Adoption is a noble and selfless act. Claude Knobler knows what it’s like to be the dad of an adopted child. Here are his thoughts.
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I recently featured an excerpt from Claude Knobler’s book, More Love, Less Panic: 7 Lessons I Learned About Life, Love, And Parenting After We Adopted Our Son From Ethiopia. Today I have the pleasure of presenting you an interview I conducted with Claude. His insight is remarkable and the perspective he displays shows how much he loves his family.
Here at GMP, we are all about displaying Dads who are changing the way people understand and perceive the role of the modern father. We love highlighting those who embody such an ideal we hold dear. I hope you enjoy what Claude had to say.
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What were your biggest fears about adopting a child from another country?
Everything. Honestly, I was afraid of everything. In no particular order, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to communicate with my new son because we didn’t speak the same language and were of different races, that Nati would be violent or needy or remote or just plain insane. I worried that the adoption would forever ruin the lives of the two kids we already had and that my eldest son, Clay, who struggled when he had to get used to a new pair of sneakers would never be able to handle suddenly having a new brother. I worried about everything.
But then, I don’t think worrying about your kids is something that only happens when you adopt. A friend of mine once pointed out that whatever you’re worrying about now, will look silly to you in two years (and if you don’t believe that, ask a parent of a five-year-old if they’re still worried about potty training, pacifiers or their kids strange obsession with cartoons starring singing trains.) Suddenly having a five-year-old son who didn’t speak English and who was a different color than I was, forced me to learn how pointless being afraid was much quicker than I might have, but the lesson was the same.
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Were your fears realized or did you find that you had overestimated, as we all tend to do?
Nope. My fears were definitely not overestimated. They were totally and completely insane. Seriously. One day, before Nati came home with me, my wife, who was just as afraid as I was, said, ‘you know, we should probably remember that we’re adopting a five-year-old boy and not Godzilla.’
One of the truly humbling things I’ve had to accept in my life is that I’m really rotten at worrying. But then, I think that’s true of most parents. When my kids were toddlers, I worried a lot about nap schedules. No person in the history of people has ever not gotten into the right college or failed to get a job because of their nap schedule as a two-year-old. When my eldest son was five, I worried that he wasn’t reading yet. Well, he’s a 19-year-old Sophomore at Duke now and I promise you, he’s reading books I can’t begin to understand.
Nati wasn’t violent, crazy, or any of the other things I was afraid of. What he was, was confident and strong and funny. When he’d been in America 6 weeks, I decided to take all 3 of my kids on a car trip from LA to San Diego. As I pulled out of our driveway, I heard him from the backseat, saying, “No Dad! Not zat way, ziss way!” He kept giving me driving directions until I finally asked him, ‘Nati, do you know where San Diego is?’ To which he replied, “What eez San Diego?” I promise you, with all my anxiety the one thing I’d never thought to worry about was, ‘what do I do if my new son is too confident?’
I worried about so many things, and I never thought to myself, ‘what if good things happen?’ My eldest son, who struggled with change even if it was just a new pair of sneakers, learned to adapt to new things (and people) and to this day insists that having Nati as a brother helped him become a better, more confident man. Didn’t see that coming!
The good news is that once you realize that you’re not good at worrying, you get to stop.
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How do you feel you’ve grown as a parent over the last decade as you’ve watched your son grow?
I hope that I’ve gotten better and better at enjoying my kids. Having Nati as my son helped me realize that my kids (all three of them) are who they are. When I thought my job as their father was to tinker with them I thought I was supposed to push one kid to be louder and more confident and another to be quieter and more humble and so, I was much less able to relax and take pleasure in who they actually were. It’s strange to say this about a parenting book, but one of the people who really influenced me as I was writing was Phil Jackson. In one of his books he talked about how he didn’t like to call a ton of timeouts during a game when he was coaching the Bulls and Lakers, because he wanted his players to figure things out for themselves. His job, as he saw it, was, more or less, to prepare his players to be in charge. And that’s how I view parenting. I don’t want to spend my days shouting at my kids to do their chores. I’d much rather live my life in front them, allow them to see how I treat the people around me and let them use that as an example as they make their way in the world.
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How did you know you felt called to adopt a child from Ethiopia?
Wow, I’m really not going to look great when I say this, but the truth is, I’d read a magazine article about the AIDS crisis in Ethiopia and told my wife Mary maybe we should consider adopting, but only because I never ever ever thought she’d do it. I figured she’d be impressed, she’d tell our friends, they’d be impressed…..and I’d never have to actually do anything. Even once we’d begun the process of talking to adoption agencies I was totally unsure if what we were doing was right. Of course, I sort of felt the same way when Mary was pregnant. I don’t think I was sure having our second child was the right thing to do until I was actually holding her for the first time.
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How has your writing inspired your parenting or your parenting inspired your writing?
I am a parent more than anything else in my life so I suppose that inspired my writing. The biggest inspiration for my writing though is probably how silly I feel about the time I wasted worrying over things I couldn’t control and didn’t need to control. I wanted to write this book because I didn’t want any other father to miss a day of their child’s life worrying about stuff that would take care of itself. Did I really worry that Nati would never learn English (it took him a few weeks) that my son Clay would never outgrow a pacifier (he did, well before he was three. Didn’t have to bring one to college or anything) or that Grace was too sweet to make her way in the world (she’s President of her HS Student Body, going to the U of Penn in the Fall and both sweeter and tougher than most adults I know)? Yep, I worried about all those things.
All that said, I do have to admit that my writing has inspired me to become a better parent. It’s not that I’m such a brilliant author, it’s just that once you write a book about parenting, your kids won’t let you get away with yelling, freaking out or being a jerk!
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How has writing this book changed or inspired your life and your son’s life?
The sweet, silly five-year-old boy I adopted from Ethiopia is now a 17-year-old man, who’s looking at colleges. Between ACT’s and SATs and GPA’s and everything else going on in his life, I’m not sure there’s much room for me to inspire him these days. It’s a funny thing about being a parent. Your relationship with your kids is the single most important part of your life. But that means, pretty much by definition, that you won’t be the most important part of your child’s life. The relationship they have with their own children is going to be what really matters to them. When you have kids you think they’re the entire book of your life story, but really, they’re only a few chapters. They move on.
I’m proud of the book and even prouder of my kids. I do hope that when they get older they’ll all read it again so that they can treat my future grandchildren well.
I remember when I got my first copy of the printed edition of the book. I was thrilled, of course, and even more excited when my eldest son picked it up and said, “I’m going to go and read this right now.” And then, as my heart swelled, he took my book and walked off……to the bathroom which is where he wound up reading my masterwork. I’ve never been so proud and yet so humbled at the same time. But then, that’s a pretty good description of what being a father is like, isn’t it? You can be proud, scared, humbled, happy and a little grossed out all at once.
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You can get Claude’s new book wherever books are sold: More Love, Less Panic: 7 Lessons I Learned About Life, Love, And Parenting After We Adopted Our Son From Ethiopia.
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Photo credit: Flickr/Moody College