Ben Stein: Scared at 60

The American Spectator ^ | 3/1/2005 | Ben Stein

[Former Military Chick]

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Scared at 60

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Published 3/1/2005 12:05:38 AM

THURSDAY Der Tag. It is my 60th birthday. It is also Thanksgiving. It is a beautiful, sunny, clear but cool day. The plan here is to have lunch at the California Yacht Club out at Marina del Rey. This will serve to celebrate my birthday as well as Thanksgiving. We are going in two cars: my 2001 Cadillac DeVille DTS and Tommy's powerful Subaru WRX. Wifey and I are in the Caddy and Tommy and his pals Boris and Vlad are in the WRX. You know how crazy I am, so the following little drama will probably come as no surprise to you. Tommy yelled at me that he wanted to race along Olympic Boulevard west of Barrington, where the road was wide and deserted. I said it was fine, and we peeled out. I won by the next block. I should say, to be accurate, that Tommy's car did not make a peeling noise because it has four-wheel drive. Mine made a peeling noise. My wife was telling me I was insane. Tommy wanted to race again. We did. Again, I peeled, and he didnÃ-t. This time he got way ahead of me. Alas, moments later a police cruiser appeared behind him with its lights flashing. The car pulled Tommy over and I followed them. But the police, staring at me intently, motioned to me to stay in my car. They then went over to Tommy. Then they came to me. "We're just giving him a warning, because we know who you are and we like you," said a policeman. "But you should talk to your son. He refuses to admit he did anything wrong." "Well, it's really my husband's fault," my wife said helpfully. "He's 60 years old and he should know better." The policeman shrugged and went off. Tommy was furious. He blamed me. He was sure I had somehow set it up. I tried to point out to him that it was because of me that he didn't get a ticket. He was furious anyway and very rude at dinner. Well, so much for my one and only 60th birthday dinner (or lunch). It was a sullen, anger-charged affair. I wish some drug company would invent a med that counters the effects of teenage years, just as they have drugs that counter manic depression or PMS feelings. Maybe that's in the offing. However, then Tommy went out with his pals and seemed a lot more cheerful later. I had a late supper with a friend from Fox News, and the day was not wrecked. But a pattern is developing with Tommy that is worrisome. More about it soon. In any event, I refuse to let Tommy occupy all of the space in my head. What's more, I try to work with systems and to learn lessons and here are a few I have learned as of my 60th birthday: 1. I am unbelievably lucky: a. To be an American; b. To have my wife, the world's finest human; c. To have never been severely or at least life-threateningly ill; d. To have never been in combat; e. To have had loving, caring, prosperous parents; f. To have an interesting, well-paid career; g. To have great friends, a great sister, nephew, niece, cousins, and above all, son; h. Above all, to have learned to love and worship a God of love and understanding. 2. Compared with the huge problems that most people face, I have almost no problems at all. 3. I am a supremely lucky person, but what happens to me is not terribly important, to put it mildly. 4. Almost any "problem" I have can be dealt with by rest, reflection, and conversation with someone who cares about me, usually my shrink, the genius Paul Hyman. 5. There is no medication on this earth as potent in curing my ills as the simple prayer, "Thy will be done." 6. There have probably been about 15 billion people on this earth since the dawn of man, and I am among the most fortunate few hundred thousand, and all of that is an unearned gift of God. 7. Modest application of self-discipline in the area of study, work, and saving yields stupendous returns over time. 8. The amount the government can do to affect my happiness in a free society is tiny. 9. I am blessed beyond measure to be protected by the brave men and women of this country's armed forces and nothing I can do can adequately repay them, but they have my total gratitude and what little acts I can do. 10. The whole purpose of my life on this earth is to do what I think God wants me to do, which is mainly to love and care for my fellow man and woman. 11. Dogs and cats are my best friends and they are a special gift from the Almighty. 12. I make a great many mistakes and always will, and to expect myself not to make them is pure folly. Anyway, that is a very short version of what I have learned. SATURDAY Notice I talk a good talk. And in many aspects of my life, I walk a halfway decent walk. But in my life with my son, I am a stone fool. Last night, Tommy very charmingly sidled up to me as I was reading the Wall Street Journal at our home in Beverly Hills. He said he wanted to know if he and a couple of his friends could drive out to the house in Malibu. "Will you be really, really neat and not do anything dangerous?" I asked him. "Of course," he said. "Will you swear to not start a fire or do anything that could endanger our house?" I asked him. "Of course," he said. "And will you leave the house as neat as you found it, recalling at all times that it's your house, too?" "Of course," he said. "I guess so," I answered. "But stay in touch with me by phone all through the night." Okay. By one a.m., I had gotten calls from three of his friends wanting to know how to meet him there. One of them was bringing a girl. I tried to reach Tommy to tell him to come home right away. No answer on the house phone. No answer on the cell. I was HYSTERICAL. But I also did not feel very well and did not want to make the one hour trek out there in the middle of the night. So, I tried to sleep and did sleep off and on through the night. I had visions of the house -- which I love like mad -- going up in a wild conflagration, lost to me forever. I could feel my blood pressure going into stroke and heart attack territory. But I finally fell asleep and next thing I knew, I could hear Tommy coming home. That was at about 11 in the morning. "Did you burn down the house?" "No, it's all fine," he said. "Did you make a mess?" "No, it's all fine," he said and then fell asleep. Obviously he had been up all night. Well, that is my own insanity, allowing him to go out there by himself. Anyway, no calls from the Fire Department so I guess it's cool. Later in the afternoon -- this afternoon -- I drove out to Malibu with a creepy ESP feeling. Sure enough, the house was a mess. Dirty dishes in the sink with uneaten food on them. Singed newspapers outside the fireplace. That's right. OUTSIDE the fireplace, proving that my fears of a fire were well founded. The beds all unmade and messy. Keys missing. Tons of food missing. Well, the food is fine. It's for eating after all. But as I, who make the family's living and whose health is never great, went about the house cleaning, I called Tommy to ask how he could have made such a mess. He was surly and refused even the slightest admission of responsibility or apology. Now, here's the point I was promising to get to. It is one of the basic building blocks of human development to admit one's mistakes and to clean up after oneself. This is something so fundamental that if it's missing, the human never progresses past childhood. Probably, most of the fault for the Malibu house incident lies with me or mostly me. It was idiotic to think that any 17 year old, and especially Tommy, would behave responsibly in a beach house without his father or mother there. (One adult was there, but he was a pal of Tommy's barely 20, and he obviously did little to help.) So, I claim the lion's share of the guilt. But how I wish Tommy could step up to the plate and admit some responsibility. I had a roommate in freshman and senior year of Columbia who simply could not ever clean up after himself or accept any responsibility. He's almost 60 now, and still a huge -- although likable -- baby. John Gregory Dunne, a true genius who died far too young this year, said in one of his great books, "Having kids is not a day at the beach." How right he was. (He also said, "You often see beautiful young women with much older men, but never with much older poor men." I live by these words of wisdom. John had a great deal of wisdom and he is missed desperately.) Wow, it is hard to be a parent. At least for me. TUESDAY A stunning lunch at Morton's with a beautiful, highly capable woman correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes. Her name is Lara Logan. She's a South African who started covering the apartheid struggle as a teenager and worked her way to being a CBS correspondent in Iraq and then for a year in Afghanistan. She is phenomenally smart and brave. Recently in Afghanistan her Humvee hit a mine and she was thrown into the air almost 20 feet. She landed on her face, bleeding like crazy, and nevertheless reported on TV very soon thereafter with blood coming out of her mouth. I met her last night when she and I were both guests on CBS's The Late, Late Show and invited her to lunch. Wifey and Phil DeMuth came along. Lara talked nonstop about how bad things are in Afghanistan, how disorganized the U.S. effort is, how undermanned we are there, and how Rumsfeld (according to her) has a plan to sell out Hamid Karzai and the whole democratic movement there. She also talked at length about how unreliable the Pakistanis are and how we can't trust anyone there. She regaled us with tales of the thousands of young Afghans and Pakistanis at the madrassas getting filled with hate and fiction about the U.S. She had nothing but the highest praise for the U.S. fighting man and woman, but she said the State Department endlessly betrays them. But that was positively upbeat compared to her assessment of the situation in Iraq, which she sees as basically hopeless. The terrorists are out of control and getting more so. "I'm passionate about fighting these people," she said (referring to the terrorists and "militants"), "because I don't want my kids growing up wearing burkhas." "You live in London," I said. "There's not much danger of that there, is there?" "There are millions of Moslems in Britain," she said. "They want to take over and impose sharia there." "But that's impossible," I said. "I don't know," she said. "You cannot believe the inroads the militants are making in South Africa. There are so many Moslem women in Durban now covered head to toe except for their eyes. All around the east coast of Africa there are forests of mosques. These people are on the move." It all terrified me. I want to be in Sandpoint. I want to be in Priest Lake. I want to be among the hearty, happy people of the great inland Northwest. I hope Mr. Bush takes this seriously. If we are fighting a global war to protect free society, it wonÃ-t be won by tax cuts. If it's war, we need to mobilize for war. It's a choice between a society based on love and a society based on fear and repression. We've got to get our act together. We need to take it all a lot more seriously. I am scared. Of course, I am always scared, but now I'm really scared. I don't want to be beheaded. I don't get it. How did all this bad stuff come along a few years after we were in "The Golden Age" under Clinton? What happened to "The End of History"? Mr. Bush, you are far more of a wartime president than you may realize. We finished our lunch (I had fresh tuna) and I got into my Cadillac and drove home to sit by my swimming pool in the sun under a palm tree with my dogs sniffing around the flagstone decking. How long can such a great life last? Is it later than I dare think? I'll say it again, I am scared. Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu. His Diary runs every month in the The American Spectator. These excerpts are taken from our February issue.

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[Cuttnhorse]

Being a good student is one thing; being a quintessential a hole is quite another : )

Exactly...this behavior is learned, and rewarded by his dad. Man, I can only imagine the misery I would have been in if I pulled a stunt like the messy house deal.

[international american]

BUMP

[international american]

Stein is a mystery to me in certain ways. On the one hand, he is highly intelligent, and shrewd about political and financial matters. On the other hand, he appears obtuse when it comes to raising his son, and his perverse fondness for that unintelligent,uncouth, unfunny, foul mouthed clod, Kimmel.

[international american]

My dad would have grounded me for a month, and order me to "toss" or detail every square foot of that beach house for a year.

[Old Professer]

I have been following this torrid love affair that old Ben has been having with his precious Tommy for more years than I care to count and have long since concluded that it is unhealthy for both Ben and Tommy.

How a man of his abilities could be seduced by his personal mid-life crisis to purposely create an alter ego, a "Little Ben in the guise of Tommy" is a testament to the lure of Hollywood and the effect playing make-believe can have on an otherwise rational and well-deported person.

At the rate this piece portends, what with the reckless drag-racing episode, the miscellaneous vicariousness of Tommy's shared derring-do and the fawning of all involved, it may be time for Mr. Stein to begin to compose a eulogy.

[international american]

"The old standby, "he's really smart but just won't apply himself"

That was me until age 15.(I was a good kid in all other respects though).

[MHGinTN]

You asked, "Why else would you keep a diary and constantly put things in there that are uncomplimentary to your son whom you love very much?" I have a conjecture for you: I went through Jungian analysis more than a dozen years ago; the analyst had me keep a diary of thoughts and dreams. Ben may be keeping this diary for that purpose, but it is not at all a bad thing to keep a diary that the son can read many years down the road, when facing similar problems with his own children. kapish?

[cubreporter]

True. I keep a journal mostly about family both mine and my husband. It'll be nice for the kids to have and they'll read things they never knew and it'll be just nice for them and for their children. Either way, I love Ben and wish him and his son Tommy well.

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Bump for good parent comment.

[TChris]

Actually I get it TChris, there are parents who do not want push their kids away so they move from the discipliarian to the buddy and in the end it hurts both of them. Lesson learned.

First, let me thank you for posting the article. I too hold Mr. Stein in very high regard. Perhaps that's why I was so surprised that he was cleaning up after his teenaged son's messes. As brilliant, patriotic and conservative man as he is, I presumed he would know these things already.

The tone of my post was more harsh than I had intended. My disparaging feelings were directed at his ungrateful and undisciplined son more than to him. My experience has been that if you regularly clean up after your kids as they grow up, the lesson is never learned. But, who knows? Maybe my two sons have a similar surprise in store for me. "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

[joanie-f]

I’m hearing that ‘different drummer’ real loudly tonight. I disagree with ninety percent of the posts on this thread. I know that Stein is considered something of a political guru by many on this forum, but, if this article is any indication, the esteem is misplaced.

This particular article is beneath drivel. Stein sounds like a naïve, whining child. And, if this story is any indication of his fathering abilities, his son had better begin developing a sense of responsibility, respect and independence on his own, because his father surely isn’t fostering it in him.

I can’t fault Stein for ‘racing’ with his son. (I’ve been as recklessly carefree and daring with my daughter at times … haven’t we all? :) But the similarities end there.

This ‘responsible father’, when asked by his son for the use of their beach home for a get together with a couple of his friends, answered, ‘Will you be really, really neat and not do anything dangerous? Will you swear to not start a fire or do anything that could endanger our house?’

Stein feels the need to ask (in the form of a mealy-mouthed plea) for assurances from his seventeen-year-old son that he won’t do anything dangerous in his parents’ beach house, and won’t start a fire or do anything else destructive? What is wrong with this parent/child interaction picture?

If I even suspected that there were any chance that my teenage child would do anything dangerous in a house that I owned, I would (1) wonder what I had done wrong (years ago) that would have resulted in a child with such an ungrateful, irresponsible, destructive personality, (2) not even consider allowing him privileges until he began to show signs of maturity and accountability, and (3) never ask for foolish assurances from someone I obviously can’t trust to begin with.

I had gotten calls from three of his friends wanting to know how to meet him there. One of them was bringing a girl. I tried to reach Tommy to tell him to come home right away. No answer on the house phone. No answer on the cell. I was HYSTERICAL. But I also did not feel very well and did not want to make the one hour trek out there in the middle of the night.

I strongly suspect that, over the years, Mr. Stein has been too ‘under the weather’ or otherwise preoccupied to nip selfish, dishonest, rebellious behaviors in the bud. Thus the reason for his son’s latest pushing of the envelope, and Stein’s resultant hysteria (but not hysteria of sufficient magnitude to motivate him to take a one-hour drive to confront its source?). Had my son bold-face lied to me about his plans, and then conveniently made himself (and his couple of friends) unreachable by house or cell phone, you can bet that ‘not feeling very well’ and ‘not wanting to make the one-hour trek’ to check out the circumstances that made him (and his couple of friends) unreachable wouldn’t have been a factor. As long as I still had two legs to walk on, and car keys, I would have been walking through the door of that Malibu beach house (without knocking) …. with questions that needed answering, and reminders of promises unkept.

Well, that is my own insanity, allowing him to go out there by himself. Anyway, no calls from the Fire Department so I guess it's cool.

Sentence one is the only one worth swallowing in the entire article. Sentence two is ludicrous. Because the fire department hasn’t gotten involved in the beach house shenanigans, all’s well? How can one man be so (supposedly) insightful about political matters, and so laissez-faire and apathetic about matters that involve his child?

Later in the afternoon -- this afternoon -- I drove out to Malibu with a creepy ESP feeling. Sure enough, the house was a mess. Dirty dishes in the sink with uneaten food on them. Singed newspapers outside the fireplace. That's right. OUTSIDE the fireplace, proving that my fears of a fire were well founded. The beds all unmade and messy. Keys missing. Tons of food missing … But as I, who make the family's living and whose health is never great, went about the house cleaning, I called Tommy to ask how he could have made such a mess. He was surly and refused even the slightest admission of responsibility or apology.

Stein’s son (and his couple of friends) behaved like a coddled, pampered, irresponsible, insufferable, spoiled brat, putting his family’s home in jeopardy in the process (not to mention the self-destructive, potentially deadly, activities that may well have gone on under that roof while those kids were conveniently unreachable), and Stein himself cleaned up the mess, and then called his son to (once again) ask him why the house had been trashed? And then he was surprised that his son was ‘surly’ and would not admit to fault, or apologize?

I do not understand two sentences, especially, in this article:

(1) I refuse to let Tommy occupy all of the space in my head.

I don’t know what that means. What parent would say that about his child? And why would a child be expected to ‘occupy all of the space’ in a parent’s head? Could it be that Tommy’s incorrigible behavior is calling out for a firm response, and Stein prefers to assume ostrich position? Allowing sufficient space in one’s head to courageously confront an escalating crisis is always preferable to banishing the problem because it is too uncomfortable to face. Lazy parenting is bad parenting.

(2) [I am grateful] to have great friends, a great sister, nephew, niece, cousins, and above all, son.

How does one define ‘a great son’? A son who thinks nothing of lying to his father? And then sees to it that his father has no access to him after the lie, because that access might somehow interrupt the partying he is enjoying at his father’s expense? A son who trashes his father’s house and risks burning it down because it is too difficult to keep lit material inside the fireplace (despite cautions to be careful do so)? A son who becomes ‘surly’ when his father dares to simply ask why the above dangerous and disrespectful behaviors occurred?

Conservatism is founded upon a reverence for individual responsibility, a striving for excellence, the instilling of a work/reward relationship, private property, and respect for the rights of others. As I see it (maybe I haven’t considered all conceivable alternatives?), the fact that Ben Stein is admittedly too otherwise occupied to strive to instill in his son any of the above (or correct aberrant behavior that speaks otherwise) says one of two things: (1) he does not believe his son is worth the effort to do so, or (2) the above tenets are not as important to him as he claims. (1) would be unthinkable, and I’d like to think that (2) isn’t the case either.

A Subaru WRX at age seventeen? Keys to a beach house with apparently no serious strings attached? No clear ramifications for dishonest, destructive, insufferable behavior? Affluence appears to have taken a toll on both father and son.

I’ve rarely read an article that reflects so negatively on its author. Maybe, instead of sitting down at his computer keyboard, Stein should have simply discussed all of this with his [self described] ‘genius shrink who cares about him.’ And maybe the good doctor can give him some advice on how to help his son learn what it means to be a responsible adult … before it’s too late.

~ joanie

[Hildy]

I was just responding to this particular column. I like Stein, he is very smart and witty. I never understood his obsession with Hollywood, but respected him for attempting to live his dreams. He's not a good actor, a one trick pony, but that's fine. What bothered me about this particular article is that it seems like he talks to us instead of his son. Do you know what I mean? He wants us to feel sorry for HIM! He was frustrated and angry...so what did he do? He cleaned up his son's mess and then wrote about it. As we all know whether we are parents or remember our experiences as children, the worst thing a parent can do is to keep "saving" his child from the ramifications of his mistakes. So, His son will read it and who knows what he will think about it. He reads about his Father being disappointed in him. There's just something odd and very sad about it. Save that for your psychiatrist or your son will end up with his very own for the rest of his life.

[mountainfolk]

I have read Ben Stein's American Spectator articles for years and have been perplexed about his relationship with his son Tommy. As Ben relates his bringing up of 'Tommy' I always want to know where his wife fits in with the parenting. Did she throw up her hands years ago and just cede the parental role to Ben? It is not uncommon for one parent to be the good cop and the other the tough one. Sometimes the parent who doesn't give in so easily realizes it is a losing battle and simply gets out of the way of both of them. I love Ben and wish him well in his life but it will be a world class miracle if the doom and gloom he attaches himself to doesn't culminate in a very harsh reality check regarding his son. I think there is a grain of truth in some, and much more in others, in all of these posts regarding the saga of Ben and Tommy. The only thing that really seems out of character for Ben is his believing that reporterette. He seemingly accepts her world view which is at odds with what he has in the past written about his beliefs. Just because you are now 60 years of age Ben, there is no need to become 'an old fool'. Free advice from a reader fan.

[MinuteGal]

"Stein, an actor and former screenwriter who worked for President Nixon in 1987, together with his wife Alex, adopted a baby boy, Tommy, that same year.

"The writer's relationship with his new son got off to a rocky start. He was so jealous of the attention Tommy was receiving that he stayed away from home for long periods of time.

"Attendance at 12-step programs and a good friend helped Stein to become a highly-involved parent."

(Publishers Weekly)

Leni

[Hildy]

Interesting... I wonder which 12-step programs he attended.

[lainde]

Very interesting from Ben. I bumped this article yesterday for weekend reading and missed the controversy. My belated opinion is that parenting is HARD and I'm amazed by his honesty. However, I don't know if Tommy appreciates his father writing about his immature behavior...Teenagers are very sensitive and I shudder to think if my parents had publically chronicled my assinity at 17. Perhaps "Tommy" should be off limits and his follies kept private as a family matter. I've tried to tell "famous" friends in similar situations film and newsprint is "forever". You can't really take it back. Ben has a wealth of insight on other matters...He can't lack material. Thank you for the ping...I always enjoy his perspective and am always moved by his love for America!

[kalee]

(1) I refuse to let Tommy occupy all of the space in my head.



Sounds like the words of a shrink, pure psycho-babble.

[Zman516]

If Mr. Stein attended any 12-step programs, he would have learned the meaning of ENABLING. And that is exactly what he is doing with this brat.

[Hildy]

I agree. A psychiatrist would probably have a field day with this one. As far as I know, Ben Stein and his father were extremely close. Ben adored his Dad and followed in his footsteps. It's probably the only thing he knows. I just think writing about how disappointed you are in your son instead of talking directly to him is somewhat counterproductive.

[GeronL]

your right... I remember the old days where his son seem much more innocent... darn, he had to start growing up.