Good morning, Son - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

The other day as I was making dinner, I thought to pivot from my usual fare of podcasts to some music, dialing up an old favourite: Ben Folds. Folds is a pianist and he, like so many of the other musicians I listen to, and I have grown alongside one another.

 

When I first started listening to Hayden, for example, a Canadian singer-songwriter, it was in the mid-1990s. I was in my teens and he was in his early twenties. We were both, in our own ways, kids. As he’s continued to make music and as I’ve continued to listen to it, like so many couples envied in great literature and film, we’ve grown old together. Hayden now has children, I have children and as he writes new songs that invoke his children, I relate more to what he’s writing - connections that I would never have made as a teenager.

 

The first Ben Folds song many people heard was “Brick”, a song that, when analyzed, tells the heartbreaking tale of a young couple in the aftermath of an abortion. Folds mined his own life and an abortion he and his girlfriend at the time had when they were in high school. I was in high school with a girlfriend when I first heard that song and now, Folds has children of his own, just as I do. His sentiments connect with me on a whole different level now.

 

Years ago he released a song called “Still Fighting It” in which he speaks to his just-born son, thinking ahead to the future. There (or, then, rather), he envisions him and his son having a meal together, telling his son about bringing him home for the first time. In it, we shouldn’t be surprised is a tremendously poignant line. “And you’re so much like me - I’m sorry.”

 

This is something that hit me pretty hard listening to the song the other night after all of these years. Sure, depending on your level of vanity, it’s easy to look at your children and bask in all of the fabulous traits you’ve given them genetically, gracious creator that you are. However, for most of us (or maybe it’s just me - do send me an e-mail on this) the idea of passing things down to your children can be a scary one. 

 

Most people, I think, have an outsized view of their flaws, seeing them as being bigger than they are. So, when I start to see character traits of mine that I’d prefer my children not pick up, I can’t help but think of myself apologizing to them as Folds does in his song for passing on a less-than-perfect aspect of their personality, knowing that it’s not their fault, but mine. 

 

As a child and teenager, for example, I was very angry and rage-filled. There are practical reasons for that which I will not detail here, but there are also ways to mitigate that behaviour that I have embraced in the two decades I’ve been here in Huron County. I’m far from perfect, but I have made friends here who react as though I’ve told them I’m from Mars when I tell them that information. They see me as being laid-back, easy-going and calm in the face of pressure - things that would definitely not have been said about me 25 years ago.

 

I say all of this to say that listening to that song in the kitchen the other day made me think about the responsibilities of being a parent and how, unfortunately, in some cases, our children are destined to be a lot like us, even if they don’t want to be. That, I suppose, is where the exercise of parenting comes in.

 

Who my children will be and what they will take from their parents, I suppose, remains to be seen. And yet, it’s easy to see parts of yourself in them, whether it’s a look or a facial movement, or an attitude or a way of handling a situation. At times, maybe it makes you smile or maybe it makes you want to say sorry.