Author: Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Tom Petty’s Influence on Forming My Identity; Teaching Me to Question the System, Not Necessarily Authority Itself

I want to be clear: I am hereby giving permission to Tom Petty, who passed away yesterday at age 66, to affect my emotions.

Right now I am thinking back to exactly where I was 23 years ago, in the fall of 1994. I was 13 years-old and in the 8th grade.

While at the Hamilton Place Mall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I had a $20 bill in my wallet that I was eager to spend on my first Tom Petty cassette tape. Overwhelmed by all his albums, I chose his Greatest Hits album, which was still new at the time.

The 30 year age difference between Tom Petty and me didn’t matter. This 43 year-old, 5’9”, legendary rocker was one cool dude.

As I was still just learning the play the guitar at the time, his music would serve as a major influence on my musical style. By the time I got to college and began recording my own music, I actually used his 1989 album, Full Moon Fever, as the prototype for the mixing style.

Exactly 12 years ago, right after I had moved to Nashville, the Green Hills Mall had just reopened from remodeling, and were giving out $50 gift cards to the first 50 people who showed up on the grand reopening. I spent the night in the parking lot with my friends.

After realizing the Green Hills mall was more of a fancier mall, the only thing worth spending my money on was CDs; so I spent it all on Tom Petty albums.

Now as an adult, I can look back and see why exactly Tom Petty was always cool:

He was the definition of what it meant to be a rebel. He was the symbol of true rock-n-roll.

I can’t think of a more defiant line in any song recorded by any artist:

“You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.”

Tom Petty continually questioned the system. His album, The Last DJ, exposed the politics and greed behind what it now takes to be successful in music.

His identity was based on nonconformity; especially when it came to music.

There is no question that Tom Petty served as a guide for me in forming my identity. As a young teenager, I learned that being cool and rebellious wasn’t really about defying figures in authority, but instead, about questioning and challenging “the system”.

I am grateful to have lived the first half of my life with Tom Petty as a part of it. As for the 2nd half of my life, I’ll stick with what he taught me to get through the rest.

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Mixed Race: What Does a Person Look Like Who is Mayan, Aztec, Spanish, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian, Baltic, and West African?

Undeniably, my mom’s MyHeritage DNA test results were all over the place: Literally, all over the globe. It took a lot of ancestors from a lot of different places to get my mom here… and me, as well.

So now that we know my mom’s ethnicity mix (as well as half of mine), let’s take a moment to assess the situation by asking this question:

Can you see the following ethnic backgrounds in my mom and me? These are my mom’s MyHeritage DNA test results:

32.9% Central American (Mayan/Aztec)

22% Iberian (Spanish/Portuguese)

15.2% Sephardic Jewish (via Spain)

14% Middle East/West Asia (Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Palestine and Georgia)

7.8% Greek

4.5% Italian

2.6% Baltic (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia)

2.0% West African (Benin, Burkina Faso, the island nation of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, the island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe and Togo)

It could be easy to say, “Well, you’re barely African.”

True, I am only 1% African and my mom is 2%. But without that one African ancestor, somewhere in our family history, even if it were nearly 200 years ago that they became part of it, my mom and I would cease to exist.

Granted, I’m not claiming to be an African-American. But at the same time, I can imagine how my 1% and my mom’s 2% would have been a whole different issue back when “The One Drop Rule” was still in effect in America. After all, I have “one drop” of African blood in me.

I am proud of every bit of my DNA.

It’s especially interesting that my mom and I are nearly equal parts Jewish and Middle Eastern.

From the best my mom and I can figure, this is how it happened:

Her Italian grandfather, Giuseppe Metallo, who moved to America from southern Italy, was barely Italian; which explains how he had an Italian name and only spoke Italian, yet why my mom only showed up as 4.5% Italian. Instead, I theorize he was actually mostly Middle Eastern; with a little bit of Italian and Baltic thrown in there.

He married Maria Vite, who was a Sephardic Jew whose family had moved to America from Italy, as well. (Vite is derived from Vitalli; a Sephardic Jewish last name.)

So in theory, my mom had two “Italian” grandparents, one of whom was mainly Middle Eastern and one was mainly Jewish.

I think that’s just fascinating.

Some people could care less about their ethnicity, but I am not one of those people.

Instead, I think it’s one of the coolest things in the world.

And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link to MyHeritage.

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Dear Holly: Your Monster Feet Slippers

1 year, 5 months.   

Dear Holly,

Grandma got you some fun bedtime slippers to wear with your pajamas. They turn your cute little feet into huge monster feet!

For the past couple of weeks, Mommy has been trying to get you wear them while she reads you a bedtime story. You have been quite skeptical, only leaving them on for a few seconds each night.

But perhaps that is changing, now that you are really getting into shoes. Even when we’re not about to go outside, you still walk over to the closet and insist on picking out a pair of shoes for me to help put on you.

It’s a normal thing for you to be playing with your toys in the living room, while wearing your pink Nike running shoes; not because you need them, but because you are a shoes girl!

I think in your mind, you’re not fully dressed until you are wearing shoes, even if you’re just hanging out at the house with us.

You are forming your identity. It’s becoming obvious that shoes are a part of who you are.

So, even if the “shoes” are actually funny monster feet during your bedtime story… you are recognizing, they are still shoes!

This past weekend you decided to go public with your monster shoes. And by public, I mean that you decided to walk out of your bedroom during story time and show your brother and me.

I’m not quite sure if you fully realize that the monster shoes are meant to be silly, but as you strolled around upstairs in them, you proudly showed them off.

Your fashion show was met by us praising you for how cute you looked in them.

Yeah, you are going to be a shoes girl… even if they turn you into a fury monster!

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Your Semi-Biographical (?) Portraits of Your Family Members

6 years, 10 months.

Dear Jack,

Sunday evening as Mommy was preparing dinner as I was helping Holly play with her toys, you snuck away to the kitchen table. You eventually surfaced to hand-deliver drawings to the three of us.

You had drawn a picture for Mommy, for Holly, and for me. I immediately saw some inspiration from Pokemon characters mixed with the Mr. Man book characters.

The one you gave you sister showed a cute little person with a pink crown.

The one you gave Mommy showed a person crying.

And the one you gave me showed a person so mad that his hair was on fire and smoke was coming out of ears.

Naturally, I immediately asked you, after thanking you for giving them to us, “Are these pictures of us?”
You insisted they weren’t. But I am thinking there’s a little bit of a Freudian slip in there…

I can easily understand how you wanted to show your acceptance of your sister as the sweet little girl she is.

As for Mommy’s character crying, as she’s just not one to cry, perhaps it symbolizes her need for my emotional support from me; as the husband and father. On a daily basis, you subconsciously observe me carefully listening to Mommy unpack her thoughts from the day.

Whereas for me, I typically don’t have much to say about my day when I get home. Instead, there are times when I walk through the front door after working all day and driving an hour to get home, to find that you and your sister are restless, tired, and hungry.

That puts me into a position where I am managing two young kids while Mommy tries to get dinner made.

So while I would love to be as care-free as Jack Johnson all the time, perhaps by default, I ultimately adopt the character of the mad and angry boss.

Again, I could be looking way too much into why you decided to draw these pictures for us, individually; then directly hand them to us.

You’re a clever kid who has a healthy sense of awareness. I think you made this drawings as a way of categorizing the members of your family.

Love,

Daddy

1 Comment Posted on fatherhood, parenting, Spirituality, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Does Being a Parent Count as Working on the Sabbath?

Sunday is typically one of the most exhausting days for me; not that our family really does anything other than go to church, prepare and eat lunch, clean up, have the kids take a nap, clean the bathrooms and vacuum the carpet while they are asleep, prepare at eat lunch , clean up, and get the kids to bed.

Some might say that cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming the carpet is considered work, and should not be done on the Sabbath. I totally get that.

However, it’s the only open window to get it done throughout the week, as Saturday typically is our day to run errands and do grocery shopping.

More fundamentally though, for me, it’s hard to differentiate how cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming the carpet is more work than managing my kids. In fact, I’d say that managing my kids all day with my wife is more work than cleaning the house for an hour.

I’d even say that cleaning the house provides a bit of a break from being a parent. It gives me some time to not be needed by another human being for an hour. At least I can be in deep in thought, even though I am scrubbing toilets.

With both of my kids still being young (age 1 and age 6), taking care of them is truly a pleasure and a reward, but it’s also exhausting. It’s nonstop work from 6:30 AM until my wife and I fall asleep at 9:30 PM.

Whether a person acknowledges the Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday, I still see irony in the concept of trying to refrain from work on that day; as a parent.

Chilling out at the house all day with the family, when half of your family is dependent on the adults, is work.

It’s not resting or relaxing when I am having to remind my kids they are hungry or tired or bored, because that’s the reason they acting the way they are, and then having to feed them, help them get to sleep, or help entertain them.

As long as my kids are still young, I just think I’ll have to work on every Sabbath.