Alan Kercinik has been a Chicagoan his whole life and a dad since 2009. He finds it easy to relate to his two boys, since he still likes most things from his childhood. All opinions here are his own, to the relief of his wife, employer, family and majority of his friends.
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For those who know me, it should come as no great surprise that I dragged the wife to see Iron Man 2. (For those who don’t, I’m a bit of a comics nerd.) This movie was not babysitter-worthy, so I’m glad the grandparents took Jack for the afternoon.
Of all the plot threads they crammed into this flick — and there are about twenty — one jumped out at me. Iron Man Tony Stark has daddy issues.
Pop culture is littered with characters damaged by their fathers in some way. Tortured jock, Andrew, and John “What About You, Dad?” Bender from The Breakfast Club. Ray Kinsella, who just wanted to play catch in a field of dreams. Luke Skywalker. The Scott brothers from One Tree Hill. (I didn’t say they were all good characters.)
But Tony? Here’s a guy who invented his own cybertronic suit of armor out of garbage cans and old radios while held captive in a cave. He built himself a robot butler. He’s the richest man on Earth. What does he have to feel insecure about?
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While it’s not explored with any great depth — the same could be said for the rest of the plot — Howard Stark was apparently cold. Distant. Aloof. Never telling Tony that he was good enough. Your typical career-focused parent.
We don’t really know. We see almost no interaction between Tony the child and his now-dead father. But Tony remembers him that way. And I’m sitting there, in the theatre, wondering: what if Tony was wrong?
What if this particular dad tried really hard with his son? Put him through great schools. Tried to push him to be everything his potential hinted that he could be. And Tony, a little shaver in the shadow of who he saw as a great man, just felt that way. That he’d never be as good as his dad.
It’s a sobering thought: that either my absence or presence could screw up my kid. Damn you, Hollywood, and your collective insecurities.
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I wonder how common that is, for adults to carry around childhood hurts. I want Jack to be everything he can be. (If he invents some kind of Iron Man armor, all the better.) But I’d never want what drives him to be pain I caused, even inadvertent pain. Does that make me selfish, not wanting him to do what he’ll do out of a need to prove himself to me?
There’s so many things I can do throughout a day that send a message. Check the Blackberry while on the couch and I don’t want to be with the people around me. Stuck late at the office and I don’t want to be home. Too tired to play and I don’t love him. It’s the hell of unintended consequences.
It doesn’t take a fictional genius to tell me I’m going to screw up with Jack. I won’t mean to. But I will. I hope I’m brave enough to sit and tell him I’m sorry. And smart enough to not apologize when I was screwing up, in his eyes, for his own good.
9 comments
Matt says:
May 24, 2010 at 6:24 pm (UTC -5 )
This just proves that comics, and the movies they spawn, are full of valuable life lessons. I feel justified in taking William to the comic shop now…we might both learn something.
Alan says:
May 25, 2010 at 1:10 am (UTC -5 )
Life lessons, for me and the boy, I will take where I can get. And as for taking William to the comic shop: where do you think I learned about power and responsibility? You need no more justification than that.
Lisa says:
May 24, 2010 at 6:47 pm (UTC -5 )
A couple things I know for sure:
1. We are all carrying around some form of hurt from our childhood, it's how we learn from it and channel it that defines it.
2. We will each play a hand in messing up our children in some way.
3. Like you, I am terrified of the unintentional ways I will hurt my kid's feelings. I guarantee that the things I found to be the most hurtful as a child were things my parents had no idea they did.
Man, I really want to give my kiddo a hug now.
Alan says:
May 25, 2010 at 1:17 am (UTC -5 )
Everything is so primal and more intense during childhood. It’s amazing how those unintentional, parents being human type of things can stick with you for so long. And I would guess that parents, they don’t remember these incidents that we find so defining. And some of our feelings we pull from them are there because of the lens we end up looking at the world through, that’s just in us when we pop out. Combatting this through hugs isn’t a bad strategy.
Shay says:
May 25, 2010 at 7:19 pm (UTC -5 )
I often think about my actions with Tyler and Molly and how they are going to be influenced. It's often after the fact that I realize there was probably a better way to have said or dealt with certain situations. And, I can admit that I have said “I'm sorry” on occasion for completely losing my cool. I do think it means a lot to kids when even parents can admit to their faults. The first time I apologized to Tyler, he looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said, “That's ok, mommy. I'm sorry too and I still love you.” Almost lost it right there at that very moment. I would call myself a “work in progress” as a parent. If it were that easy, we'd all be pros and our kids would all be perfect. But then life would be boring, now wouldn't it?
Alan Kercinik says:
May 26, 2010 at 12:57 pm (UTC -5 )
Thanks to comics, I learned about power and responsibility. What more justification do either of us need?
Alan Kercinik says:
May 26, 2010 at 12:59 pm (UTC -5 )
Everything is so primal and intense as a kid, these inadvertent hurts get carried around for a long time. And they probably fly totally under the radar for most adults. Most questions you could pose that start with, “Do you remember that time…” would probably be met with a flat out no. Frequent, unexpected hugs sounds like a good response.
Alan Kercinik says:
May 26, 2010 at 1:04 pm (UTC -5 )
We're all works in progress, Shay. Parents or no. But the fact that you have the self-awareness and wherewithal to realize those moments will probably go an a incredibly long way with Tyler and Molly and make your relationships stronger.
This is probably generational evolution. I can't imagine my great-great-grandparents thinking to apologize to their kids for anything. (“What do you have to complain about? You've got food, I didn't hit you today and you only had to work twelve hours.”)
The JackB says:
May 27, 2010 at 7:50 pm (UTC -5 )
I see some of my best and worst traits in my kids. I hate seeing them “imitate” some of the things that I don't like about myself. I worry same as you that something I say or do will stay with them for far too long.
But all we can do is our best and hope that it is good enough.