Rearing Matthew

 

Rearing Matthew

by David L Lewis, proud father

Remember a grade school teacher, instructing on proper usage of the English language, saying the proper word was “rearing” children: “You raise goats, you rear kids.” She was right. We had five children. A more diverse group of kids to rear one would be hard put to find on a big city jury.

My father often said he loved all of his children “equal”. That’s not quite the whole story. I say that I love each of our children ‘individually’. And, I could write a separate narrative on each child to explain why each is such an individual. This, however, is about our middle child, Matthew. He wants to be called Matt, which I take as license to call him Matt the Brat [yes, there’s a daddy story behind that].

It has been reliably conveyed to this father that (when a few years younger) our child of the female persuasion said: “Everybody knows Matt is daddy’s favorite. But, nobody minds, because Matt is everybody's favorite.” At that point she probably didn’t know the whole story. Matthew was loved because he was Matthew. He got to be ‘favorite’ because he was the one who was there at one of many chaotic times in which Matthew was de facto ‘acting eldest at home’. It was at the time my health began its decline into old age. He was the one I came to count on, the one who was always ‘just there’. One time I told his two younger siblings Matthew was in charge whenever parental-units were absent; not because he was the oldest, but because he’d proven he could accept and live up to the responsibility.

In the summer between his Junior and Senior year of high school we somehow agreed of have an Exchange Student. In preparation for this there was an in-home interview. The question which stands out in my memory was “what are the house rules for Matthew?” I assumed interviewer was thinking of social interactions, chores, curfews, that kind of stuff. There weren’t any such rules for Mattew, he just didn’t need any. My response probably threw the questioner off balance: The only rules were ‘Don’t Hit Girls, Don’t Throw Rocks, and Don’t Play With Doors’.

Matthew entered the Army along with a bunch of other raw recruits. He served over ten years, rising to rank of Warrant Officer 2. As someone said: There is a difference between water and cream. Water seeks its own level, cream always rises to the top. Put my son in any given situation and he will rise to the top, just ask the men with whom he served (if they are not available, ask his little sister).

As it is with men, separating water and cream comes obligatory with birth of their first child. Will he ‘rear’ his children, or raise them? Matthew (as, in this observation of all our children) has been better parent than I for my children, and rearing children who were better children than I was for my father.

All of this writing “to find out what I think” was generated by news of Matthew’s third grandchild (and our eighth great-grandchild). Sable Dean Lewis was born Wednesday (4/19/2023) diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease. Shortly after birth he had to be intubated and underwent his first of many surgeries he’s going to endure in the short future. This may be a new situation for our son and our grandson, but his mother and I know just how it feels.

All fathers undertaking the rearing of a child must reserve for their self the absolute right to worry about any of their children at any time with our without reason. Matthew’s job now is to worry about his son and new grandson. My job is to worry about my son.

I should not worry about Matthew, though, he long ago showed me he will do what father’s are called upon to do, rise to the top. If this proud father may be permitted to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Marc Anthony, “His life is gentle; and the elements so mixed in him that his loving father might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This Is My Son Matthew!’”