It All Adds Up

“At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is positive involvement of parents.”

—Jane D. Hull

When I walked through the door at 10 p.m. last night, I was not ready for the shocking news my 13-year-old son was about to lay on me. I had just sat down at my desk after coming home from a long church leadership meeting. The deluxe cravings box I purchased from Taco Bell just 10 minutes beforehand was still warm and fresh and oh-so-inviting…until I heard, “Dad, I need help with my math homework.”

The chicken burrito was on the cusp of touching my lips as I stopped and asked, “How much do you have to do?”

In my mind I imagined two, maybe six problems max. But then came the first sheet of 20 problems, partially finished. Then there was the second, slightly less filled out set of 20 problems, followed by a third nearly blank page of work to do.

I bit through the top of my burrito, knowing that it was going to be the only fresh bite of food I was getting that night. I picked up the first homework page and noticed that there were shapes, specifically circles, on the front. Joaquin looked at me and said that his accelerated math class was working on solving for circumferences and areas this week. After I inquired why he decided that now, at such a late hour on the night before the assignments were due, to come to me with all this work? I heard his excuse. One of those at that early teenager age that mixes in both a sense of “I didn’t want to disturb you because you’re so busy” with “I didn’t have a calculator to finish helping me with the work.”

Nice try kid. Your dad is the former champion of childhood excuses. If you’re going to try a wiggle out of blame, you’re going to have to do better than that.

Rather than argue with the boy we jumped in. For the first 20 minutes he sat across from me staring as I Googled how to solve for circumference, something I hadn’t done, and never ever did very well with, since I was in eighth grade.

After a slow start we eventually found our groove. He would use the formula written in his notes and as I made sure to refresh my Google page as we both solved the problems together. We hit a couple bumps along the way. One was trying to solve the perimeter of what looked like a hockey rink on the page, but after a half hour’s worth of searching came back to be a track. Once I saw the tutorial on how to solve it, I taught it to Joaquin and we moved forward until I caught him sleeping upright.

I gently shook him awake. “I’ll get you up early and we will finish what we can before you head off to school,” I said.

“Thanks, Dad,” he said softly, and the shuffled off to bed.

I followed suit. The Taco Bell made it hard to fall asleep right away. That hot sauce has a way of making my stomach talk through out the night. But when the alarm did finally wake me up at a quarter til six this morning, I kept my promise and got Joaquin up and we went back to work.

We managed to whittle down the 25-something unsolved problems to just a handful by the time we had to head out the door. I think Joaquin was relieved, even though not everything was complete. He can still finish up what is left on his own, he told me. I know I was glad when it was done, and I also felt a sense of achievement.

I’ve come to realize that some of the best quality time that a parent can spend with their child is in teaching them something. I am not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination. There is a reason why I choose writing over the sciences, and that is because I understand languages and syntax far better than the “order of operations” or “the Pythagorean Theorem” and their real-world applications. However, I was not going to let my insecurities with math get in my way of helping my son get out of the hole he put himself in.

The last 12 hours have etched a core memory for me. I’ll remember this moment for a long time to come. Maybe I’ll have the chance to tease Joaquin when his own son or daughter does the same thing to him. Maybe I’ll have the opportunity to tell him that you showed your baby how much you love him or her because you put away the delicious, unhealthy, and cheap imitation of Mexican food aside—even though you were starving!—to sit across the desk and work out the problems one at a time.

I will also remember these 12 hours because they’ve caused me to think about our relationship with God as His children on earth. We are on this planet to grow, to learn things that are secular, spiritual, temporal, emotional, and mental in nature. It is here, in this world, that we go through struggles—some that take us to the brink of breaking—and we have triumphs that make us feel that we could walk on a cloud. There are times where it seems we are left on our own, and, at times we are, but not for long. Sometimes it is the Father just sitting there quietly by Himself, observing us as we try to solve the problem at hand. He is watching our work. And if that work is taking us in the wrong direction He will intervene before we get too far off track. He may go back to observing again to see what we will adjust, but I know, because I am a father too, that eventually He will show us the correct answer when we need it most.

That is something I take heart in. It is something that I know leads to success. The greatest thing a parent can do is to spend quality, positive time with their child.

I know because I’ve seen it.