HAMPSTEAD, Maryland — “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”
I don’t know when I read Thomas Sowell’s one-liner of wisdom for the first time. All I can say is that, since then, it has become a ubiquitous refrain in my life.
As a beach volleyball coach, first with Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles and now with Florida State University, practice-planning is a constant exercise in this. Every minute spent working on in-system offense is a minute spent not working on out-of-system offense. Every blocking rep is a rep not spent on defense. Every jump is a tax on the player’s legs. Every no-jump rep is a sacrifice of a more realistic one.
As an athlete, every moment spent resting is a moment not spent practicing — and, consequently, every moment spent practicing or lifting is a moment not spent resting and recovering.
These are the trade-offs, and they are endless.
What’s the balance? Where’s the solution?
There isn’t one.
That’s the point.
But never have I wrestled with this conundrum more than in fatherhood.
Pondering life’s lessons on the porch together
The second you become a parent is the second you realize, with perhaps a minute or two of introspection and pondering, that everything you do for the rest of your life requires a trade-off that maybe you weren’t quite ready for prior to your son coming screaming into the world.
One of the most common words I’ve heard my fellow young parents use to describe themselves, in the early aughts of parenthood, is selfish. They weren’t ready to give up certain parts of themselves or their lives for the constant, 24-hour-per-day monitoring that parenting an infant or toddler requires. In some cases — mine included — they felt a resentment towards their child for requiring the trade-off of, say, sleep, or a quiet morning, or a quiet anything, for that matter. Then you feel guilty about the resentment, because shouldn’t parenting be one magical ride of giggles and smiles and indelible moments for the memory bank?
They feel the resentment for the trade-off of finances, or a day or week with their spouses, or the ability to simply pack up a car or a bag and go somewhere — to a beach volleyball tournament, to a backpacking trip in Yosemite, to, you know, the grocery store — without needing to plan and pack and organize a drive or flight around a nap.
As a father who fulfills the traditional role of being the provider, this constant weighing of the tradeoffs has became a daily source of mental jiu jitsu.
My work as a coach for FSU and as a commentator for Volleyball TV often requires me to leave for weekends or, regularly, weeks at a time — to Brazil, to Germany, to Brazil again, to Mexico, to Qatar. This work is what provides a comfortable life for my son to live, in a lovely hamlet in Tallahassee where he can run around and chase lizards and play at the playground and spend his days with his Mom, who is able to stay at home and raise our family because Dad is out providing. This arrangement — Dad as provider, Mom as homemaker — is the life we intentionally designed.
A life that, like anyone’s, comes with trade-offs.
In Brazil, providing a home but not providing at home.
Being a parent is, I believe, the most important job in the world. Yet part of being a parent-provider is spending time away from home to ensure that there is a home to come home to, there is food in the fridge, and that the fridge works because the utilities are still on. But what, I wonder on a near-daily basis, is the balance of providing and parenting? Of being home vs. providing the home?
There is no solution.
You must simply, constantly, vigilantly, weigh the trade-offs.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem worth it, leaving home. I’ll return from a week of commentating in Brazil and my son will give me the cold shoulder for days, making life even more difficult for Mom, who thought that maybe when Dad got home, she’d have some relief in parenting. Instead, her role actually becomes more difficult when I return.
Sometimes, when we’re able to buy the food we want — meat and vegetables from the farmer’s market — and live in the house we want, in the neighborhood we love, with Mom at home full-time, the trade-offs do seem worth it.
The scales are moving, always. And they are everywhere.
While initially selfish with my time in the morning, when I do my best creative work, I’ve instead simply traded off some sleep to ensure I have those early hours to myself. Now, with a wake-up time in the 5 a.m. slot, I’m able to go on a walk around our lake, go to the gym, read for half an hour or so, maybe squeeze some writing in, before it’s time for breakfast with the family. I’ve found that trade-off worth it, though our strength and conditioning coaches at FSU, who constantly expound on the value of sleep, might disagree.
Everyone is different, as are everyone’s scales for the trade-offs.
For a growing percentage of women, being a stay-at-home mom is not worth the trade-off of their often-burgeoning careers. My wife, Delaney, found the trade-off of her career to be a Mom to be everything she has wanted thus far. Not that it hasn’t come with challenges — she’s just found those challenges worth it, which is not to say that it is easy. She’s come to terms with the difficulties of being a full-time parent and has found those difficulties an agreeable trade.
But there is no universal solution.
Just as there is no universal solution to the quandary presented every time I get on a plane to work for a week and provide finances, but not provide my attention and qualities only a father can provide.
My family could travel with me, yes, but that would sacrifice the money I’m making to be a provider to bring them with me. Traveling, switching time zones, cramming a family into a hotel also makes Delaney’s job as a Mom more difficult.
We haven’t found the trade-off to be worth it.
Maybe someday that will change, because, as I learn every day, often multiple times per day, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
Eating frozen berries, as we do every night
