I am building a treehouse for my kid. The other day, as an angled piece of lumber I had cut slipped tidily into place, I thought to myself, “Dang, I’m really getting the hang of this! I’m some kind of natural! I should teach classes!”
You know what happened next. As soon as I was done patting myself on the back, I went on to commit the most boneheaded, godawful, inexplicably moronic crime against common sense ever seen in the history of carpentry.
This is what always happens when I think I’m getting smart. I immediately do something really dumb, just to keep the universe in balance. Nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments! But try not to get ahead of yourself.
It was true for the treehouse I’m building for my kid, and it’s also been true for, well, building my kids.
Maybe it was the poignancy of being up in the open air, trying to make something beautiful but solid, but the whole time I was working on the thing, I was struck again and again at how similar the project of building was to the project of parenting.
Here are a few solid lessons that stood out:
The book I consulted to learn how to build it is called Tree Houses You Can Actually Build. A wonderful title; and they were right, I actually could!
But part of the reason I could was because I read the book, several times, and took its advice seriously. In other words, I did have the ability, as long as I also had the willingness to learn.
I also asked advice from people I knew were experienced and sensible, and I listened to what they said. I also asked the advice of random internet strangers, got bad information, freaked out, and had to talk myself down from that. Let the reader understand.
At one point, I realised that one of the joists was too short, and the entire frame would probably need to be undone and shifted. I was distraught; but a friendly carpenter told me that even experts with lots of experience make mistakes.
It’s just part of the job, and if you’re just starting out, you are most definitely going to make mistakes. If it’s something you can fix, then that’s a huge win. And if it’s something you can learn from, that’s even better.
I was tempted to buy my way to success – to get myself a bunch of new power tools and specialised hardware, to make things easier and to make the finished product better.
But as time went on and I solved one problem after another with my very basic equipment, I realised that I could have made my job easier by spending more money, but I would have missed out on the chance to learn some foundational principles about wood, and metal, and physics.
I also may have made the finished product worse by spending more, because of course things that cost more aren’t always better.
In carpentry and in parenting, there are lots and lots of ways to spend money. Some of them are reasonable, some are useless but harmless, and some are downright harmful. Be discerning, and don’t assume that the cheap way is inferior.
You cannot do it by yourself. You will need help at some point. That is fine. Anyone who thinks you’re a failure because you need help is someone whose opinion is trash.
(Unless that person is your own interior voice. Then you can just gently but firmly tell it to hush.)
My kid was adamant that the treehouse needed to be built in one particular tree. Not on four straight trees in the woods that would have been easy to attach a platform to, but one giant, magnificent tree teetering on the edge of an embankment and overlooking a stream.
I argued a lot, but eventually I had to admit: Her tree was better. However, she also pushed very hard to have barbed wire on the top, and a rope ladder dangling over some pointy rocks. To that, I said no, and I stayed firm.
I took her desires into her account, but when it came to safety and practicality, I put my foot down. It’s good to listen; it’s okay to say no. Those are both ways of showing you care about someone.
Each day, when I got to the point where everything seems terrible and stupid and doomed, I took that as a sign to rest for the day, or at least to take a break, and maybe have a snack.
Nothing good happens when we work tired and hungry. If you can’t take a rest, do the easiest possible parts of your job and save the tricky parts for later when you’ve rested. After some rest, the job before you almost always seems more doable.
I reminded myself constantly that I was building this treehouse for my kid. Not for myself and my own tastes, satisfaction, or ego, and not for the kid I think she ought to be, or the kid I was at that age, but for the actual living person that she is, whom I love. It was remarkably easy to forget that, as I got caught up in the work.
You will need to run to the store more times than you could ever believe. It’s inhumane, how many times you’ll have to run to the store. OH WELL.
Write stuff down. In the moment, it will seem unforgettable, but believe me. You can forget important things. For treehouse building, this means jotting down “top front rail left side, downstream –>” so you remember where the wood you cut is supposed to go.
For raising kids, it means . . . anything. What they want for Christmas. What shoe size they wear. When they last took something for their headache. That adorable way they used to pronounce “banana.” Don’t tell yourself that, if you really cared, you’d remember. You’re busy! You’re tired! Write it down, and that shows you care.
Stop and assess, a lot. It’s okay if it doesn’t look like you expected. It’s okay if it doesn’t look like the illustrations in the book. Just step back and check frequently to make sure nothing has gone horribly, dangerously wrong, and see if, going forward from where you are right now, the main things you want to achieve are still achievable.
If you need to make adjustments, do so. But don’t be surprised if adjustments have already been made for you, and it’s now just your job to make them work.
It’s fine and great to take a lot of pictures and liveblog your way through it. You will be glad, someday, to have all the process photos. But at some point, you need to stop documenting and just do the work. Don’t let the story of what you’re doing become more important than the thing itself.
Do not expect gratitude or appreciation commensurate with the amount of work you put into it. Kids just aren’t capable of that. It may take 30 years for them to realise, wow, that was a big deal.
You’re working on a living thing. Take that into account when you’re building. This means several things: One, the structure should be built to move a bit. Trees sway in the wind, and if the treehouse has no give, it will fail.
Two, trees grow, and what once fit may eventually become too small, so be ready to make adjustments. And three, it’s possible to work on it too much, and stunt its growth; so have care for its vulnerability.
You may be tempted to make the attachment really, really secure by adding more and more nails and screws and braces and this and that, to make the strongest connection possible. But at a certain point, you are no longer making it stronger; you are tearing it apart. Do your best to find that balance between strength of connection, and respecting the integrity of the material.
Let the reader understand!
