RAISING RAFFI

The early years of fatherhood recounted with humility.

Journalist, editor, and translator Gessen, co-founder of the journal n+1, gathers essays—previously published in the New Yorker and other publications—about fathering his firstborn son, Raffi, and finding his own identity as a parent. Beginning with the process of arranging for his son’s home birth, the author chronicles nervousness, anxiety, fears, and worries, some that he realizes are common to all new parents, some that seemed to beset him in particular. Parenting manuals often spout contradictory views on care, feeding, and discipline. The effect of bilingualism on language acquisition, for example, is one issue about which experts often differ. Having come to the U.S. when he was 6, Moscow-born Gessen couldn’t decide whether to teach Raffi Russian: “the language of childhood, the language of love for children, the language in which my parents and grandmothers had spoken to me.” Finally, he made an effort to do so, resulting in Raffi’s being able to understand some Russian but not to speak it. Choosing a school was a challenge. Among a few nearby schools, demographics varied, and after touring the schools, Gessen and his family—which now included a second son—moved to the school zone they thought, or at least hoped, would be best for Raffi. Most vexing was Raffi’s behavior: He was given to violent outbursts, tantrums, and aggression toward other children. Gessen and his wife tried all manner of intervention and responses, none of which worked. “My biggest flaw as a parent was inconsistency,” he admits. “I wanted to be nice; I wanted to be empathetic; I wanted to be American.” Often he ended up erupting in anger, afraid that “by blowing my top too often, by not controlling my emotions,” he was modeling the behavior he so desperately wanted Raffi to stop. From being a “three-year-old terrorist,” Raffi evolved into a “willful, sometimes violent” 4-year-old; a stubborn 5-year-old; and an “adorable, infuriating, mercurial” 6-year-old.

A warm, candid parenting memoir.