Imagine if we all could love the world as much as we love our children. If we had permission to be as proud and expressive and enthralled with each other and our daily lives as we do with these little ones, these wise children who come to teach us that simple lesson of love that we mistake to be only for them.

On the night before we were to tearfully release our youngest to the big world of kindergarten, the teacher held a parents night where we each brought something from nature that represents our child. As one of the parents who had forgotten this odd assignment, I quickly improved and brought the wind, describing how my son is this energized and energizing burst of light and enthusiasm at every thing and every one in his life, inspiring and lifting and refreshing all around him, filling up a room or a yard or a car with his exuberance. Then how he sometimes unexpectedly dies down to an angelic tickling whisper licking around our ears and snuggling in close, making the whole world slow down and listen to the sudden silence and wonder what brought such Peace. Sarah, my wife, described him as the sun; radiant and warm and life-giving.

A man’s identity should be based on much more than what he’s paid to do 9-5. For a stay-at-home dad/ writer/gardener, the issue is even more poignant.

“So, what do you do?” It’s the standard male greeting, the first attempt to figure out who a man is, the human equivalent to a dog’s bum smelling dance. But who says job equals identity?

I’ve progressed from “Busboy” to “Social Worker” to “Director of Strategic Partnerships”, and each time glowed a little more, felt a little more worthy with the answer. People at those parties could tell right away that I was accomplished, Doing something Big, validated by some organization willing to give me that title and pay me for it. But was I becoming a better person?

My first public orgasm nearly happened in eight grade, when the generously endowed Rhonda Worwick came to school in a shirt saying “Save water—shower with me.”

While the idea of showering in the embrace of a beautiful classmate is universally appealing, the first part of her proposition—“save water”—is harder to embrace. We North Americans continue to have long (and solo) showers and big deep baths. Even us Al Gore fans who are aware of the current and growing global water crisis seem to let our worries and consciousness flow down the suburban drain at shower time.

“I’ve been married 15 years, and only in the past few months have I even looked at another man,” a playdate mom proclaimed at the park today. Before I could snort out a protest, the other mom agreed.

As the lone male at the swing set, a huge number of voices arose in me at once, the strongest being “What’s wrong with you?!” A timid one wondered, “Is there something wrong with me?” Surely you know that we men look at other women constantly and often creatively. Not lewdly or necessarily with intent, mind you, but we do notice and appreciate and perhaps wonder. Why don’t women do the same?

How Could You Possibly Not Look?

I’ll need your help here, because from the outside I can only come up with a few possible reasons:

1. Men are great lovers.
Maybe we are as great as our egos tell us. Maybe we all are just such incredibly loving, giving, satisfying lovers that you really don’t need to look beyond. The problem is, I don’t really believe we’re that great (note to my wife and former lovers: feel free to comment to the contrary), and more importantly, the fact that we men look at other women has nothing to do with the quality of our current lovers–we just do it because that’s who we are.

2. Men aren’t that good to look at.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but we just don’t have the curves and mystery that keep our eyes glued on women. Maybe it’s enough work to appreciate one “bumpy, scratchy man” (to quote a lesbian friend’s assessment of us) without needing to appreciate every baggy pair of gray sweatpants that saunters by.

3. Women have incredible willpower.
Maybe women make such a deep commitment to faithfulness that you successfully discipline yourselves not to look at or think about anyone else. Psychologists would say it’s unhealthy and dangerous to deny a part of your being, and it could lead to a strong rebound. I say that if this is what you all are capable of, I am drop-jawed in awe of your powers but also bemused at such a misdirection of energy.

4. You’re lying.
That must be it. As a typical male who is constantly appreciative of the beauty and allure of the women around me, it’s just beyond my comprehension how my wife could not also be indulging her eyes, if not her imagination.

Help Me Out Here

Please, somebody put me out of my misery and admit that women in relationships do look around. Not in a slimy or predatory way, but just looking, appreciating, or even fantasizing.

I say “please” because, if you are indeed lying, it’s not to protect our feelings. What it really does is create an uneven playing field. It makes us wonder if we really are the lower life forms that media makes us out to be. We also wonder if you truly are human with normal human drives and tendencies.

What Does It Lead?

This is not a call for cheating or polygamy or open relationships. This is not a call to let the body go where our eyes and minds may stray. (That would be another article.) This is just a call for acceptance and appreciation of a partner who can be comfortable with his or her interest in other beautiful human beings without jeopardizing the boundaries of a relationship. In the end, it doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you eat at home.

16 year after my grandpa’s death, my grandmother is still Mrs. Donald Simmons. When she got married, she gave up her own name (McGregor, I think? I’m not even sure), assuming his name and her role as his wife (his property?) Society nodded in approval.

Two generations later, we men don’t have it so easy. Truth is, most of us would still like to maintain our patriarchal dominance of family names, but for different reasons than you might expect. My pragmatic reasons included:

- easier to identify us (on paper, in group introductions…) as a family

- simpler identity for the children

- easier to fit the last name on soccer jerseys, registration forms, etc

But there is also the “continuation of the line” motivation. Whether I’m proud or embarrassed of my ancestry, I sure don’t want the family name to end here. Why on earth that would matter to me I don’t know, but it does. Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing; an extension or intellectualization of the root instinct to propagate my genetic inheritance.

As modern and “evolved” as we like to think we are, we’ve still only come half-way. We might accept or even intellectually embrace the fairness of a hyphenated name, or kids with different last names, or the wife keeping a professional identity. But to take her name – that doesn’t even come to the bargaining table. Come hyphen or high water, somehow my family name is going to live on as atleast part of the equation (and presumably the First of the hyphenated-names…)

I had pretty much accepted that any woman brave enough to marry me would also expect to keep her own name. Imagine my surprise when Sarah actually wanted to assume my hard-to-spell-or-pronounce Swedish moniker. She liked the name, liked the family, and embraced the idea of fully becoming part of the clan. And she had the confidence I apparently lack to know that she could do so without in any way betraying or letting down her own family history and legacy.

She didn’t have to do this. As a semi-evolved man I was begrudgingly prepared to accept a hyphen or even a clever morphing of our names. But deep down, there’s a caveman in me that wanted this, wanted my family’s name to “win,” and wanted the convenience of a single name for all of us. I’m not proud of that – it evokes in me feelings of failure, of lack of full acceptance of equality, lack of strength to overcome the historical/societal/evolutionary drive for dominance of my particular strand of our species. I stand guilty as accused in Tammy Wynette’s country classic – “After all, he’s just a man.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_By_Your_Man)

Every time I hear my partner introduce herself with our family name, I am honoured by her gift and humbled by her strength. But in the end I also have to accept that I got what I wanted. The pragmatic convenience of a single name, and the primal satisfaction that it’s my name.

Maybe somehow we can support our boys to go a step further in recognizing that women have the same right to pride in their names. Maybe they’ll be just as ready and reluctant to give up their family name. But for now, ladies, please accept that when we say “Of course she doesn’t have to change her name,” that many of us are underneath whispering, “but I sure hope she does, cause I sure ain’t gonna.”
Reply

Forward

She’s 38, full-figured, experienced, a bit tired. He’s 16, skinny taut body brimming with raw energy and eager to learn. She invites him in for a drink, strokes his cheek, her bathrobe falls open…

It’s 5:00, the kids are breaking down, and they need to get something in their bellies before they destroy something or someone. Too late to break out the recipe books and create that healthy home-cooked meal you’d promised yourself, so out comes the mac and cheese, frozen pizza, or some other filler food that is fast, convenient and usually over-packaged and expensive.

Sounds all-too familiar? This is the stressful, unhealthy and expensive eating track we all get on in times of overload. But with just one hour of planning a week, we can get out of that pattern. How’s this for an alternate scenario:

Dinnertime in Heaven

It’s 5:00, and the kids come into the kitchen to check about dinner. They’ve already had some reheated casserole leftovers for after-school snack, so they’re not totally out-of-control. And they are reassured by the smell the stew in the crock-pot that you put on this morning after checking the weekly food schedule.

It just takes one hour.

Honestly! Tuck the kids in bed Sunday night then break out the recipe books. Find foods that will turn you on for the week, that incorporate leftovers, and that take into account when you will or won’t have time for elaborate food preparation. Keep a big shopping list beside you for your once-a-week shopping trip the next morning. By the end of the hour, you’ll be looking forward to finally making those home-made perogies on Wednesday that you’ve been wanting to try for ages.

8 Benefits of Meal Planning

1. Save money: Do it right and you might get down to one shopping trip per week, buying only the things you know you’ll need. Less waste, less impulse buying. And most important, less of those expensive pre-packaged last-minute meals and even more expensive take-aways.

Act I.

Roger can’t find his gloves, Emily hasn’t finished her oatmeal, the school bell will ring in 15 minutes, and you haven’t even scraped the frost off the car windows yet. How many times will you have to yell before they’re in the car and barreling down that road to avoid another late slip?

Act II.

Roger and Emily have finished their nutritious breakfasts, taken their dishes to the sink, and are dressed and ready at the door as you take their lunches out of the fridge. You’ll drive slowly and safely to school and have time to visit with other parents as the kids laugh with their buddies and get ready for a day full of learning.

If you let yourself believe just for a moment in the possibility of Act 2, doesn’t it feel blissful? Imagine the high-quality conversations you could have with your fresh, unguarded offspring. You could actually taste that healthy, balanced meal and revel in the life lessons you are teaching them about time management, respect for schedules, and self-care. You could look forward to the meaningful, unhurried interactions they will have with your peers in the parking lot. And you could feel the positive, relaxed, and confident energy you all carry into the rest of your day.

Yes, it really is possible to move from Act 1 to Act 2 (and, regrettably, back again). While there are no silver bullets or magic remedies that work for everyone, there are a few good habits that will get you further along that healthy path.

1. Start the Night Before

Prepare everything you can before you go to bed–ideally right after they go to bed, before you get too tired or distracted. Put out the lunch, clothes, jackets and mittens, shoes, books…everything that usually results in a mad scramble in the last five minutes.

“Come back and play with me!” the plaintive voice called out to my two-year-old. Now, that might have been cute if it was his young buddy calling, but in this case it was a toy–a toy that never should have been in our lives to begin with.

Mr. Big Blocks

Our brief (and too-long) relationship with “Mr. Big Blocks” was the curse of my brother’s ex-girlfriend trying to show some goodwill. The toy is an electronic keyboard with light-up keys and pre-programmed rhythms and tunes. It also has a special program that calls out to the child after five minutes of non-use, imploring him to leave whatever new creative activity has captured his imagination and come back to this plastic dominatrix.

The only thing worse than the toy is the fact that the ex selected it for our family. Yes, it was nice that she thought of us, and yes, she did honor our interest in music, but the gift showed a total lack of respect for our values and our intentional parenting path. She even acknowledged it in the card:

“I know you don’t like plastics or electronics or light-up toys, but I just couldn’t resist.”

She’s 38, full-figured, experienced, and a bit tired. He’s 16 with a skinny, taut body, brimming with raw energy and eager to learn. She invites him in for a drink, strokes his cheek, and her bathrobe falls open…

Our avant-garde theatre recently hosted a “cougar movie” extravaganza. You know–movies where older women seduce young males (usually teenage virgins). It’s hot, it’s sexy, and apparently it’s acceptable–that is, as long as it’s an older woman and a younger man.

Top Cougar Movies

Chances are, you can easily come up with your own list of the top cougar movies of all time. But just to get you started, here are some samples:

The Graduate
“Starring an ingénue Dustin Hoffman who succumbs to the world-weary Mrs. Robinson’s seductive spell.” Down, Mrs. Robinson!

Class
Jacqueline Bissett utters one of the steamiest lines ever to her son’s classmate (Andrew McCarthy in his film debut) in an elevator: “Do you like it better going up or going down?”

The Last Picture Show
Cloris Leachman won an academy award for her powerful cougar portrayal in this film.

American Pie
Stifler’s Mom makes a man out of her son’s high-school friend in the pool room.

Sixteen years after my grandpa’s death, my grandmother is still Mrs. Donald Simmons. When she got married, she gave up her own name, assuming his name and her role as his wife. Society nodded in approval.

The Reasoning Behind the Thought

Two generations later, we men don’t have it so easy. The truth is, most of us would still like to maintain our patriarchal dominance in family names, but for different reasons than you might expect. My pragmatic reasons include:

- it’s easier to identify me and my relations (on paper, in group introductions, etc.) as a family

- there’s a simpler identity for the children

- it’s easier to fit the single last name on soccer jerseys, registration forms, etc.

But I won’t lie–there is also the “continuation of the line” motivation. Whether I’m proud or embarrassed of my ancestry, I sure don’t want the family name to end here. Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing–an extension or intellectualization of the root instinct to propagate my genetic inheritance. I don’t know the specific reason, but I do know that it matters to me.

I Might Be a Caveman, But…

As modern and “evolved” as we like to think we are, we’ve still only come halfway. We might accept or even embrace the fairness of a hyphenated name, kids with different last names, or a wife keeping a professional identity. But for a man to take her name–that doesn’t even come to the bargaining table. Come hyphen or high water, somehow my family name is going to live on as at least part of the equation (and presumably the first of the hyphenated names, if that’s what it comes to).

“Can I pick up anything while I’m out?” my brother-in-law kindly asks before walking the kids to school. Those eight simple words just might be one of the leading causes of tight budgets.

Think about your spending patterns. Do you spent too much or too often? How many times per week – no, per day! – do you pull out your wallet? And the most important question – how many of those purchases were planned?

Spending Too OFTEN

The joke’s on my brother-in-law, because unless Armande’s organic farm is open today, there’s nowhere he could just stop by on the way home. No quick coffee or muffin, no “we’re out of baking soda”, no blue-light specials in our rural neighborhood. Since moving to this area where almost every item in the store is more expensive, we’ve been saving heaps of money. We simply don’t have the opportunity to buy buy buy.

My family has also become hyper-conscious of the constant pressure to spend when in the city. Stores and billboards and restaurants are everywhere, calling for attention, beating down our budgetary defenses. The whole economy, media, and consumer culture is constructed to push us into spending – too much and too often. One local business association actually successfully lobbied to have traffic lights timed to make cars stop more often so that commuters would be more likely to notice and pull into the shops.

Planning Your Purchases

Back here in the country, instead of running to the store all the time, we have to plan. A full week of menu planning lets us know exactly what to shop for in one trip, reducing the opportunity for impulse buys. We also keep a list of needed supplies for crafts, house repairs, leisure, etc, so that when we do hit that thrift store or coop we again minimize the amount of unnecessary extra filler.

Last week our children polished their boots with loving care and put them out on the front porch, excitedly anticipating a visit from St. Nicholas. And early, too early, the next morning they rushed out to find some simple treasure from the little-understood patron saint – mandarin oranges and a ripe, juicy mango.

December is filled with pressures, extravagances and obligations, but it’s the simple traditions and the basic connections that make it so magical. My most precious holiday memories don’t revolve around Boxing Day sales or pageants – they are simple, people-focused, and peaceful:

Decorating the tree listening to Mahalia Jackson or Elvis.

Making (but never eating) traditional Swedish pickled herring with my extended Swedish family

Baking snowman and bell-shaped cookies with my family

Door-to-door caroling followed by hot cider at the fireside

Hand-drawing Christmas cards for the grandparents

It’s never too late to create traditions and lifetime memories for our children and for ourselves. We just need to find events, rituals, and stories that speak to our families, invoking meaning that we can all feel deep within.

Tradition: Foster a Sense of Connection

A fellow traveler to Africa once told me why she enjoyed going to Catholic mass even when she didn’t speak the language – it made her feel connected to the millions of people around the world doing that very same thing at that very same time. Christmas is the same – most of us are busy sending out the same types of cards, setting up similar trees, lighting candles, and being with family.

Let’s follow or create traditions that link us to our families, our history, and our communities. And let’s be sure that we and our children understand and celebrate these links. A simple statement like “Imagine how many children are opening their advent calendars right now, just like us” brings a whole new meaning much deeper than chocolate.

There are lots of Top Christmas Songs lists (including the one I just created), but there’s also hosts of new works, creative renditions of classics, or just plain fun and funny ditties that celebrate the Christmas season.

…There’s also a bunch of lousy songs and renditions that would make an agonizing Worst Songs list, but we’ll stick to works worthy of listening.

1. 12 days of Christmas – Straight No Chaser (A Capella Men’s Choir). If you click on nothing else, watch this one. Fun fun fun, amazing harmonies, creative, why couldn’t I have been one of these guys in college?

2. Hallelujah – Conjured (“composed” would be too light a word for this monumental, provoking masterpiece) by Leonard Cohen, there have been numerous great covers, like this one by KD Lang.

3. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch – Thurl Ravenscroft. “Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots.” That says it all.

Sure this time of year comes bringing gifts, Santa, sweets, and even Jesus. All wonderful, but what really distinguishes this season is the music. It’s the one time outside of a summer campfire that people feel released to sing together, and can roughly agree on the playlist.

I started to make a list of the best Christmas songs, but it divided itself into two lists – best renditions of classics, and fun/weird/unusual songs (which will pop up tomorrow). I’ve avoided the temptation to do a third list of Worst songs – just go into any shopping mall to get that.

1.Blue Christmas – Elvis. Only Elvis could do this.

2. Go Tell It on the Mountain – Mahalia Jackson. Every time I’m in a group of white folk destroying this (albeit in a spirit of great Joy), I whisper a silent apology to Mahalia.

3. Mary Did You Know – Clay Aiken. Who knew American Idol would produce a true crooner?

4. Hallelujah chorus – from a 1992 gathering of soul-pop artists, including Patti Austin, Tevin Campbell, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Take 6, Howard Hewett, and Dianne Reeves, who took a pop-song approach to Handel’s classic Christmas oratorio. Handel’s wonderful melodies are updated with synthesizers, drum machines, and slick pop production from Quincy Jones and Take 6’s Mervyn Warren. The whole album is fantastic.

5. Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Bruce Springsteen. Like it or hate it, The Boss is one of few artists who manages to put his own stamp on Christmas classics.

It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’ve given up on sleep. Horrible images from a horrible movie won’t let me rest. Images I never should have seen; never should have been filmed.

Wrong Girl Next Door

I admit I was trying to watch an R-rated Risky Business kind of trash while my wife’s away, but instead of a voluptuous Girl Next Door – “a sex-soaked teen comedy that actually has a heart” according to Rotten Tomatoes–I got assaulted by Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door.

Worst Movie Review

Don’t ever, ever watch this movie. It is nothing but a graphic portrayal of child abuse. I am now stuck with images that make me afraid to go back to bed, afraid of giving my brain enough space to dredge them back up again. Why oh why did any person write, produce, distribute or watch it?

Why Do We Love Horror Movies?

I won’t say anything more about the movie that should be put away to rot. The bigger question is, why do we ever watch shows that are classified in genres like “crime,” “drama,” “horror,” and “thriller?” What’s with our fascination with crime shows like LA Law, kidnap movies like Ransom, heck let’s even throw in Rambo.

Oh, to be 12 and free again! Free to express pure angst, unbridled excitement, torrential tears! Passionate enough to lament the end of the world on a regular basis.

Watch this video of kids reacting to the news that David Archuleta did not win American Idol, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s an hilarious – perhaps scary – look at the no-holds-barred world we left behind with our squeaky voices and pre-pubescent ideals.

When was the last time we wailed like that? Maybe if Obama had lost the election. But outside of sports and real personal tragedies, we (in North America at least) never seem to let go like that. Maybe we don’t feel it inside, or maybe we hold back from showing it – I hope it’s the latter, cause I sure don’t want to believe that we’re that emotionally muted as a culture.

This must be the reason that sports are so popular. It’s one area in life that we, especially we men, can unabashedly scream in ecstasy or despair. A classical Greek catharsis for our bottled-up souls.

This is also the true indicator of the miracle wrought by Barack Obama. For the first time perhaps since JFK, people were roused out of political apathy and allowed themselves to care, to hope, to believe in a leader and a vision. I’m regularly bummed out by the results of elections in my own country, but would have joined the legions of wailing people around the world if Barack had lost. I would have easily become as lost as those near-suicidal American Idolotrors, as easily as I joined the hugging and high-fiving throngs in the school parking lot the morning after election day.

I want to celebrate and yell and wail more often. And you, when do you let go?

Photo by dantegeek.

Two and a half months into the school year, we finally did it. We finally managed to leave five minutes early. And it made a world of difference.

I took time to tuck their gloves over their jackets the way they like. We cycled along the scenic “shortcut” instead of staying on the busy paved speedway, and stopped to examine a magnificent mushroom in someone’s compost heap. We laughed, and didn’t once check the watch or worry about being late. I didn’t bark at my almost-five-year-old for cycling too slowly up the hill.

And we arrived before the bell. In time to greet friends, to take a breath and welcome other friends as they arrived breathless. In a good mood, un-rushed, un-aggravated, un-stressed.

Time Fracture

How often do we calculate the absolute minimum time it takes to get somewhere, then leave even one minute, one email after that? Think of what it costs us – stress, danger of driving too fast, tension in our relationships. Think of what message it sends to our children and to our community to always be showing up late or Just On Time, usually breathless and a bit unprepared.

Lucia’s priceless article about destructive mothers-in-law got me thinking about my son-in-law role in all this. After all, she can’t truly flourish in her role if we don’t give her some fodder – it’s our duty.

Here are nine easy ways to be the disappointment she expects and needs you to be:

1: Expect her to babysit

Anytime you need it, or just want a break. It’s her biggest joy and purpose in life, and what else does she really have to do anyways? You’re not asking a favor, you’re generously bestowing upon her the grandparenting opportunity she nagged you about for years. She should thank you every time you come home from a late party and find her asleep on the couch.

2: Leave a mess

It validates her need to over-clean, and makes her feel needed. Bonus points for taking a big drink of water then plopping the half-empty glass on the counter right in front of her as you walk away.

3: Remember the power of Guilt

Yes, her greatest tool can now be your ally. Drop simple little lines like “If you don’t want to see your grandkids…” of “That’s OK, I’m sure little Joey will understand that you’re too busy…” Revenge is sweet.

Contrary to characters in movies like American Pie or its equivalent for my generation – Porky’s, not every teenage boy is ready or eager to lose his virginity. For many of us, it’s threatening, confusing and downright scary.

You Want to Do What?!

The first time I turned down a coital proposition (in grade 11), it was more out of surprise than fear. Maybe I’m just more oblivious than most, but I never saw it coming. Kissing was great; that is, after a horrible first try in my green Honda civic after watching Footloose, when I sadly deciding on the way home that I just didn’t like kissing. Second base (feeling her up at the back of Mr. Quan’s physics classroom while the teachers were having a meeting up front) left me physically shaking the rest of the afternoon. Third base was a pure primal experience, my hands and body instinctively discovering what to do in the backseat of mom’s Rabbit diesel (as soon as it was over, Kyle and Lisa shouted out from the car next to us that they’d won the bet about whether or not I’d groan – no secrets on a teenage double date).

Lucia’s beautiful article about explaining death to children brought up some great dialogue about when to talk about serious issues with children. In response to one comment that “our kids just work with the info to the level they’re ready, then let it surface again later with a different depth,” the author wrote back, “I think you’re so right.” This confirms to me its never a waste to start talking about these things young.

The Dreaded Talk

My five-year-old and I had the textbook-perfect talk one afternoon over dishes (me washing, him doodling at the table). He had heard me talking about the movie Juno, and wanted to know more. In 15 minutes we discussed anatomy, birth control, abortion, and why our beloved teenage babysitter might not be ready to be a mom (and also why her brother might not be the most appropriate person to help her with such a project!). As much as I’d love to just recreate the whole conversation, the more interesting aspect is what made the conversation work. Looking back, I can see the following key elements:

1. Space. I had my back to him washing dishes, he had his own activity, so there was no discomfort or external drive to carry on the dialogue. It just flowed when it needed to, without him feeling me stare into his soul wondering what was going on in there.
2. Time . Nothing was hurried. This could continue as long as he needed it to. In fact, I slowed down my dishwashing even more than normal to hold that space.
3. Silence. Because of our mutual activities, there was comfortable silence in between each Q&A. He’d fire a question, I’d blunder through an answer, then for the next two-to-five minutes he’d quietly continue his work, letting the words and ideas bubble through his head until it led to a new question or clarification. Each time, my biggest challenge was to stay quiet, not ask a follow-up question or try to clarify what I’d said.
4. Honesty. I didn’t hold back any truths, or sugarcoat things. I did try to give age-appropriate explanations that he could grasp, but didn’t hide things. Kids know when we’re doing that, and it makes them wonder what the big taboo is.
5. Curiosity. He wanted this information; he initiated and carried on the conversation. In that moment, he was ready and engaged. So different than when my dad stumbled red-faced into my bedroom (after I showed a little too much enthusiasm about Daisy Duke) and stuttered, “Your mother thinks we should have a talk.”
6. He ended it. Since he was in control of the whole dialogue, he knew he could end it when he’d reached his limit. Which he eventually did at the end of another long silence, quite simply by announcing he was done with his work then leaving the kitchen.

A Moment To Teach

All the above factors conspired to create a classic “teaching moment.” There are many other times that the topic comes up but can’t be pursued, such as showing off for his carpool friends by squealing, “Papa, when I was birthed, did you put your wiener in mama’s vagina?” A simple, unembarrassed “yes” is enough to reinforce the message that it’s not a bad thing, but also not a time to pursue it further.

The real dialogue will continue in unexpected spurts over the next 10 years and beyond. Each time he’ll bring a new perspective, depth of understanding, and need to know. And each time the core message I’ll be trying to communicate is simply that I am here to talk with, to share with, even to be scared with. That’s a message that will be pure gold through his confused teenage years of discovery, and it’s a message that every child of every age can understand and deserves to hear.

Recommended and Related

Where Did I Come From, by Peter Mayle

Photo by mikebaird.

It’s Veterans Day / Remembrance Day today and I wake up with the same conflict I do every year. As a person morally and practically opposed to war, how do I honor the young men and women who served our country without supporting the wars they died for?

What happened to “Armistice Day”?

President Wilson proclaimed the first Armistice Day in 1919 with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

So from the very beginning, even before Congress changed it to “Veterans Day” in 1954 (http://www.history.army.mil/faq/vetsday/vetshist.htm), the focus was not on Peace. It was not a powerful plea to never let this happen again, to never again sacrifice our youth to the violence of war. It was a tribute to the bravery or sacrifice of those who died in battle, a celebration of war victories over evil, and a vindication of the efficacy of war as a means of defending freedom or sovereignty.

“Why can’t it always be this good?” Ever asked yourself this at the end of a summer vacation, or a great meal, or a particularly yummy sex romp? Well, it can be!

It can’t always be the same. Most of us can’t live our whole lives on a beach or in bed with that dream partner, but let’s face it, we’d probably get bored anyway. It’s not that particular activity that we’re wishing could continue ad infinitum, but that feeling.

So, here’s a simplistic four-step program to keep life rich, and my own family’s experience as an example:

The most dangerous place in Kenya is not a game park, it’s an all-you-can-eat wild game restaurant called “The Carnivore”. Innocent tourists gasp and salivate as waiters come by their hut every 2 minutes with huge hunks of meat on skewers. Crocodile, ostrich, antelope, zebra – it’s impossible to refuse each new pound of flesh plonking onto your plate.

The morning after

Just like drinking, there’s that one point where you know you’re going to regret this in the morning. But then you hear the call of the wild – “Would you like to try some wild boar, sir?” – and the battle’s lost. The diet will just have to wait another day or two for the stomach pains and diarrhea to subside.

OK, cobra-meat addiction isn’t a big problem for most of us, but the tendency to overeat is. Biologically, our caveman ancestors were programmed to eat as much as possible during the warm times so they could stay alive during the frozen no-food times. Problem is, thanks to California and the trucking industry we don’t have those balancing lean times anymore.

Early in my married life, I once enlisted a grocery stockboy to help me count the number of types of yogurt on display. Brand, flavor, size, animal, organic… there were 265 varieties at this one store. “This is why marriages fail,” I told him. “I have a one in 265 chance of getting this right.” At that moment, right on cue, my wife caught up, looked at the yogurt in my hand, and exclaimed, “Non-fat yogurt?! Have you ever tasted non-fat yogurt?!”

The first true “nag” of our marriage was a funny public event that we still laugh about 10 years later. But the idea of nagging can be anything but funny. I’m 41 years old, have run large non-profit organizations, yet am seemingly incapable of buying the correct dairy products.

It’s 6am, dark, and my wife is playing with lego. Alone on the living room floor she sits by the fire, gloriously absorbed in her creative wastefulness.

Not only is this Sunday, the official day of Rest, but it’s the day the clocks got turned back. We have the gift of a whole extra hour, and she’s spending it lavishly, indulgently. She’s not cleaning or working or even thinking about her Things-To-Do list; just enjoying the moment.

Like most adults, I turned the clock back then lay in bed and tried to go back to sleep. But what a waste of a gift, a 100% free hour that comes just once a year. After 364 days of complaining that there’s never enough time to do anything, here’s the chance to indulge.

By the time you read this the official extra hour will be over, but you don’t have to wait until next year. We here at Carrie and Danielle officially and magnanimously grant you a One-Free-Hour coupon, to spend when and where and with whom and especially how you want.

Tonight I’ll once again be responsible for shepherding my wide-eyed children through a world of grim reapers, chocolate bars and firecrackers. Halloween has always been one of my favourite days of the year, but looking at what we’re teaching our kids and each other I start to think something’s gone wrong.

Hey kids, have some horror

At some point tonight, my kids will be scared. Not the fun roller-coaster kind of shrieking, but full-on terrified. Older kids caked in blood, over-zealous vampire adults, creepy organ music, ghosts flying down from clever front-yard decorations… the myriad inventions to strike horror into their little minds is truly impressive.

But my vampire neighbor won’t have to deal with the nightmares that will wake up my little ones for the next month. One night will seemingly undo a full year of careful monitoring of their exposure to television and age-appropriate media.

Ah, the adventure of bus travel, the call of the open road! Jump into the “real” American landscape and culture, save money and minimize climate change.

Twenty hours into a 31-hour bus trip to Hollywood, I close my book and remind myself why I’ve chosen once again to travel by bus. Flying would have been so much faster and normal. But come to think of it, why do I need to justify bus travel at all; shouldn’t we have to justify the excess waste of flying? But I accept that I’ve chosen to go against the status quo, so here’s why I’m enjoying the ride:

Carbon offsetting is a well-intentioned movement to compensate for the environmental damage of our daily lives. But instead it allows us to just keep on making that damage.

In the middle ages, the Roman Catholic Church’s ability to grant ‘indulgences’—a pardon for sins in exchange for good works and prayers —had predictably given way to pardons in exchange for donations to the church. The bigger the sin, the bigger the required donation to put things right with God. What a perfect closed-loop system, I’ve always thought, to allow sinners to keep on sinning and the church to raise money and profile.

Dreams are a window to the soul—sometimes random, sometimes murky and hard to interpret, but other times just blindingly obvious and embarrassingly shallow. In my beautiful dream the other night, I was sitting at a desk organizing papers. I took a stack of receipts and reached up to a set of shelves to where a pile of clean white envelopes was waiting. It made me deeply happy.

Life in a Tent

You see, for two months we’ve been living in a tent. Not camping, but living: getting kids ready for school, cooking, getting clean, sweeping out spiders. Two months with all our clutter and comforts and distractions stripped away, laying bare the essentials of life and letting us see what we really need or enjoy.