The grandkids are really happy almost all of the time and I think I know why. So far, nobody has told them they aren’t enough. No one has said they aren’t good enough, talented enough, smart enough, strong enough, popular enough… 

I want to freeze time for them, lock in this moment when the reality of limitations isn’t even a concept yet. I want them to keep living in a world where they can believe anything about their own futures, never needing to question whether their dreams are possible. And, absolutely, I want them to continue believing that they can, without having to think about the person who told them they cannot.

It will happen someday, of course. I don’t know any adults who haven’t absorbed the idea, somewhere along the journey, that they aren’t enough. But, for my grandkids, I’m hoping we can postpone it for at least a few more years. The day you’re told you aren’t enough is the day your childhood ends.

When my daughters were young, I told them they could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up. There was a hidden asterisk in that assurance, since “anything” covers an awful lot of ground, but the premise was still sound. Whether they wanted to be Supreme Court justices or cheerleaders, there was a path for them to achieve their goals.

By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve been told we’re not enough in so many ways that we can doubt our potential even in areas where nobody has slapped us down yet. The sad fact of our rites of passage is that they tend to limit our view of what’s possible, narrowing our own sense of our selves and our potential. Sometimes, we look back on a path not taken and we think it was also a path we could not have taken, because we weren’t enough.

It's not true, though. We go through life once and we make choices every day about whether we’re going to have fries with that…or not. But making a choice today, or in high school, doesn’t preclude a different choice, a different direction, thirty or forty or fifty years later. The things we haven’t done before are not unavailable, just untried.

When we took up knitting instead of pottery, when we moved to the suburbs instead of the city, when we bought a Mac instead of a PC, these were choices, not a life sentence. Very often, older people will sigh that they always wanted to…something. Also very often, there’s nothing really stopping them from giving it a try today.

We do get stopped, though, held back by the view that we aren’t enough, not good/smart/talented enough to do whatever we haven’t done so far. Decades have passed, but we still allow ourselves to be controlled by someone, possibly a someone we don’t even remember, who told us we weren’t enough.

Maybe they were wrong, though. Maybe we were enough. Maybe we still are.
 
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And then there was the time a friend and I were arrested for being Peeping Toms.
 
Now, to be fair to my already diminished reputation among decent people, I should note that we were innocent of any crime.  Yes, I know “I didn’t do it,” is what guilty people say, but it’s also what innocent people say. It’s Schrodinger’s Plea.

I should also clarify that we were arrested in the sense that we were stopped and taken to the police station without having any choice in the matter. It’s not exactly like the cop said, “Hey, you guys wanna come down to the station with me? Totally your call.” Nope, he did not say this or anything like it, unless you consider, “Get in the car,” to be a request.
 
Anyway, to the story… We were home on summer break and we planned to get together one evening with no particular plans in mind. I was at a cousin’s house, so we came up with the goofy idea—which, I swear, seemed really sensible at the time—to drop my car off at my parents’ house and walk back to where his car was parked. Then he would drive me back to my parents’ house, drop me off and go home.
 
No, looking back on it, I can’t come up with any reason why this seemed like an enjoyable experience, or why it appeared to make sense, except we were exceedingly lame, but not lame enough for miniature golf.
 
So we drove to my folks’ house, dropped my car, and started what was going to be a 5-mile walk back to his car. (As I type this, it sounds even stupider than it sounded when I typed it in the last paragraph, as if such supreme stupidhood is possible.) Anyway, at about the midway point in our amble, a suburban squad car rolls up and the cop asks us what we’re doing.
 
This is where the cop should have known we were innocent, because even the dumbest of the dumb among criminals could come up with a better story than, “We’re walking five miles from my car to his car, so we can drive back in his car to drop me off by my car.”
 
The cop says a woman called in a Peeping Tom complaint from a nearby motel and he wanted to know if we had been in the area. The reason he was curious, he said, was that the woman described the peepers as a Mutt & Jeff combo and we fit the bill. Being the Mutt part of this pairing, I was slightly offended, although it was hard to argue that I didn’t need to drop a few pounds.
 
He takes us in his car to the cop house (which is what we hardened criminal types call the police station) and puts us in a room where he asks questions. No, we’re not under arrest, he says, although we can’t leave, either, and there’s no need to call a lawyer, or dad, because we haven’t been charged with anything.
 
Yet.
 
I’m taking all of this really, really seriously, since I presume this to be a crime of moral turpitude and it could blemish my reputation, if I ever got the chance to build a reputation. It’s one of those things that would absolutely go on my permanent record and follow me through life.
 
Ever since grade school, I had been warned about things going on my permanent record, which was chiseled in stone and locked up in the principal’s office, documenting everything you did wrong…ever. Like when it was the student assembly and you farted and Billy Kamden laughed and some of his spit landed on Sally Wunderlich and then everyone started laughing and now you can’t get good job, because they will look at your permanent record and see that you farted in the school assembly and ruined it for everyone.
 
And now we’re stuck in the police station and they’re going to add Peeping Tom to the whole farting thing and I would never get a good job or drive a cool car or even be allowed to order a pizza.
 
So, as I said, I’m taking this really seriously, but my friend had just a bit of disdain for everyone who was not at his level of brilliance, so he mouthed off more than a bit to the constabulary. It was like we were playing a game of good suspect, bad suspect, but at least I was the nice guy.
 
About a half hour goes by and they move us into another room, a room with a large mirror on the wall. Hmmmm. What could be behind that mirror? The cops have us sit there, someone has a conversation in the next room, and the senior cop comes in to tell us they are going to have to let us go because the woman was unable to identify us.
 
He didn’t say that we were innocent, of course. Clearly, we were guilty, since my friend was tall and I was fat and we were walking near the scene of the crime. The words he used were, “She couldn’t identify you,” which meant we were guilty but we were going to get off because of a technicality.
 
After a while, they agreed to take us back to where they picked us up, which was still about two miles from where had been going, and we were let out of the car with a warning not to do it again. Because it was clear to them that we had done it and we had gotten lucky, but we wouldn’t be so lucky next time.  That also meant they weren’t going to look for the actual Peeping Toms. They found their perps, it didn’t work out, but this case was closed.
 
We really dodged a bullet that night. What if the woman had been drinking and we looked familiar enough for her to accuse us? What if she had simply assumed the police had done their jobs, so we must be the guys who looked through her window? We’d be running around today with arrest records, possibly convictions, and the minor consolation of knowing it all happened before Facebook.
 
I’ve thought about that night quite a few times over the years, recognizing how close we were to a very damaging journey. The memory is triggered, often enough, when someone is accused of a crime and claims to be innocent. Having been on the wrong side of the table, I find myself more skeptical of the criminal justice system. I give the cops the benefit of the doubt, most of the time, but they don’t get my blind faith.
 
I’ve also given some thought to the decisions we made that night. After careful consideration, I’ve concluded that miniature golf was not our lamest choice.
 
 
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So now that everyone is working from home and Friday is pajama day, what do kids buy instead of ties for Father’s Day? So many mysteries to being a dad, including…

1. You can’t be afraid in front of your kids. You can tell them that you get scared sometimes, which is actually healthy, but you cannot be frightened in the moment. Whatever is going on, you have to hold it together until it’s over.
   
   
2. No matter how good a dad you are, there will come a time in your kids’ lives when the smartest, coolest, funniest, bravest, handsomest guy in the world is…someone else's father. Anybody else’s father. Everybody else’s father.
   
   
3. Dad reassured my sister by saying, “I’m always on your side.” We can’t always agree with our kids or support each of their choices, but at least they can know that we’re looking out for them as best we can.  
   
   
4. There are a million things we know as adults that we cannot tell our kids, hurts and harms that we cannot prepare them for without making them fearful and distrustful. The best we can do is be there to offer comfort after the fact and assure them they can handle it.
   
   
5. No matter how hard the kids stomp on your nerves, you can’t blame them when you lose it. Yeah, it’s an impossible demand, but too bad. That’s the job.
   
   
6. Your kids are like your doorbell camera, always on and always monitoring the situation. Whether you intend to or not, you’re making memories for them right now.
   
   
7. The only real way to judge your own performance as a dad is to watch how your own kids act when they become parents. It’s too late then, of course, but at least you’ll know. (Hint: if they’re willing to leave you alone with their kids, you probably weren’t the worst dad in the world. Or else they’re really desperate for a babysitter.)
   
   
8. Every so often, I think about writing a letter to my kids, apologizing for the many ways I let them down over the years. The only thing that stops me is the hope that they have forgotten some of it and I’d only be opening old wounds.

 
Being a dad is the best job I’ve ever had, and the most rewarding, even if I had no clue what I was doing most of the time.  I think the kids knew this, or at least suspected, but they let me off the hook and I appreciate it a ton.
 
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We're taking an unprecedented departure from the usual frivolity this week to focus on an issue that hasn’t affected most of us directly…yet.

What if we could have an honest, adult, mature conversation about reducing gun violence in the United States? What if we could dispense with the slogans, the accusations, and the impossible demands and just discuss the things we can do to diminish this uniquely American scourge? What if, instead of simply dusting off the tirades we used last time, we figured out a way to reduce the number of next times?

Let’s give it a try, shall we? And we could begin by agreeing to be governed by reality. So, first, a few realities to define our conversation.

1. Nobody is going to repeal the Second Amendment. As is the case with the Electoral College, the bar for approval is simply too high to win approval in 34 states. Whatever merits you think repeal does or doesn’t have, it's not going to happen. Move on.
2. We cannot harden every target. There are roughly a half million schools, churches, grocery stores, parks and other sites where people congregate and mass shooters like to visit, and many of those locations, like parks and playgrounds, are outdoors.
   
3. Nobody is going to take guns from law-abiding citizens. Like the idea of capturing and deporting 12 million illegal aliens, there isn’t enough money and manpower to confiscate 400 million guns from 80 million households.
   
4. Criminals will break the law.  Well, yeah, that’s why they’re called criminals. The argument that we shouldn’t have gun laws because criminals will break them is the same as saying we shouldn’t have any laws about anything because, well, criminals.
   
5. No solution will be 100% effective. A border wall won’t stop all illegal immigration, a vaccine will not prevent all infections, armed guards will not prevent all bank robberies…the list is endless.
   
6. No constitutional right is unlimited. We can’t shout fire in a crowded theater and we cannot own missile launchers, but maybe we can all be happy anyway.
7. Laws will always be applied differently in different jurisdictions. Some prosecutors will go hard on one crime and easy on another, which has always been the case.
   

So, if we recognize these realities, where do we go from here? A few suggestions.

First, let’s agree that law abiding citizens will continue to be able to buy guns. I don’t happen to own a gun, but I have no problem with my neighbor having a weapon for his/her protection. Even if I had a problem with it, they have a right to bear arms and it’s none of my business. Anyway, the whole point of this conversation is to stop criminals, not law-abiding citizens.

So, how to reduce gun crimes without infringing on the rights of non-criminal types?

1. Step one: raise the age of gun ownership to 21, and that should apply to any gun, not just long guns.
   
2. Use of guns by people under the age of 21 must be under the supervision of a licensed, trained instructor. That would apply for military recruits, ROTC members, and kids on their first hunting trip with mom. If you’re going to teach your kid/student/recruit how to handle a gun, you should be required to get trained first.
3. Parents should be personally liable for any damages/crimes committed by their kids with guns, just as is the case if their kids have a beer party when the folks are out of town, or when the kids have a car accident, etc. If you leave the guns out for the kids to play with them, whatever they do is on you.
4. Straw buyers and dealers who sell guns illegally should be guilty as co-conspirators in any crime committed with a gun they sell. If a straw buyer sells a rifle to a kid who shoots up a school, or a handgun to a gang banger who smokes a rival, that straw buyer should be on the hook with the shooter.
   
5. Limit clips to 10 bullets. If someone is breaking into your home and you need more than ten shots to repel them, 15 or 20 probably won’t help.
6. Background checks should be required for all gun purchases, including sales at gun shows and cousins selling to each other. Yeah, it’s a nuisance, but it's not an infringement, and we can’t prevent the bad guys from getting guns if we don’t check everyone. As an added benefit, the waiting period to complete the check could give at least a few hotheads time to cool off and reconsider.
   

 
You’d never know it from reading all the slogans online, but these commonsense steps should be acceptable, even desirable, to a huge majority of our fellow citizens. We’re not going to stop all gun crimes, but we could make some progress if we started acting like mature, reasonable adults who had an interest in reducing the carnage.
 
IMO.