enough, a stupid idea, or that I needed to focus my time on more realistic ventures.

I posted a picture of Instagram earlier of a script that broke the routine. In 2018 this script became the first writing project I had seen from start to finish. It was two years in the making, but the first draft was finished in about 6 days.

The feeling of finishing the script, made me want to go back and finish another story I had started the summer before. It is this story, after four grueling drafts, that is currently in the hands of the publisher being edited and proofread for the final time. 

For so many years I stood in the way of my own accomplishments. I’m disappointed thinking about all the times I’d stop writing something I really liked because I’d convince myself it sucked. Then I think about how many times I’ve stood in my own way in other areas of my life. The times when I let fear or embarrassment control my thoughts. It still happens to this day! Even with three scripts, a finished novel, and one in the works, I still have to check my own negative 

Whether it be a diet, a piece of artwork, a photography class you’ve always wanted to take, or any other adventure you’ve wanted to start, just finish it. 

Yeah, maybe it sucks the first time, but I promise you it will only get better each and every time.

My Time

I’ve started this post about sixteen times. Each time I’ve tried to come up with some clever way to get to the facts. They never really sat right with me, so I’m cutting straight to it. 

How do you balance the life you want for your children and the implicit biases and stereotypes you’ve been wired to believe?

I am the MOST annoying person when it comes to my friends and family applying gender stereotypes around my children. 

I constantly push back against traditions and terminology that apply predetermined attributes to my children. I recognize that I will never change everyone, so I actively work towards teaching my children that they aren’t what others say they are or need to be. 

Then I act or speak in a way that sends the exact messages I don’t want to send. 

Recently, I’ve been struggling with the message I send my children when I put them to bed at night and they don’t see me for twenty-four hours. It is their mother waking them up, getting them ready for school, feeding them breakfast, dropping them off, picking them up, and finally preparing dinner. Then dad walks in the door, everyone runs over to say hi, we sit down eat, and finally baths and bed.

I recognize the message it sends to my daughter. This idea that even though mom has a full-time job, her responsibility is still the primary caretaker. However, I’d by lying if I didn’t say I’m most concerned about the message I’m sending my son. 

My children see me take on the responsibilities of parenting every second I am with them, but they still see a father leave for work before they awake and return home at bedtime. 

Why do I do it? Most importantly, why does a part of me feel the need to keep doing it?

Money. 

Somehow, at some point, I got the message that I was responsible for making sure our family had the means to get by. Every single time we ran into issues with our finances, I took the burden on myself and for some reason when we didn’t have enough money to do something, I subconsciously blamed myself. It was my fault we couldn’t eat out this month. It was my fault that we couldn’t buy new school clothes. The list goes on and on. 

It never mattered who made more money. I always blamed it on myself. Then I’d turn around and sacrifice my time in an attempt to “give my family what they deserve.” I want them to have everything they ever ask for, so I place my own happiness to the side, and continue to give up my most important resource.

My time. 

I’m not here to unpack where this idea came from, but I am here to work to erase it. I don’t want my son growing up in a home where he’s sent the message his happiness is less important. I don’t want him to grow up believing that financial restraints are his fault. 

Instead, I want him to grow up in a home where he gets this message that I’ve been forcing my subconscious to repeat over and over again:

My children don’t need the money I make. My children need me, my time, and most importantly, my love. 

Parental Leave

Today is the day I hoped wouldn’t come for the past 8 weeks. As each hour passes, I am closer to having to make my return to work after a wonderful, adventurous, and meaningful paternity leave.

Right after our son was born, my wife began her much needed maternity leave for twelve weeks. For me, however, I was granted five days before returning to work. After spending three of those days in the hospital, I felt like my time with my son was over before it started. I was quickly back to the hustle and bustle and the thirteen hour days. I’d think about work while at work, constantly missing my family, and then return home worrying about my job performance, the materials due the next day, or some random task I had failed to complete that day.

Truthfully, I found my quick return to work, my responsibilities as a father of two, and my role as a husband more than overwhelming. I found it debilitating. I was not a father, I was not a husband, I was a robot moving through life, detached from my children and my wife. They existed on one track in life, while I somehow operated on a completely different one.

It didn’t impact my relationship with my wife. She operated like a true partner, giving me my space, my time, while continuing to include me when I tried disengage.

It didn’t impact my relationship with our first born. I was familiar with her. She was easy to take care of because I knew exactly what I was doing. There was no learning curve because I had already gone through the learning years previously, so I made it my role to play with, care for, and communicate with her mostly.

It greatly impacted our newborn.

He was new, unknown, unfamiliar, and I couldn’t figure our how to fit him into my life without throwing me off my track. The only word I can truly use to describe it would be disconnect. I felt disconnected from him and, at times, from my family. I’d researched depression symptoms in men multiple times a day. I was looking, anywhere, for a reason I felt this way.

Then my leave began. No, things did not change over night, but I was blessed with the time to reconnect with my children, my wife, but most importantly the partner and father I want to be. I no longer feel disconnected, like I’m on my own track, but instead feel an immense amount of gratitude that I got any time at all. I fear where I would be, and where my family would be if I didn’t.

I share this story for two reasons.

Men also struggle after childbirth. This isn’t to say men struggle more than women. It is simply to point out that life changing events impact everyone in a family in different ways. Parental leave is VITAL for families. Every single man and women should be granted paid-parental leave to bond with their children, to support their partners, and not have to think about anything other than the health and happiness of themselves and their family.

Resolutions

After welcoming our 2nd child in August, I tried to make a conscious effort to step back and focus on improving important details that help make a family run. Even through the craziness of two child under two, and a newborn, my wife and I know that improvement started with us. We agreed that no matter what life threw our way, we needed to make sure we were both in a proper space mentally and physically in order to be the best parents and spouses we could.

We started in October with a little help from the Hollis Company’s “Last 90 Days Challenge.” The goal of the challenge was simple: with 90 days left in the year, finish it off strong.

Drink half of you body weight in ounces each day.Write down 5 things you are grateful for every morning.Exercise for 30 minutes a day.

Does it sound simple? Good, it should. To be honest, we didn’t exercise 30 minutes a day, but we made a effort to exercise at least 3-4 days a week and every Saturday and Sunday. The point wasn’t to make an drastic changes, but to focus on three tiny parts of your daily routine.

Yes, we made mistakes, but by the time November rolled around, we weren’t even thinking about it. It was just part of our daily routine. We slept with a bottle of water (reusable) next to our bed, left notebooks downstairs on the island to write in every morning, and planned out our exercise on our calendar. We held each other accountable.

Since we started the challenge, I’ve joined a Crossfit gym, a weekly running competition, went mostly paleo/healthy eating, and finally feel like I’m on a path to the person I’ve always told myself I could be.

I don’t bring this up to brag about our accomplishment. I bring it up because focusing on finishing the year strong made it easier to start the year strong. Making sure I made mistakes, built routines, and developed habits before the year was older, allowed me to truly enjoy New Years Eve. I’m no longer focused on all the changes I need to make, but focused on the changes I get to make now that I’m in a better place both mentally and physically.

Life is crazy, hectic, and filled with distractions. I’m lucky to have a partner who is driven, and holds me accountable, but I also noticed that the changes I wanted weren’t really that difficult to make. I just had to get serious about it.

Get serious and make your 2020 what you want it to be.

Happy New Year!