9 Things I Learned From My Son

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My oldest son turned 9 earlier this week and, as always, it left me feeling rather emotional and reflective. He’s become such a part of our lives it’s hard to even remember what life was like before he arrived. 

Am I even the same person I was before he was born? 

I don’t feel like it, that’s for sure.

We live in a time where people are having less and less kids and even the idea of parenting has been politicized. Remember that whole cat lady controversy from a few weeks ago? 

Now, I’m not one of those who believe that you must have kids to live a full, meaningful life. But it certainly helps! For me, having a child was like taking the red pill in the Matrix. Nothing was quite the same after and, over the last 9 years, I learned more about myself and life and what it means to be a good person than I did in the previous 20 years.

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So, to honor my son’s birthday and everything he’s done for me, here are 9 key things I’ve learned from him:

1. That the world, in fact, doesn’t revolve around me
Shocker, right? Well, before you laugh too hard, this is a lesson I’m convinced that males, in particular, need to learn and something all thoughtful fathers out there will agree with me on. Whether it’s the influence of the patriarchy or just a function of our biology, we males are prone to selfishness. While it doesn’t always happen, having a kid is the best way to break a man out of this unfortunate delusion. 

2. That there is a secret store of inexhaustible renewable energy and it comes from self-sacrifice
Maybe this isn’t so much a secret as something that is hiding in plain sight. After all, it’s in all our great spiritual and philosophical texts and all our great stories and movies. But it’s one thing to read about and another to experience firsthand. What you realize when you have your first child is that no matter how tired you are or how little sleep you just got, when you take care of the baby or help your wife, there’s always more energy in the tank, enough to get you through. Every single time you subordinate your own interests and desires to those of your child, something profound happens. You tap into the life source.  

3. Denzel was right when he said that a son’s first true love is his Mother and the Mother’s last true love is the son
There’s nothing like the bond between the mother and her child. It’s just different and, I believe, far greater than all other forms. 

4. If you want to really know what you value, try teaching your kids about morality

Teaching morality and ethics is difficult ground. It’s also dangerous—just look what happened to Socrates and Jesus, for example. But, in my view, it’s the chief aim of all parenting. It’s also the reason I’ve been so creatively productive these last 9 years. Sitting down and thinking seriously about what kind of men I want my boys to be has unleashed a torrent of clarifying creative energy and ultimately inspired me to start Profit+ and The Nick Halaris Show. 

5. I’m not near as patient as I’d like to believe.
I’m sure all the parents reading this will relate. Kids test your patience in a different way and I’ve walked away from several situations feeling rather embarrassed at my own behavior. I’ll just say this: I’m sorry Ben for that time I screamed at you in a completely unhinged and unreasonable manner for not wanting to go swimming that day. 

6. Just how competitive I actually can be
As Ben got older and started participating in sports and doing jiu jitsu, I noticed he had an unusual level of competitiveness in him. He just has that fire and does not want to lose under any circumstances. For a while, this sort of bothered me. I blamed it on his Mom, who is also unusually competitive to say the least, and tried to regulate this tendency in him. Then, one day in jiu jitsu class as he was sparring with someone twice his size—someone who usually dominates him—he fought savagely and managed to escape and reverse the position. I was so inspired and thought to myself, “Why in the world would I try to dampen a spirit like that!? What the hell was I thinking?” I also realized that my negative reaction to his competitive nature was a classic pure projection. I’ve always been like that myself but have learned to bottle it up, probably to my own detriment in life. 

7. A child is a gift of an unexpected nature
I have become absolutely convinced that there is a reciprocal and mutual nature to the parent-child relationship, one that is operating at profound level and one that we don’t really understand. Even though it doesn’t always feel that way in the moment, we get as much from our kids as they get from us. You see, beyond the usual benefits of parenting—the indescribable love, the deep connection, and all the fun times—our children are here to teach us important lessons for the journey of life. 

This is a matter that goes beyond all the logistics and tactical challenges of parenting. Everything about the kids—their strengths and weaknesses, their personalities and behaviors, their interests, fears, likes, and dislikes…—is here, in part, to help you learn something important for your own journey. 

In my case, the boys have helped me be less selfish, embrace my true nature (as in the case of my competitive spirit), understand what I really value from a moral perspective, and see more clearly what I can do to make a great contribution to the sacred trust of our community. 

8. My kids are not my kids
I know that doesn’t seem to make any sense but stay with me! When my son was first born, I was so excited by the thought of all the things I was going to teach him about the world. My heart was full of grand plans for how I was going to mold him into the next President of the United States. I had a whole course of study laid out in my head—all the books, all the ideas, all the life skills…. I felt the same thing when my second son was born. But as the boys grew up and their personalities started shining through, I realized that I wasn’t quite thinking about my role as a parent in the right way. 

My dreams, no matter how noble or good, aren’t the paramount concern here. In fact, they probably barely matter. The kids’ dreams are what matters, not mine! As Khalil Gibran so eloquently says in his must-read “The Prophet”:

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

Of course, I still dream great things for the boys but I see my role differently. I don’t think of myself as the one with the key but rather just as an unusually committed guide and helper. My job is to help them discover their own path of destiny and push them to be the best they can be.

9. We are responsible for the future
While I’ve always been civically inclined, when the boys came, I felt a surge in my sense of responsibility for the future. There’s a term for this in psychology called “generativity” and the idea is that, at some point in your life, you need to stop focusing on just yourself and your own goals and start worrying about the greater good and the future. Generativity is available to everyone, of course, but I can attest that having kids is a surefire way to jumpstart the process. I’ve experienced it myself and seen it in my parent-friends as well. I’ve seen even the most hardened, libertarian individualists start to care a lot more about the neighborhood when that first kid came! This is a good thing obviously. 

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