Dan's Papers - June 26, 2009

Families are funny organizations. I use the term "organizations" purposefully, because, like the workplace, a family puts you in a position to socialize with people you may not ordinarily seek out.

Let me explain. I'm the youngest in a family of eight siblings. There's a 17-year span between my eldest brother and me - virtually a generation. He came of age in the late '40 and '50s. I grew up in the '60s and '70s. So when I was a young hippie teenager in high school, he had already served in the marines and was a working man with a family. Let's just say we were on different sides of most social and political issues.

Yet I had to interact with my brother frequently at family gatherings. He'd provoke me, I'd provoke him, or we'd just avoid one another. But as annoying as it was, it forced me to entertain opinions that I'd otherwise ignore.

I used to think that this was intentional, that God or fate or whatever laughingly placed us in families of people with wildly contrasting personalities and opinions, forcing us to work things out. Or, if we couldn't work them out, we would at least learn the lesson that you can still love someone even if you don't agree with what he or she thinks. In some ways, it's a perfect arrangement.

I wondered about how this would pan out when I had a child. Being born into an existing family society is one thing, having a child, and all the fantasies and expectations that come with it, is another. I worried about what our son might be like. I'd seen "Family Ties" - liberal parents betrayed by having a right-wing son.

Politics are down the line for us, since our son is only six, but I had other typical parent concerns. Would he be smart? Handsome? Funny? Athletic? But beyond that, what if we didn't share similar interests? What if he didn't like the beach? The arts? Taste tests involving different varieties of tomatoes? As a parent whose DNA wouldn't be reflected in his make-up, I wondered how much of his nature I could control through nurture.

As he grew beyond the infant stage, it became clear how powerful nature was. Characteristics we saw in him as a baby in a bouncy seat blossomed. But my partner and I inundated him with exposure to our passions - food, words, theatre, photography and music. Many of them have "taken." Like most young children, he loves the arts.

But what has surprised us is his passion for dance - especially since he's very macho. (His favorite sport is dodgeball, and a game of his own creation called punchball; and he throws a 40-foot pass with a football.) But neither of us are dancers, per se. But I remembered a ritual.

When our son was three months old, my partner returned to work. Every morning, just before she left, she'd blast disco music and, dressed in her Madison Avenue suits, do the hustle holding him in her arms. By the time he was 18 months, he was in the habit of dancing after meals. Babysitters gave us the hairy eyeball when I showed them his 'dance rug,' and instructed them to put him on it and play a specific CD. Soon after, he started jumping up to dance to the music as credits after a movie - even at the theater. And at four and five, he opted into dance classes at the East Hampton Rec Center.

Dance class buddies from last year who were a grade ahead didn't return this year. Maybe by first grade, dance isn't something 'big boys' do. I hope that's not the case, and that - whether by our nurture or his nature - he isn't swayed by his peers against his love for dance - nor punchball and pigskin. It's a perfect arrangement.