good afternoon you know how when someone
starts a self-improvement program
they’re often encouraged to have a buddy
to help them and keep them motivated let
me give you an example if you want to go
to the gym more often many articles will
advise you to enlist a friend as a gym
buddy someone who work out with you and
make it fun or if you’re learning a new
language you’re encouraged to have a
language buddy someone who speaks that
target language and can help you
practice the things that you’re learning
well over the past six years I’ve
inadvertently started a self-improvement
regimen for myself and I have two
buddies who are helping me through it at
the moment and the coolest thing is I
made them myself
yes my wife had a major major role to
play in it as did divine intervention
because the self-improvement program I’m
talking about is what many of us would
simply refer to as Parenthood I am the
parent of two small children a boy and a
girl over these past six years
Parenthood has taught me several small
and big lessons that I want to share
with you today and I have to say that it
has improved me although not always with
my willingness and has made me a better
person or so I believe
but before I get down to that I need to
make a few clear disclaimers the first
thing is that what I’m going to say is
based solely on my own personal
experience I don’t claim to be an expert
when it comes to being a parent I don’t
even want to refer to us my wife and I
in the plural because these are very
much my own personal reflections on
something that we’ve gone through
together as a team over the past few
years before I go to the second
important the same where I want to show
of hands how many people in the room are
parents now there are cameras so if you
have children that you don’t want anyone
to know about keys don’t raise your hand
okay so I was afraid of this we are a
minority and why this is important is
because in our global society too
day we are revisiting this concept of
family or the traditional belief that
you have to be a parent at some point in
your life it’s a cornerstone of your
life experience I believe in a diversity
of life philosophies so my talk today is
purely about my own lessons as a parent
I’m not here to advocate parenthood as a
necessity for everyone in the room I’m
not here to say let’s go forth and
multiply
finally the final disclaimer of the day
if you ask any parent to talk about
their children they can go on and on for
hours I’m no different I love talking
about my kids but today is not going to
be about that I’m going to try and keep
the stories and anecdotes about how cute
and smart my children are to a minimum
and talk about simple facts and small
events so now that we’re done with the
disclaimers let’s get right down into it
six years ago I was a different person
and all that changed irreversibly one
late night in December when my first
child was born and the first lesson that
flex that parenthood has taught me is to
be more flexible I used to be the kind
of guy who would plan everything I’d
plan my day down to a margin of a few
minutes I’d plan evening activities
weekends holidays everything but when
you have two small children a new
randomness comes into the equation that
is very very difficult to approximate
let me give you a small example my son
started school a couple of months ago
and we found out that we had to leave
the house at 8:15 every morning in order
to be at school on time so I figured
okay we’ll wake up at 7:30 in the
morning and forty-five minutes should be
enough for him to wash up dress up have
breakfast and in general be ready to
leave but guess what my son wanted to
have playtime before going to school in
the morning
angry dad solution number one rush him
through his morning routine so you can
squeeze out a few minutes at the end for
him to play before we leave an angry dad
solution number two say no no playtime
before school you can play to your
heart’s content
when you come back from class in the
afternoon flexible dad solution
I started waking up my son 15 to 20
minutes earlier and let him go through
his normal morning routine and get some
time to play in the end it worked for me
but it’s not always that easy in fact I
used to be the kind of guy who would get
very very angry and irritated if we were
ever running late to get somewhere I
still do to a certain extent but I’ve
learned that the classic saying is true
when something happens in that situation
the only thing that is fully under your
control is how you react to it so now
when we are unavoidably being late to
yet another event and when you’re the
father of small children you have so
many opportunities to be late to school
late to karate late to art group late to
theatre late to play dates birthdays and
so on and so forth now when we’re
unavoidably running late to be somewhere
I ask myself the question how big is the
negative impact going to be for us to be
late to this birthday or play date and
usually the answer is it’s not going to
be very big so I try to not let it
affect my mood and consequently not
affect the fun that my family is going
to have it’s not easy though it doesn’t
always work for me either even to this
day the second important lesson closely
related to flexibility is patience I
used to think that I was a very patient
guy but I had no idea children have this
way of bringing you to your breaking
point when it comes to patience again
and again and again it’s like they’re
running experiments to try to figure out
what they’re allowed to do and what
they’re not allowed to do and every time
you get angry or irritated at something
that they’ve done you’re providing them
with valuable data that they’re storing
somewhere in those little brains of
theirs I swear it’s like they’re
collating the table or drawing a graph
in their minds coming up with a schema
that will somehow predict the behavior
that will have the optimal fun to
punishment ratio and you’d never guess
they look so cute they look so small
you’d never guess the complicated
statistical analysis and mathematical
prediction that is going on in those
little brains
but it’s true and I’ve learned that
patience is a bit like a muscle the more
you use it the better you get at it and
remember the gym buddy analogy I use
little children are more like gym
coaches in this sense the ones that want
you to lift heavier weights put your
back into it let’s try something harder
come on can you do it will this break
you when it comes to testing patience
that’s what they are they’re not gym
buddies they’re gym coaches but I’ve
learned that humor is a good side kick
for patients to have so sometimes when
we’re on long road trips and my son
keeps asking are we there yet are we
there yet are we there yet
the best strategy I have is to preempt
him with a humorous response or to
deliberately miss here what he’s saying
are we fair yet do do we care yet trust
me
driving Kate’s a little bit crazy like
this once in a while can be a lot of fun
the next interesting experience I’ve had
as a parent came a few months ago and
taught me about how our children
interact with their environments and
with their surroundings and how they’re
influenced by them sometimes without
even us noticing my son graduated from
kindergarten and we decided to prepare a
short video featuring all the children
in his group we’re going to go to school
after the summer and in this video we
asked all these children the one
question that occurs and recurs in every
childhood we ask them what do you want
to be when you grow up and I noticed
something slightly disturbing the boy
said things like I want to be a fireman
I want to be a policeman I want to be
President one girl said I want to be a
fairy another girl said I want to be a
kindergarten teacher another girl said I
want to be a mom the worst part is I
would not have noticed this difference
if I were not also the father of a young
girl so I caught myself asking the
question what if a few years later my
daughter graduates from kindergarten and
has this preset notion in her mind that
she can’t be in the police or she can’t
be President not considering those
options
and let’s be clear I don’t blame the
kindergarten at all these are small
messages that our children get from
society they see things they hear things
and though that’s what leads to these
stereotypes in their minds and I’ve
realized that as the father of both a
boy and a girl I need to do a better job
of compensating for some of these
information gaps in society about gender
roles but even for those of us who are
parents of only boys we need to realize
that there are stereotypes out there
that harm the well-being of our male
children for example I always personally
cringe when someone comes up to my
five-year-old boy and says why are you
crying are you a girl
no he’s a boy but anatomically and
physiologically boys and girls have all
the same glands and ducts that you need
to cry they’re built the same way for
that particular function no matter how
many times you tell your male children
that they’re not supposed to cry in
society the reality is that sometimes
they really need to so if you want to
encourage them to be open about their
feelings you have to make it count
in fact I can’t let this opportunity go
by without doing just that I’m going to
look straight into the camera for just a
second this is a special message to you
Michael if you really really want to cry
and people thought you’re not supposed
to don’t listen to them if you feel like
crying you can cry
he’s a bit too young to be here with us
today but who knows he might watch this
as a video a few years from now so why
missed the chance
coming to the next point which is
closely related to anatomy and
physiology my original educational
background is medicine I graduated from
this very University more than 10 years
ago viewed from that lens parenthood has
been a fascinating experience because
you get to see a whole new person take
shape before your very eyes someone who
goes from dad a dad to saying a few
words to say in complete sentences from
crawling to walking to running to
jumping this transformation fills me as
a parent with the appreciation for the
wonders of nature and a sense of
overarching gratitude that makes small
everyday problems seem like
insignificant specks of dust on a
wonderful painting by a masterful artist
and with the supreme appreciation comes
an understanding of other things as well
I’m sure all of us in this room love our
parents to a certain extent but not all
of us can fully comprehend what they
have been through as human beings if we
haven’t experienced Parenthood ourselves
a few small examples from everyday life
I never knew how exhausting it could be
to have a newborn child that cries
several times in the night and wakes you
up until I had to go through that with
my wife with our newborn children I
never knew how difficult it would be
when you have a small child and you send
him to a summer camp away from home for
a few nights and every evening you have
this temptation to call and see how he’s
doing
but you resist that urge because that’s
what’s good for the child as well these
are difficult things that our parents
have been through and because today is
also my dad’s birthday I want to use the
opportunity and say thank you to my
parents
and happy birthday to my father
the next small lesson I’ve learned from
Parenthood is linked to this
controversial idea we have today this
conspiracy theory that we’re constantly
being watched they say tape up your
laptop cameras well big business has
access to your living room through your
smart television be careful what you say
on the phone the government is listening
to your conversation
none of these agencies has anything when
it comes to the observation and
listening skills of little children they
watch you all the time they pick up
little habits from you that you didn’t
even know you had they see you doing
something they’re not supposed to do and
they use it against you in a skillful
move that would have the most master
full of chess players holding their
heads in defeat so I’ve learned that
watching myself observing myself from
the side like my children do can be
helpful to improve in small ways like
for example when I see my son’s toys
untidily lying on the floor I’m
sometimes visually reminded of my own
work desk and what it looks like from
time to time so it’s no wonder that
tidiness is not a big priority for my
son next lesson before I was married I
used to be subscribed to various
newsletters and one of them would send
me a random interesting fact every day
something like did you know that movie
trailers used to be played after the
main feature in a cinema that’s why
they’re called trailers they weren’t
played before like they are today now
let me stop this talk for a second for
those of you who did not raise your
hands about being parents and who don’t
care about Parenthood insights and
lessons learned I do acknowledge that
this is going to be your main takeaway
from this talk movie trailers used to be
played after the main feature in a
cinema not before but back to Parenthood
it’s like being subscribed to this
newsletter when you have small children
but you only get the questions you don’t
get the answers you have to get the
answers yourself small children
constantly ask questions about all sorts
of random things and we’re lucky today
we have the internet we can quickly
search for the answers and come up with
something that would satisfy them but
I’ve also been fast
needed by how these questions develop in
my children’s minds and I’ve learned
some very interesting things
apparently research has shown that when
a small child asks the question at home
and gets a reply it encourages him or
her to ask more questions it builds up
that sense of curiosity when researchers
have found that when children go to
school those from the so-called curious
households where they have asked
questions and received replies have more
knowledge than those who come from
average households but that’s not all
they also have a greater love for
learning so researchers have called this
a sort of rich getting richer phenomenon
they come to school with more knowledge
and they also gain more knowledge more
quickly than their peers because they
love to learn more so if you have
children or when you have children when
they start asking you all sorts of
random things be patient and try to
answer as much as you can
the final lesson about Parenthood that I
want to share with you today is that a
reality I don’t know anything about
Parenthood each stage of development
brings new information in new experience
each child is different than the
previous one so I’m only just starting
six years is really nothing but this
feeling of having someone out there whom
you loved unconditionally in the truest
sense of the word whom you love more
than you could ever really love yourself
is very very powerful and very very
inspiring
long story short being a parent has made
me a better person being a parent is
like having the job where you have a
very very demanding boss or several very
demanding bosses and constant constant
on the job training but the retirement
package of that job is amazing I can’t
wait to see the kinds of adults my
children are going to become someday and
then maybe I’ll start a new job I’ll be
a grandparent thank you
[Applause]
starts a self-improvement program
they’re often encouraged to have a buddy
to help them and keep them motivated let
me give you an example if you want to go
to the gym more often many articles will
advise you to enlist a friend as a gym
buddy someone who work out with you and
make it fun or if you’re learning a new
language you’re encouraged to have a
language buddy someone who speaks that
target language and can help you
practice the things that you’re learning
well over the past six years I’ve
inadvertently started a self-improvement
regimen for myself and I have two
buddies who are helping me through it at
the moment and the coolest thing is I
made them myself
yes my wife had a major major role to
play in it as did divine intervention
because the self-improvement program I’m
talking about is what many of us would
simply refer to as Parenthood I am the
parent of two small children a boy and a
girl over these past six years
Parenthood has taught me several small
and big lessons that I want to share
with you today and I have to say that it
has improved me although not always with
my willingness and has made me a better
person or so I believe
but before I get down to that I need to
make a few clear disclaimers the first
thing is that what I’m going to say is
based solely on my own personal
experience I don’t claim to be an expert
when it comes to being a parent I don’t
even want to refer to us my wife and I
in the plural because these are very
much my own personal reflections on
something that we’ve gone through
together as a team over the past few
years before I go to the second
important the same where I want to show
of hands how many people in the room are
parents now there are cameras so if you
have children that you don’t want anyone
to know about keys don’t raise your hand
okay so I was afraid of this we are a
minority and why this is important is
because in our global society too
day we are revisiting this concept of
family or the traditional belief that
you have to be a parent at some point in
your life it’s a cornerstone of your
life experience I believe in a diversity
of life philosophies so my talk today is
purely about my own lessons as a parent
I’m not here to advocate parenthood as a
necessity for everyone in the room I’m
not here to say let’s go forth and
multiply
finally the final disclaimer of the day
if you ask any parent to talk about
their children they can go on and on for
hours I’m no different I love talking
about my kids but today is not going to
be about that I’m going to try and keep
the stories and anecdotes about how cute
and smart my children are to a minimum
and talk about simple facts and small
events so now that we’re done with the
disclaimers let’s get right down into it
six years ago I was a different person
and all that changed irreversibly one
late night in December when my first
child was born and the first lesson that
flex that parenthood has taught me is to
be more flexible I used to be the kind
of guy who would plan everything I’d
plan my day down to a margin of a few
minutes I’d plan evening activities
weekends holidays everything but when
you have two small children a new
randomness comes into the equation that
is very very difficult to approximate
let me give you a small example my son
started school a couple of months ago
and we found out that we had to leave
the house at 8:15 every morning in order
to be at school on time so I figured
okay we’ll wake up at 7:30 in the
morning and forty-five minutes should be
enough for him to wash up dress up have
breakfast and in general be ready to
leave but guess what my son wanted to
have playtime before going to school in
the morning
angry dad solution number one rush him
through his morning routine so you can
squeeze out a few minutes at the end for
him to play before we leave an angry dad
solution number two say no no playtime
before school you can play to your
heart’s content
when you come back from class in the
afternoon flexible dad solution
I started waking up my son 15 to 20
minutes earlier and let him go through
his normal morning routine and get some
time to play in the end it worked for me
but it’s not always that easy in fact I
used to be the kind of guy who would get
very very angry and irritated if we were
ever running late to get somewhere I
still do to a certain extent but I’ve
learned that the classic saying is true
when something happens in that situation
the only thing that is fully under your
control is how you react to it so now
when we are unavoidably being late to
yet another event and when you’re the
father of small children you have so
many opportunities to be late to school
late to karate late to art group late to
theatre late to play dates birthdays and
so on and so forth now when we’re
unavoidably running late to be somewhere
I ask myself the question how big is the
negative impact going to be for us to be
late to this birthday or play date and
usually the answer is it’s not going to
be very big so I try to not let it
affect my mood and consequently not
affect the fun that my family is going
to have it’s not easy though it doesn’t
always work for me either even to this
day the second important lesson closely
related to flexibility is patience I
used to think that I was a very patient
guy but I had no idea children have this
way of bringing you to your breaking
point when it comes to patience again
and again and again it’s like they’re
running experiments to try to figure out
what they’re allowed to do and what
they’re not allowed to do and every time
you get angry or irritated at something
that they’ve done you’re providing them
with valuable data that they’re storing
somewhere in those little brains of
theirs I swear it’s like they’re
collating the table or drawing a graph
in their minds coming up with a schema
that will somehow predict the behavior
that will have the optimal fun to
punishment ratio and you’d never guess
they look so cute they look so small
you’d never guess the complicated
statistical analysis and mathematical
prediction that is going on in those
little brains
but it’s true and I’ve learned that
patience is a bit like a muscle the more
you use it the better you get at it and
remember the gym buddy analogy I use
little children are more like gym
coaches in this sense the ones that want
you to lift heavier weights put your
back into it let’s try something harder
come on can you do it will this break
you when it comes to testing patience
that’s what they are they’re not gym
buddies they’re gym coaches but I’ve
learned that humor is a good side kick
for patients to have so sometimes when
we’re on long road trips and my son
keeps asking are we there yet are we
there yet are we there yet
the best strategy I have is to preempt
him with a humorous response or to
deliberately miss here what he’s saying
are we fair yet do do we care yet trust
me
driving Kate’s a little bit crazy like
this once in a while can be a lot of fun
the next interesting experience I’ve had
as a parent came a few months ago and
taught me about how our children
interact with their environments and
with their surroundings and how they’re
influenced by them sometimes without
even us noticing my son graduated from
kindergarten and we decided to prepare a
short video featuring all the children
in his group we’re going to go to school
after the summer and in this video we
asked all these children the one
question that occurs and recurs in every
childhood we ask them what do you want
to be when you grow up and I noticed
something slightly disturbing the boy
said things like I want to be a fireman
I want to be a policeman I want to be
President one girl said I want to be a
fairy another girl said I want to be a
kindergarten teacher another girl said I
want to be a mom the worst part is I
would not have noticed this difference
if I were not also the father of a young
girl so I caught myself asking the
question what if a few years later my
daughter graduates from kindergarten and
has this preset notion in her mind that
she can’t be in the police or she can’t
be President not considering those
options
and let’s be clear I don’t blame the
kindergarten at all these are small
messages that our children get from
society they see things they hear things
and though that’s what leads to these
stereotypes in their minds and I’ve
realized that as the father of both a
boy and a girl I need to do a better job
of compensating for some of these
information gaps in society about gender
roles but even for those of us who are
parents of only boys we need to realize
that there are stereotypes out there
that harm the well-being of our male
children for example I always personally
cringe when someone comes up to my
five-year-old boy and says why are you
crying are you a girl
no he’s a boy but anatomically and
physiologically boys and girls have all
the same glands and ducts that you need
to cry they’re built the same way for
that particular function no matter how
many times you tell your male children
that they’re not supposed to cry in
society the reality is that sometimes
they really need to so if you want to
encourage them to be open about their
feelings you have to make it count
in fact I can’t let this opportunity go
by without doing just that I’m going to
look straight into the camera for just a
second this is a special message to you
Michael if you really really want to cry
and people thought you’re not supposed
to don’t listen to them if you feel like
crying you can cry
he’s a bit too young to be here with us
today but who knows he might watch this
as a video a few years from now so why
missed the chance
coming to the next point which is
closely related to anatomy and
physiology my original educational
background is medicine I graduated from
this very University more than 10 years
ago viewed from that lens parenthood has
been a fascinating experience because
you get to see a whole new person take
shape before your very eyes someone who
goes from dad a dad to saying a few
words to say in complete sentences from
crawling to walking to running to
jumping this transformation fills me as
a parent with the appreciation for the
wonders of nature and a sense of
overarching gratitude that makes small
everyday problems seem like
insignificant specks of dust on a
wonderful painting by a masterful artist
and with the supreme appreciation comes
an understanding of other things as well
I’m sure all of us in this room love our
parents to a certain extent but not all
of us can fully comprehend what they
have been through as human beings if we
haven’t experienced Parenthood ourselves
a few small examples from everyday life
I never knew how exhausting it could be
to have a newborn child that cries
several times in the night and wakes you
up until I had to go through that with
my wife with our newborn children I
never knew how difficult it would be
when you have a small child and you send
him to a summer camp away from home for
a few nights and every evening you have
this temptation to call and see how he’s
doing
but you resist that urge because that’s
what’s good for the child as well these
are difficult things that our parents
have been through and because today is
also my dad’s birthday I want to use the
opportunity and say thank you to my
parents
and happy birthday to my father
the next small lesson I’ve learned from
Parenthood is linked to this
controversial idea we have today this
conspiracy theory that we’re constantly
being watched they say tape up your
laptop cameras well big business has
access to your living room through your
smart television be careful what you say
on the phone the government is listening
to your conversation
none of these agencies has anything when
it comes to the observation and
listening skills of little children they
watch you all the time they pick up
little habits from you that you didn’t
even know you had they see you doing
something they’re not supposed to do and
they use it against you in a skillful
move that would have the most master
full of chess players holding their
heads in defeat so I’ve learned that
watching myself observing myself from
the side like my children do can be
helpful to improve in small ways like
for example when I see my son’s toys
untidily lying on the floor I’m
sometimes visually reminded of my own
work desk and what it looks like from
time to time so it’s no wonder that
tidiness is not a big priority for my
son next lesson before I was married I
used to be subscribed to various
newsletters and one of them would send
me a random interesting fact every day
something like did you know that movie
trailers used to be played after the
main feature in a cinema that’s why
they’re called trailers they weren’t
played before like they are today now
let me stop this talk for a second for
those of you who did not raise your
hands about being parents and who don’t
care about Parenthood insights and
lessons learned I do acknowledge that
this is going to be your main takeaway
from this talk movie trailers used to be
played after the main feature in a
cinema not before but back to Parenthood
it’s like being subscribed to this
newsletter when you have small children
but you only get the questions you don’t
get the answers you have to get the
answers yourself small children
constantly ask questions about all sorts
of random things and we’re lucky today
we have the internet we can quickly
search for the answers and come up with
something that would satisfy them but
I’ve also been fast
needed by how these questions develop in
my children’s minds and I’ve learned
some very interesting things
apparently research has shown that when
a small child asks the question at home
and gets a reply it encourages him or
her to ask more questions it builds up
that sense of curiosity when researchers
have found that when children go to
school those from the so-called curious
households where they have asked
questions and received replies have more
knowledge than those who come from
average households but that’s not all
they also have a greater love for
learning so researchers have called this
a sort of rich getting richer phenomenon
they come to school with more knowledge
and they also gain more knowledge more
quickly than their peers because they
love to learn more so if you have
children or when you have children when
they start asking you all sorts of
random things be patient and try to
answer as much as you can
the final lesson about Parenthood that I
want to share with you today is that a
reality I don’t know anything about
Parenthood each stage of development
brings new information in new experience
each child is different than the
previous one so I’m only just starting
six years is really nothing but this
feeling of having someone out there whom
you loved unconditionally in the truest
sense of the word whom you love more
than you could ever really love yourself
is very very powerful and very very
inspiring
long story short being a parent has made
me a better person being a parent is
like having the job where you have a
very very demanding boss or several very
demanding bosses and constant constant
on the job training but the retirement
package of that job is amazing I can’t
wait to see the kinds of adults my
children are going to become someday and
then maybe I’ll start a new job I’ll be
a grandparent thank you
[Applause]
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