Backstage Pass Read online

  My childhood led me to look for ways to validate myself because I didn’t get sufficient validation at home. Now, as a father, I think it’s important to tell my children I’m proud of them when they succeed at something. But it’s also important—very important—to say to them, “How does it make you feel?” That is, to put them in touch with their own feelings so they’re not dependent on my approval as much as their own. As Colin and Sarah have already shown themselves to be terrific students, with test scores and grades I certainly never had, my saying “Boy, that is really terrific” has led to “How does it make you feel? Does it feel good to do such a good job?”

  I want all my children to realize that doing well makes them feel good, as opposed to just making me proud. I want to stress the internal rewards of doing a good job, not just the external praise. Positive reinforcement is great, but equally important is to teach children that success feels inherently good. Accomplishments should make them feel good, and it’s not as necessary for them to get the approval of someone else as it is for them to feel their own approval.

  I regard this as extremely important with my children. It’s important to me that I tell them this because I didn’t hear it when I was a child. But again, it’s also important to say “How do you feel?” That connects the dots for them.

  It makes my dad feel good, but I feel really good too.

  I have always wanted to give my children something wonderful, to help them appreciate the things I appreciate. Validation comes in so many forms. Recently Colin was gazing out our bedroom window and said to me, “Dad, look at that beautiful sunset.” I knew that we, as his parents, were making that crucial difference: I must be doing something right if my children see the beauty in the world around them that other people miss. That’s life affirming to me. That means I’m going to leave something behind that’s better than who I am.

  A couple of years ago I was telling someone that my adult son, Evan, was very grounded, very socially conscious, very cognizant of his obligations to the world and to society. Then I added, “All things I was clueless about at his age.” Evan is so far beyond who I was in my early twenties. At nine, Sarah has compassion and empathy for others that is deeply touching, and it is the result of her processing what she has seen at home and embracing it in her own way. Emily, at seven years old, has a grasp of social interactions and a confidence that makes her one of the funniest and most joyous children I’ve ever seen. The fact that others agree, and that she is mine, only deepens the profoundness. These qualities had no bearing in my life when I was younger, but all this is the ultimate reward, the ultimate measure of my own life. I’m doing something right, and that’s life affirming.

  Look, everybody thinks their children are special. When other people tell you your children are special, there’s something rewarding about that. Those accolades mean a lot to me. I love it when somebody comes over to my family in a restaurant and says, “You’re a great dad.” Well, I know that, but it’s also nice to have it recognized.

  As I said before, I don’t believe trying to be a great parent is universal. I’ve seen a mom look at her child—who couldn’t have been more than five years old—and say, “You make me sick.” So, no, I don’t give that credit to everybody. Having a child doesn’t automatically make anyone a great parent. For me, parenting has to do with giving my children what I craved and wanted so desperately when I was young. Not material things, but a sense of worth, a sense of joy in the world, a sense of no judgment—all things I wasn’t given. I have an opportunity to shape my children in a way I wasn’t, and to reap the rewards of doing that. Because I believe we heal ourselves when we do good for others.

  When it comes to living on in another generation, I’m happy that the things I’ve been able to learn, independent of my parents, are now getting passed down. I’m breaking the cycle. It’s not necessarily analogous, but a child who has been abused has two choices: to become an abuser or to be the opposite. I know what I saw. I know how I was treated. I am determined to take a different road with my kids.

  Sometimes I’m stunned by what I see out there. I’m stunned when parents still put themselves, in one way or another, before their kids. I can’t fathom that. I see people who say they put their children first, but then they qualify it. Don’t qualify it. Put your children first.

  I want to be the best parent I can for my kids. I expect that from myself. When my younger son, Colin, says to me, “You’re the best dad in the world,” I say, “That means a lot to me. I try.” Mind you, most kids will say their parents are the best in the world, but I want my son to know I work at it. I try. I want to be the best parent. I want him to know that it’s not something I take lightly.

  That’s different from a lot of other people. And the rewards are so much greater. It removes a lot of the chance in how children will turn out, because the children are being guided and fueled by their parents. Yes, children will be who they are and each one will be different, but children start life as a blank slate and we parents are the ones who do the initial writing on it. We give our children the values they start out with—and we can save them a lot of trouble if those values are worthwhile.

  We’re not going to change our children’s personalities or their aspirations, but we clearly give them their code of honor, their ethics, their morality. We can spell that out to them, or they can see it in action. I want to make sure my children see it in action.

  One thing that’s particularly important to impart to children is the difference between tolerance and acceptance. Because I want to help my kids be nonjudgmental and empathetic. I know there’s been a sort of movement built around the idea of tolerance, but I’m not interested in tolerance. Tolerance isn’t what’s called for; acceptance is. Embracing. We tolerate pain. We tolerate sadness. But that’s not the same as willingly accepting something. Acceptance is a choice we make.

  Tolerance is a good legal standard so people can’t discriminate. But I want something on a more personal level. It’s a bit like the difference between what is lawful and what is ethical. People can stay on the right side of the law, can stand up and say, “I didn’t break the law,” but then do some horrifically unethical things. I’m not interested in teaching my kids to tolerate differences in other people. I want to teach them to accept and embrace those differences.

  Anyone can quote from the Bible; and you can find anything you want there, from brutality to kindness. But anybody who uses the Bible as grounds for either hatred or intolerance, or tolerance with the belief that someone is going to hell, doesn’t make the world a better place. I’ve found in my life that by being kind and accepting—and understanding how difficult life can be for others and how we all deserve to be loved and happy—makes life so much better. To give that to my children early in their lives, as opposed to letting them stumble through life the way I did, is a gift to them and to me. To carry around hatred or intolerance or judgment is ugly.

  The bottom line is, who are we to judge other people? Who are we, for instance, to decide or to pass judgment on who anyone can love? We’re blessed to find love. If my kids see somebody who’s different from the norm, I make sure to tell them to imagine how difficult that person’s life is, how brave that person has to be. If we see a homeless person on the street, I remind my kids that that person was also once a child in school who dreamed of being president or a star.

  I want to break everything down to its most human form.

  I want all my children to know it’s okay to feel pain, it’s okay to hurt, it’s okay to cry. I’ve done all that. Only weak people don’t. Strong people do. I’m real clear on my job. When baby birds leave the nest, they have to be ready and they have to have knowledge. We should set them up to be able not only to handle life but also to embrace it. Not to go out there and battle. It shouldn’t be a battle out there. We should give our kids the tools to go out and enjoy life, to be suitably educated to deal with whatever they need to deal with and believe that they can.

&nb
sp; It’s what we owe them.

  And if we don’t do that, they’ll suffer for it.

  I’ve always found that I’m most effective in conversations with people when I just relate what I’ve done. Maybe that information will enlighten them. Maybe it will give them some glimmer of how to apply the same things to their own lives. But I’m not in any position to tell anybody how to live—including my children. When Evan reached an age when I thought we needed to talk about drugs, I didn’t say to him, “Don’t do drugs,” although I certainly believe that. I thought the most effective way to talk to him was to let him know in more practical terms what doing drugs can lead to: “Remember so-and-so? He’s dead. Remember so-and-so? He’s broke.”

  Basically: Here’s the lay of the land. Here are the tools. Now you decide.

  I continue to follow this same approach in many different forms, and the results are resoundingly evident in who my children are, how they see the world, and how the world sees them.

  9

  The Boundaries We Inherit Limit the Distance We Can Travel

  Nobody loves to acquiesce in a relationship just for the sake of keeping the peace—that creates a powder keg. Over time it just builds resentment—whether it’s within a marriage, a friendship, or a professional partnership. I’m not saying anything new. But you have to decide what’s important; you can’t just go along with something for the sake of keeping the peace. It will eat at you—and what does it say to the other person about you? Who are you, and what are you willing to stand up for?

  It might be more unpleasant, but you can’t fix a decayed tooth without a root canal.

  I can assure you that forty years ago, my current scenario—a marriage grounded in mutual respect, with compromises based on embracing each other, dealing with real issues, and letting go of minor grievances (like the correct way to put on a toilet paper roll)—would have been as impossible to me as learning Greek. But it comes down to what we are preprogrammed to do and what ultimately works in life for each of us.

  The core of the problems in my first marriage was that we each fought to get our way—because of what not getting our way represented to each of us. There was so much baggage that anything we argued about or disagreed over was often just a symptom of a power struggle. We could struggle over picking fabric for a chair or choosing a color to paint a wall. But I realize now that wasn’t the issue. The issue was control—who was in charge and who got their way—which would have been much more productive to address head-on. Deciding on the color of a wall had very little to do with the color and everything to do with whose will was going to be imposed on the other. That’s what we all need to strive to avoid: giving something misplaced value or misplaced importance instead of dealing with true issues, and letting problems manifest in things we can’t fix. In other words, on the surface a conflict may appear to be what kind of furniture to have in the house, when really what’s at stake is who’s in charge.

  KISS experienced similar problems. At times in the early days there was resentment about who was at the front of the stage or who had the most songs on an album And rather than deal with that, we tried to undermine or outvote each other. Peter, for instance, used to throw drumsticks at me when we were onstage. If he could have, he would have rigged the stage with land mines. He had a sort of exclusionary zone in front of the drum riser, and if I drifted into it during a show, he pelted me with sticks—instead of dealing with whatever frustration he had in his life. Or with the resentment he felt toward me for being younger and not having gone through what he had gone through to get where he was. Or with the fact that the songs were mine, or that I was doing the talking. Whatever it was. Passive aggression is just misplaced anger. Maybe if he had dealt with it, he wouldn’t have needed to act like that.

  Of course, in the band, we all had that to an extent. There were times when I was very clearly annoyed at Gene, and rather than address it, I did things that alienated him, alienated me. My anger may have been directed at the things he did—giving undue credit to himself, getting more interviews, or getting more photos—but the way I dealt with it was to be a dick.

  We all would do better by addressing the real crux of whatever issue we have. In various relationships earlier in my life, whether personal or professional, I often didn’t or couldn’t address the crux of a problem. I don’t mean to suggest that any issue is one-sided. In hindsight, I see more than I did in those moments. It always takes two. Nobody is guiltless.

  In the context of marriage, one aspect in particular is a microcosm of how I go about things today: interfaith marriage. Erin is Catholic; I’m Jewish. It was critical that we talk that out ahead of time instead of being faced with the issue later in our relationship. Because the biggest impact of not hashing it out wouldn’t have been on us; it would have been on our children.

  In interfaith marriages, from what I’ve been told, the most common issue is that kids assume that they don’t belong in either religion. In other words, unless it’s agreed upon and discussed ahead of time—what the course of action will be and how the children will be raised and how each parent will or won’t participate—it sets children up not to know what to do. So are you going to bring up your child as a Buddhist? Great! Are you going to bring up your child in a Protestant sect? Fantastic! Jewish? Terrific! But if that’s not the case, then what exactly are you going to do?

  In my case, because of my upbringing, I had inherited the idea—based on what I had seen in my parents and relatives—that my children had to be raised Jewish and only Jewish. But over the years I found that what I owe myself and my children is perhaps different from what I was told I owed myself and my children, or what my family or relatives expected. So in my case, even if it sounds odd, we tell our children they’re 100 percent Jewish and 100 percent Catholic.

  Nobody wants to be a fraction.

  But my children understand the diversity within the family. We celebrate Christmas and Easter, and I go to church to celebrate some important Catholic holidays. Not because I’m Catholic but because my wife is. It’s clear to my children that I’m Jewish, and quite honestly I grew up in a household where the idea of going into a church was suffocating. But by embracing my wife’s heritage and background, I embrace my children. There’s room for autonomy while embracing your partner’s background.

  Going to church is another concrete way to demonstrate empathy to my kids. I tell my children that the only religion to steer away from—and that I want no part of—is one that presents itself as better than another. Or as right. I try to make sure my children know that religion is based on faith, not fact; faith is powerful, but nobody should dismiss another person’s faith because they think their own is somehow more rooted in factual reality.

  I feel an obligation to Jews throughout history and the people I grew up around who had concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms; I have a responsibility to teach my children about the Holocaust and about the plight of Jews. What they decide to follow in terms of a theology will be up to them. But being kind, accepting, loving, and charitable has to take precedence.

  Of course, for kids it’s perfectly normal to equate their favorite holidays with the ones when they get gifts. And if we were going to make a quick synopsis of all Jewish holidays, we would just say, “They tried to kill us, they didn’t, let’s eat.” Gifts aren’t the focus. But of course my kids also love Hanukkah, and I try to make them aware that it’s not a poor man’s Christmas. Every year before we light the candles I have them tell me the story of Hanukkah and what it means, and the stories of Antiochus and Judas Maccabeus and the oil that lasted for eight days instead of only one. I want them to have a sense of these stories and also the idea that there were and are people who want to stop religious freedom, and that’s never okay. Sarah and Emily like to wear kippahs, so why would I say no? This is a celebration of inclusion, and Erin is with us and we all sing together and light the candles and play with the dreidels. When Evan is away from home, he lights candles on
his own—so it resonates with him and has stuck.

  I’m well aware that we don’t have Rabbi Man or any kind of cool iconic figure like Santa, so in terms of competing, we’re in a deficit there. Hanukkah is quaint next to Christmas. Between Erin’s parents and brothers and sisters, the number of presents my kids get at Christmas is enough to open a store. And that’s part of their celebration, something that Erin brings to our kids’ childhood and experience. But we don’t divvy up the gifts. They’re two different holidays and two different experiences, and part of two different religions. So they’re not in competition, because that would turn it all into something unpleasant, uncomfortable, and stressful. Competition by nature is not relaxing. Having two holidays from two different religions competing against each other is contrary to the way celebration is supposed to be. But if you’re strictly talking gifts, Christmas wins! Hands down. And I’m okay with that.

  We have to figure out what really matters to us individually and what we’re okay with, and that entirely changes life. Experiences are so much more fun when we’re not threatened by something or turning it into something it doesn’t need to be.

  So, yes, you can have both.

  Regardless of whether it may seem contradictory, my children were baptized. I would like all my children to have a bar or bat mitzvah too. Could I ever have imagined my children being baptized with holy water? No, but I have to say those were amazing, beautiful, rich moments. Baptism is part of who they are, part of who the woman I’m spending my life with is, and part of who I am now. Erin and I decided that neither one of us should bring up our children without acknowledging our own heritage—it’s important they experience both. Ultimately they will make up their own minds, and honestly, whatever they choose is fine with me because they will be well-rounded, loving children and adults who will contribute to society in many ways.