Huang Family Newsletter, July 2015

Asher turned 3 months and is now sleeping through the night.  He smiles easily and can do swings and rompers.  The rest of us absolutely adore and dote on him. 

Amy starts work next month but will always have special memories of her work leave and one-on-one time with Asher.  Lee is finishing up his grad-level class and is juggling lots of projects at work.

Jada was away for three weeks and Aaron for two weeks at various sleepaway camps.  Jada will have two more weeks of sleepaway camp next month while Aaron will be going to drama camp downtown. 

How Not to Solve Cities' Housing Affordability Problem

Growing economic inequality is a flashpoint issue in America's cities, and housing affordability is a big component of that.  I can't say I know the best way forward, but I can say that placing artificial constraints on rent levels and on housing supply is not it and in fact is terribly counter-productive.  Here's an article about why rent control in Seattle would result in incredibly long waits, and here's an article about how rabid anti-development sentiment created San Francisco's affordability crisis.

Capitalism isn't the solution to all of life's problems, and it's not without its downsides.  But there is much to be gained in giving room for builders and landlords to respond to market demand.  And there is much that is lost when that market demand signal is preempted by government regulation and public opposition.

Room to Disagree

Does anyone remember instant messaging?  I remember instituting it in my office in the late 1990’s as a way to encourage quick interactions and rapid iterations on work topics.  Of course, I know that many of my co-workers also used it for personal correspondence and related distractions.  But, I took the good with the bad, since I trusted my people to be productive and since the work uses of IM made us so productive.  As I described it to my team back then, imagine that everyone you know is in a room together, so you have instant access to the collective knowledge of your entire network.  That’s a powerful way to do your job.

For many of us, Facebook has become that “everyone you know is in a room together” platform, and not just for work stuff.  It’s the place where we share kid milestones, vacation photos, funny videos, and social/political rants.  How incredibly enriching it is to be able to share and be shared with, across many miles and years.

The tone of such sharing tends to be light and easy when you’re talking about cute baby pics, gorgeous images of nature or dessert, and laugh-out-loud video snippets.  Even more serious content like social or political commentary is usually consumed without incident.  But of course even among our social networks we can have differences of opinion, and some can be quite stark.  Any number of social, political, ethical, and religious issues can contain a wide range of perspectives, even those that are vehemently and diametrically opposite. 

It is a healthy thing to believe something so strongly that the opposing opinion enrages us.  It is important to stand for things, which means to disagree and to even at times be disagreeable.  And, it isn’t just “I don’t care what you believe, just that you believe in something,” because it is likely that in life there are in fact some absolutes, and time will tell that there are some things that are absolutely right or absolutely wrong so shame on us if we are for that which is right and we do not repudiate that which is wrong.

However.  How many times have you read (or perhaps yourself said) something to the effect of “If you say anything in support of X, I will block you immediately.”  The drawing of the bright red line is intended to send a clear message: I am on this side of this issue, and if you are on the other side I no longer want to have contact with you.

I concede that an opposing opinion on some issues may be so enraging that you need to just wall yourself off from interacting with that opinion.  People do what they have to do to stay sane, and I respect that.  But I lament the walling off of differing perspectives.  This isn’t just a matter of America being more polarized, although I do think that is true and I think that what we expose ourselves to and avoid contributes to that.  This is also a matter of being enriched by exploring topics and positions more thoroughly.

Life isn’t about winning arguments as much as it is about having beliefs.  And when you wall yourself off from anyone who doesn’t share your beliefs, you can get lazy about those beliefs.  Worse, you can grow cold to others who don’t share those beliefs, with whom you have less and less contact and thus for whom you have less and less ability to empathize.  Conversely, keeping communication lines open with others, even those who espouse beliefs you find abhorrent, gives you a fuller sense of all of the ways an issue can be viewed. 

Perhaps it is my personality temperament that allows me this level of detachment, of not taking things personally or letting vile viewpoints irk me: it is said that INTJ’s view the world from a distance, as a thought experiment less so than something that is directly experienced and consumed.  But perhaps this desire for openness is borne of something that is universally good, which is that exposure to a diversity of perspectives makes life richer and makes you more tolerant and sympathetic.  Think about that the next time you threaten to pull the plug on any social media contact who dares take a position opposite yours.  

Facebook is our big room that contains everyone we know.  I hope your room has room for lots of love, lots of laughter, and even lots of vehement disagreement. 

Now Hiring: Marketing Assistant

My firm has an opening for Marketing Assistant, which is an entry-level position that will support our Director of Business Development.  This person will come in at a really exciting time for the firm, as we are growing as well as laying the foundation for even more growth in the future.  Please go here and scroll down to the bottom.

How to Grow Entrepreneurs

We celebrate entrepreneurship in this country and endow it with an almost mystical aura:  the entrepreneur fearlessly scrapes and crawls her way to meteoric success and we applaud her crafty hustle and work ethic. 

To be sure, America is the best place for that exact success story to happen.  But, more often than not, entrepreneurship is just as much a product of privilege as of sheer hard work.  Or so goes this piece in Quartz: "Entrepreneurs Don’t Have a Special Gene for Risk - They Come from Families with Money." 

It's not to say entrepreneurs shouldn't be feted.  It still takes courage and moxie to launch out on your own, knowing that you are putting yourself at risk for failing badly.  But it is a far easier and more common first bold step to take when you have a good social and financial support network to fall back on if you don't succeed.

As a parent and as a celebrator of entrepreneurship, my takeaway is to help cultivate in my kids three things: (1) a willingness to try and even to fail, (2) an appreciation of the privilege that they come from that they have people and resources in their corner so they can swing big, and (3) a desire to use that leg up in part to help others who don't have such luxuries. 

The Cost of Auto-Dependent Growth

There's been a lot of hand-wringing here in the region about how hard it is to commute to suburban jobs.  Both the Philly Inquirer and Philly Mag have recently lamented the dearth of good public transit options outside of Philadelphia and the eye-watering cost of fixing that.


There are pros and cons to density, as any city-dweller will be able to easy pop off the good and bad of living in an urban environment.  But there are pros and cons to low-density places as well, and mobility is one of those double-edged aspects of suburban living.  On the one hand, driving is extremely convenient: you control where you leave from and when, and have maximum flexibility as to how to go and where to end up.  On the other hand, any place that is automobile-oriented is going to be faced with high traffic, few non-auto options, a terrifying pedestrian experience, inefficient land usage, or all of the above.

Furthermore, the high cost of layering transit on top of such places is actually under-stated.  When a place is organized around the car, getting from home to office is only half the battle.  How do you get to meetings, go out to lunch, or run errands on the way in or out.  So you need to layer additional infrastructure (pedestrian-protecting walkways, bike share, shuttle service) on top.

More and more millennials are choosing urban workplaces, and as a result city commercial real estate is perking up relative to suburban options.  So maybe this problem of getting out to suburban workplaces will abate on its own.  But if it doesn't, consider it part of the hidden cost of an auto-dependent growth pattern whose price tag is now coming due.

Saints and Sinners

First, Atticus Finch.  Now, Bill Cosby.  One is white and the other black, one a celebrated fictional character and the other a feted living legend.  Many are reeling over these two long-sainted heroes exposed as abhorrently flawed.  The shock and dissonance is worse than over, say, Steve Jobs or Bill Clinton, both of whom are brilliant and both of whom possessed undesirable traits.  It is because Finch and Cosby represented something and then ended up being the opposite all along.  We are appalled by both the bad behavior and the hypocrisy.

We desperately want to be able to characterize people as either saints or sinners.  We have a hard time holding together two thoughts about someone: that we admire them and we are disgusted by them.  And then we are torn because we don't know what our final assessment is on the person.  Do the good deeds outweigh the bad?  Do the bad deeds nullify the good?  

The Christian worldview tells us we are both saints and sinners.  We are both admirable and reprehensible.  Our relationship with God secures our sainthood, to His credit.  And it extinguishes our sinfulness, also to His credit.  This is of great comfort as we find discomfort about how to reconcile great good and great bad within the same person, whether a literary figure, a celebrity, or ourselves.

Is the Best the Best for My Child?

This recent Slate article about how college-age depression is increasingly tied to helicopter parenting is interesting throughout.  To be sure, when childhood is managed for you rather than a time when to learn how to fend for yourself, being released into the "real world" environment of college can be bewildering and intimidating.  This is a topic worthy of further rumination for all parents.

But what caught my eye in the article was this statement: 


“Do you think parents at your school would rather their kid be depressed at Yale or happy at University of Arizona?” The colleague quickly replied, “My guess is 75 percent of the parents would rather see their kids depressed at Yale. They figure that the kid can straighten the emotional stuff out in his/her 20’s, but no one can go back and get the Yale undergrad degree.”

It calls to mind a point made by Malcolm Gladwell in his recent book, "David and Goliath," which is that the best science students at second- and third-tier schools tend to be much more productive in their careers than the second- and third-tier science students at the best schools.  His conclusion is that kids are better off excelling at a mid-level university than floundering at an elite institution.

As a child of immigrants, an Ivy League grad, and a Tiger dad, I am torn.  I agree that there are many paths to success and happiness, and finding a place where you can flourish is better for your career trajectory than stumbling along at a big-name school.  However, I also believe that the best place to flourish is where you are surrounded by really smart people, and that to scuffle along just to keep up will stretch you more than dominating in a less challenging environment.  

It's time for some soul-searching.  Am I seduced by the reputation of Ivy League schools and sub-consciously seeking the accolades that will come to me as a the parent of such a student?  Or am I wimping out of putting my kids in rigorous settings so they will grow stronger, and opting to let them do what's easy to appease their natural preference for comfort and ease?  My kids have a ways to go before we really enter into this decision, but it is useful to think on how I ought to be on these things so I can parent accordingly.

Walmart Bets Big on American Manufacturing

Walmart is a favorite punching bag for many progressives, who are loath to say a kind word or offer to partner.  But their sheer scale means that when they decide to do something good it can make a world of difference.  Their commitment to sustainability and now their desire to source from American manufacturers are two big steps in the right direction.

Perhaps surprisingly, both are not just for PR purposes but are quite  consistent with Walmart's MO.  Sustainability is in line with Walmart's desire to wring out any cost inefficiencies so as to provide the most goods for the cheapest price.  And, thanks to fracking, US manufacturing can be just as cost-effective as Chinese manufacturing.

In other words, it turns out that ruthless pursuit of capitalist principles need not conflict with progressive aims.  Since Walmart "got" sustainability eight years ago, we are much further along in the public conscience as to why sustainability is good all around.  Time will tell what happens to US manufacturing but Walmart's recent announcement surely bodes well.

A Lot Like Eve: Fashion, Faith and Fig-Leaves: A Memoir

I want to commend to you a book that my friend Joanna Jepson wrote, called "A Lot Like Eve: Fashion, Faith and Fig-Leaves: A Memoir."  Joanna and I met when we joined British American Project together in Los Angeles in 2008, and I found her to be witty, humble, and deeply insightful. 

Hers is a powerful story and she tells it with gusto and grace. I feel privileged to have heard it directly from her through our conversations, and I encourage you to give the book a look.  Go Joanna!

"Batkid Begins" Opens Today in Philadelphia and 9 Other Cities

From my high school friend Kurt Kuenne, co-writer/editor/sound-designer of the excellent documentary "Batkid Begins":

***

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 3:41 AM
Subject: "Batkid Begins" opens Friday in Chicago, Toronto, San Jose, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver & Dallas!

Hi Everyone,

Hope you had a fabulous 4th of July!  Thank you so much to all of you that have come out to see "Batkid Begins" over the past two weeks in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

"Batkid Begins" expands this Friday, July 10th, to:

Boston:  Landmark Theatres, Kendall Sq Cinema 9, Cambridge
Chicago:  Landmark Theatres, Century Centre Cinema 7
Dallas:  Angelika Film Center & Café
Denver:  Landmark Theatres, Chez Artiste 3
Philadelphia:  Landmark Theatres, Ritz 5 Cinemas
Pleasant Hill:  (Northern California):  Cinemark Cinemas, Century Pleasant Hill 16
San Jose:  Century 16, Mountain View (FOR MY HOMETOWN FOLKS IN SAN JOSE, THIS IS YOUR LOCAL THEATRE!)
Seattle:  Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Seattle
Toronto:  Cineplex, Bell Lightbox/Varsity
Washington, D.C.:  Landmark Theatres, E Street 8 Cinemas

It continues in San Francisco this weekend at the Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema.  (It plays its last show at The Landmark in Los Angeles this Thursday evening, but returns to the L.A. area on July 24th at Arclight Sherman Oaks and Arclight Pasadena.)

A week from this Friday, on July 17th, it will open in:

Minneapolis:  Landmark Theatres, Uptown

It expands further on July 24th to Atlanta, Austin, Detroit, Long Island, Miami, New Jersey, Pasadena, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, Sherman Oaks and St. Louis.

Detailed venue and ticket info can be found at www.batkidbegins.com.

Thank you again for all your support!

All the best,
Kurt

www.kurtkuenne.com
www.facebook.com/kurtkuennefilmmaker
On Twitter: @KurtKuenne

Too Long for a Tweet, Too Short for a Blog Post XIX

Here's an excerpt from a magazine article I just read, "Letter to My Son," by Ta-Nehisi Coates:

***

This realization was important but intellectual. It could not save my body. Indeed, it made me understand what the loss of all our black bodies really meant. No one of us were “black people.” We were individuals, a one of one, and when we died there was nothing. Always remember that Trayvon Martin was a boy, that Tamir Rice was a particular boy, that Jordan Davis was a boy, like you. When you hear these names think of all the wealth poured into them. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the day care, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into each of them, was sent flowing back to the earth. It is terrible to truly see our particular beauty, Samori, because then you see the scope of the loss. But you must push even further. You must see that this loss is mandated by the history of your country, by the Dream of living white.

Work Life Balance

Amy and I are 2+ months into the newborn experience, and she goes back to work in just a few weeks.  The end of her leave has me contemplating the age-old notion of work/life balance.  It is a tension for me of opposing forces:

* On the one hand, I was raised in a culture that valued family first, where technical jobs were prized because you could maximize earning potential while minimizing work-related headaches outside of the office, thus allowing you to provide for your kids and spend quality time with them.  I am a Christian, and most Christians have a category for being leery of workaholism and being supportive of being there for your family.  And, I desire to be a modern man in terms of replacing traditional gender roles with a more balanced division of labor as it relates to child-related duties.

* On the other hand, I swim in social circles in which working long hours is the norm, as is juggling work and other work-related responsibilities (teaching, mentoring, sitting on boards).  I am a business owner, which means I do sweat the work stuff outside of work, and am financially and intellectually motivated to invest in the firm and in my professional self.  Finally, I am in professional services, which means that my livelihood is dependent on being there for my clients, which means that my schedule and focus is at their disposal.

What has this meant for me over the past 2+ months?  It has meant spending even more kid time than before, since Asher is much needier than Aaron and Jada are.  But it has also meant the continuation of a workload that regularly exceeds 60 hours a week, that sometimes involves travel, and that always involves juggling multiple projects/deadlines/roles in my head.

To cite but one of many possible examples, the night after a 3-day business trip a couple of weeks ago (which, btw, I will note involved two short nights of sleep followed by a redeye), I woke up at 1 in the morning (!) to bang out three hours of work before tending to Asher when he arose at 4.  Mercifully, he went right back to bed after a diaper change and a bottle, because I then proceeded to bang out four more productive hours (this time, chores and errands) before taking all 3 kids to the Y, after which I left them all with Amy so I could go teach a 3 1/2 hour class at Penn.  That was all on a Saturday morning.

Perhaps I would have it no other way.  Being a full-time dad and a full-time consultant is awesome.  And, with few exceptions, I have gotten a decent amount of sleep: Amy has been great bearing the brunt of Asher's demanding schedule, and Asher has been a pretty good eater and sleeper.  I do not often begrudge the time I spend either on work stuff or family stuff, even if it means I have to be hyper vigilant about my time management and have to sacrifice many leisure pursuits.

Still, I am cognizant of the need to constantly and vigilantly evaluate my work/life balance.  I want to make sure that, in terms of spiritual roots, physical maintenance, and sleep, I am tending to my own needs and not sacrificing them to the firm or to my family in unsustainable ways.  I want to set an example for my co-workers and students of how to be a professional who is committed to his work but who also has a life outside of work.  And I want to convey to others that work deadlines are important but sometimes life trumps them, and that work is meaningful but so is family and rest and leisure.

I am aware of the growing body of research on gender roles and their effect on the home and work fronts.  Men seem to enhance their reputations at work when they become dads, but are often penalized if they take paternity leave or otherwise make accommodation to be there for family at the expense of being all-in at work.  We still have a long way to go in terms of shedding outdated and sexist notions of how men and women can juggle work and family.  And I have a long way to go in terms of being comfortable about how much I give to work and family, neither giving into workaholism or drivenness nor shirking my responsibilities as a business owner and consultant.  I guess that's the thing about a balance, is that it is something that constantly needs to be reviewed and recalibrated. 

Shout Out to Sadness

Over the holiday weekend I used some movie passes to take Aaron and Jada to see "Inside Out," Pixar's fantastic new movie about the emotions that go on inside an 11-year-old girl who moves with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco.

Without spoiling the thing for those of you haven't seen it yet (and you should, and bring a hanky; for goodness' sake, I was out-and-out bawling at three or four points in the movie), sadness the theme and Sadness the character steal the show.

It calls to my mind three musings from the past about the importance of sadness in our lives, to be human and to connect and to heal:

Winter is a Season, Too

Good Grief

Responding to Tragedy

Go see the movie and go feel your feels.  And give your kids and loved ones room to feel their feels too.

Go! Fourth!

We have a ways to go on "this great experiment."  Our past and present is littered with shameful acts, and an even more shameful whitewashing of those acts in the desperate need to present an unblemished narrative.  But we have done well and we have done good as a nation, and I would not choose any other place or any other time to be alive.  May God bless America, and may freedom ring!

Huang Family Newsletter, June 2015

Jada and Aaron were delighted to end school and start summer, which will be full of day camps and sleepaway camps and vacation.  Amy is loving being on leave and having so much Asher time.  Lee is chugging along with work and teaching, and had a 72-hour business trip to Phoenix and Honolulu.  We all (Asher included, via stroller) ran in our school's 5K race, and celebrating our nephew's birthday at a fun bowling party.