Big Balls

I regularly get irritated at the junk masquerading as science in the media. I guess I could say just that I regularly get irritated. Or testy (this word choice will pay off later, you'll see)."Burning Man"? It could be my nickname. I regularly blow my stack, let off steam, whatever you want to call it.

I am confrontational. I come by it naturally - in my family, when two members get into an argument it's like a chemical cue is released, alerting all members to congregate and get in on the fight. Something akin to how sharks can sense a drop of blood in the water from miles away. I am cocky. I may in fact be described as a "macho" guy. I have what are colloquially known as "Big Balls".

Thus my testiness with the release of a recent "study" that links being a good dad to having smaller testicles. What a load of bollocks. Of course a stir has been created in the chattering classes by this publication (not to mention a run on codpieces). It is silly science, there are a number of problems with the study and the conclusions drawn. First of all, what makes a good dad? The researchers focus on diaper changing and the like rather than on coaching sports teams for example - both of which can involve dads in important ways in a child's life.

Also, what is the cause and what is the effect? Previous studies have shown men's testosterone drops after becoming fathers (and apparently many of those desirable mates had higher than normal testosterone to begin with). Researchers aren't sure that a similar physical change hasn't occurred below the belt.

Lastly there is a great deal of variation in the study which seems to point at a certain amount of choice by the men involved. Some men with big balls are good dads and some men with small balls are not. A study like this makes me shake my head anyway. What is the POINT exactly? Other than to get people all riled up?

I read a fascinating book recently, "How The Brain Changes Itself" by Dr. Norman Doidge, which discusses, among numerous other instances of brain plasticity, how when people fall in love their actual physical brains change. I think most of us who have had kids know what I'm talking about when I say you fall harder in love with your children than you can imagine. It proves the old adage that you can't wait to be ready before you become a parent, you become ready by becoming a parent - literally.

There is no doubt that I radically changed in the way I saw and related to the world when my guys were born. Talk about baby brain. I was totally messed up each time - thought I was going crazy. I would cry singing Molly Malone to them (it was so tragic how she died so young!) Now I kinda wonder what the hell was going on there. It makes sense to me that men change radically and physically when they have children - the science supports it. And this is a good thing, right? You need to change to become a good Dad (or Mum) It's called growing up.

So, ladies, you can put your calipers/scales away - no need to measure the heft of the coconuts before choosing a mate because,

 

 

while men may have smaller balls after they become involved fathers, one thing is clear:

they have BIGGER HEARTS.

POP CULTURE: ALAS! EARWAX!

 

We’re big Harry Potter fans in our house – the books, not the lousy movies. I have read them, my wife has read them and our oldest has reread them so many time I found myself involved in a ridiculous argument. It went something like: “You are rereading Harry Potter AGAIN?” “So? I want to read Harry Potter.” “This is ridiculous. You have to read something else. No more Potter!” “You can’t stop me from reading Harry Potter!” “I... You’re right. Forget it.” And I slunk the hell out of there – another parenting fiasco.

We love to read our kids the books. I read the first one to our middle son before my wife took the project over (even though my character voices are much superior). I was reminded how awesome the headmaster, Dumbledore, is. Harry, as an orphan, is looking for replacement parents throughout the books to help him grow into the man (wizard) he needs to be. Though his mother is central to his story (she sacrificed herself to allow him to live), Harry is searching primarily for a Father figure. By far the most important of these is Dumbledore.

Initially, I was amazed by Dumbledore’s willingness to permit  Harry to go on these risky adventures without interfering.  This is contrary to current hyper-involved bubble-wrapped parenting. Dumbledore knows Harry must undergo risks to BECOME the hero. He has to try and fail. Dumbledore doesn’t do Harry’s homework for him, he doesn’t micromanage or call from the sidelines about how to do things (something I am prone to).

Also, when Harry asks Dumbledore to tell him the truth, he gives a great answer:

“I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to... I shall not, of course, lie.”

He gives Harry what Harry can reasonably handle but doesn’t try and “protect” Harry from the world.

Lastly, Dumbledore regularly demonstrates the quality which makes all kids love him: a childlike curiosity and humour about life. At the end of the book, he tries one of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans - even though he had a bad experience in his youth with a vomit-flavoured one. So, like Dumbledore, I try to give my kids permission to fail. Learning to deal with failure and to keep trying those beans (even though the next one might taste like earwax) is a very important lesson.

A version of this article appears in the August/September issues of Village Living Magazine: West Village and Village Living Magazine: Mt. Pleasant.

YOU COMPLETE ME

I hate Jerry McGuire. It is a terrible romantic comedy.  So is Four Weddings and A Funeral.

This guy is slagging both 4W&F AND Jerry McGuire? Who does he think he is? While 4W&F is a funny movie, it is a terrible romantic comedy because the lead, Charles, (Hugh Grant) declares his love to the wrong character, Carrie (Andie McDowell). Carrie is beautiful but she and Charles have zero chemistry. Also, he has the far superior Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas) panting for him. Me? I’d take the smart, sexy and accomplished woman over the personality-free trophy wife. But I digress. Or do I? Jerry McGuire has the same problem – he declares his love to the wrong person.

Likely everyone is familiar with the line “You complete me” that Jerry (Tom Cruise) utters to Dorothy (Renee Zellweger) in front of a roomful of hostile divorcees. Women swoon over that line. But the movie never demonstrates that she does complete him. It’s a cheat. So who should McGuire have declared his love to? Dorothy’s son, Ray.

A grown man declaring his love for a boy is a potential minefield. It sure doesn’t fit the classic romantic comedy model but it’s Ray who completes Jerry. Wait! You can’t have a movie where a man finds meaning in his father figure role! Not outside of a good relationship to that boy’s mother! Oh, wait, you can – it’s called About A Boy, a better Hugh Grant comedy that explores how being a “father” helps a man find himself.

It seems we have a long way to go for it to be OK for a man to show how he feels. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not talking about long teary discussions about your emotions. Boring. But long ago, my dad (a classic tough guy) showed me that being a real man means doing what’s right and not worrying about what society thinks. A real man can and should tell his own sons (and daughters) publicly that he loves them – that they “complete” him. So, hug it out, bros.

A version of this article appears in the June/July issues of Village Living Magazine: West Village and Village Living Magazine:Mount Pleasant. http://villagelivingmagazine.ca/pop-culture/
 

BLAST FROM THE PAST



Every so often I wonder, am I any good at this? By 'this' I mean parenting. And by 'every so often' I mean like maybe once an hour. I can't remember if I've used this analogy before in the blog but I compare parenting to a kind of approach to weight lifting I was introduced to in high school. It's called working out to failure.

By that it means you keep lifting weights in increasing amounts, repetitions etc. until your muscles literally "fail" and you can't do any more. This is supposed to cause your muscles to grow to magnificence. Now I'm not sure if this was a correct or advisable work out practice (I did after all around this time spend an inordinate amount of money for a piece of curved metal called "The Arm Blaster" that you hung around your neck by a strap in order to isolate your biceps when doing curls - so clearly I'm not sure I was in, let's say, a critical mode.) However, I have to say my arms did look pretty awesome and I should know because I spent a large amount of time looking at them in the mirror. Exercising is supposed to be about doing what's good for you but it is really often about just trying to be attractive to others then, after a while, your main admirer becomes yourself - the biggest thing that gets a workout is your vanity.

How does all this relate to parenting? Well, sometimes I think this is my parenting strategy: aiming at failure. I do more and more stuff, always increasing my goals, tasks and aspirations to be a better dad than ever - joining parent council; baking muffins in the morning to take in lunches; going online to research whether the latest issue of their favourite comic book is out etc. - until... I fail. And usually spectacularly: with yelling, ridiculous claims, stamping around and sulking (and I'm talking about Me here). This often has to do with me feeling unappreciated for what I do.

Eventually a large wave of shame overtakes me and sweeps me out to drown in remorse for a while: what a jerk. Let's be clear here, I am NOT appreciated but the point is that's not part of the job description. For example, yesterday my 5 year old stamped upstairs and declared with some asperity to my wife: "There's still no soap in the dispenser in the bathroom. Daddy PROMISED to do it yesterday." He walked off shaking his head in disgust at my flakiness.

Yeah, sorry, BOSS. Guess I missed doing that in among the laundry, cooking, and child ferrying to various activities. Please take it out of my salary. See, sometimes I can laugh at it. SOMETIMES. But not always and when I blow it it's like all the good stuff doesn't count. As Lyle Lovett sings:

"One bad move can turn your world upside down. It's such a shame because you've been so good... up to now"

It doesn't matter how often you get it right, if you screw up once - you're a chump. And if you lose it when they complain, it's double down time.

So this brings me to my latest attempt to be a "Good Dad". I've been bringing my kids' baseball gloves and a ball to school pick up time as a way to interact and play with them and also to improve the throwing of my oldest who's form is let's say less than optimal. But he won't play. Neither will my youngest. My middle one is keen and that's been fun. Also what's happened is a bunch of his friends have joined in and since the other two's gloves are unused they have been borrowing them. So it's not what I imagined but still pretty fun. And then yesterday my one who plays bails in the middle of the game and leaves me playing catch with a bunch of kids from his school - most of whom I actually don't know. But they're into it and it's actually fun but part of me is thinking, "Come on! None of my kids will play catch with me? What's wrong with them? With me?" And then I remembered Neilus.

When I was a kid, maybe 10 or 12 (possibly 8) I was throwing the football with my dad in the park when out of the bushes appeared Neilus. Neilus was a big slightly goofy slightly dangerous (in my mind, anyway)  older kid who went to my grade school. He had arrived out of nowhere (well, Newfoundland which back in the 70s seemed like nowhere - this was the days of Newfie jokes, remember? Though you wouldn't have cracked one to Neilus - he'd have ruined you). Anyway, he kind of barged in and asked to play. Slightly surprised, we agreed. Neilus was REALLY into it. So much so that I think I may have wandered off for a while and let my dad and Neilus play for a while. As we walked home, I complained to my Dad about Neilus taking over our game. I remember my Dad being kind of sharp with me and then seeming kind of sad and asking questions about Neilus. (I had no idea what the answers were) but I get (got) the sense that Neilus' dad wasn't around and it was kind of a sad story. It certainly affected my dad but not me so much. I forgot this story until about twenty years later.

I was walking down the street in my old neighbourhood visiting my parents. Approaching me was a big rough character. I needed to cross the street anyway but perhaps I crossed earlier than I needed to. And then this guy crossed too heading right for me. Uh-oh. But then he called me by my last name (that's how most refer to me). I was puzzled. And then he identified himself: he was Neilus. Life had been HARD for Neilus. He was missing teeth, his hands were rough, scarred, calloused. He'd spent a lot of time in the oil fields, up north (and I suspected other places I'm happy not to have ever had to go). But he was very friendly and was eager to talk to me about his adventures. Which surprised me because we hadn't really ever hung out. And then he asked about my Dad. He remembered that time in the park and my Dad's kindness and friendliness and just spending time throwing a ball with him. It clearly meant a lot to him - something I just took for granted. I walked away feeling pretty humbled and (as is often the case) kind of a jerk.

So maybe I don't know one of these kids I was playing ball with will take something from it that my own kids don't and it will make a difference to them. Maybe it's a good thing my kids take me for granted - the other options aren't maybe so nice. And like working out it's supposed to be about doing something healthy and not just to be admired or for my own vanity.

Now if I could just arrange for one of these kids to "accidentally" run into my kids in about 20 years and tell them how awesome I am maybe I'll get some respect then...

SLAVE TO (SELF) LOVE

Pop Culture has been presenting surprising, though positive, images of Fathers in Pop Culture - there are many ways to be good dads. Now, however, it is time to showcase some bad dadding.

Exhibit A in the Pop Culture Gallery of Bad Dads: Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music. Last year, the 66 year old Mr. Ferry married the 24 year old ex-girlfriend of one of his sons. As my youngest used to say, “Ick, is yuck”. For all I know, Ferry pere et fils dash about the Riviera in a motorboat wearing matching monogrammed Speedos and toasting each other with Prosecco. But this poaching smacks of poisonous levels of male vanity. Ferry always struck me as a guy who spent a lot of time admiring himself in the mirror. I was raised in a home where, if you dawdled over your food, my dad would try to eat your dinner and you had to arm wrestle him if you wanted the extra cherry Danish.  So, I’m OK with cross-generational rivalry - within limits. When I finally beat my Dad for the Danish, he bore it with good grace and didn’t turn around and try and scoop my girlfriend in revenge.

Rule One of not being a Bad Dad: Don’t Sleep With, Date or Marry your children’s exes.

Who has to worry about this other than Eurotrash pop stars? Well, a woman I knew in university married her ex boyfriend’s father. “Dad, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend Electra”. “Well, hello there.”

Dads, if you want a young girlfriend, why not get out of your slippers and leave the house to look for one? Beyond this being a basic no-eating-your-kids’-leftovers rule, it is a metaphor:  Are you putting your kids’ happiness ahead of your own selfishness? Are you a slave to vanity?  Are you trying to hold onto your youth/potency at the cost of your kids?

I prefer just to challenge my sons to do better than I did in finding a wife. Good luck, punks. Maybe it’s not healthy... but at least it’s better than some of the alternatives.


Pop Culture is a humourous blog about being a Modern Dad. A version of this article appears in the April/May issues of Village Living Magazine: West Village and Village Living Magazine: Mt. Pleasant.

 

Bedtime Routine

By now everyone is likely familiar with the hilarious children's story book Go The Fuck To Sleep. For some reason people who know me constantly direct me to the book and Samuel L Jackson's reading of the book. Hmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIBqd1kxoQk

The reality is that by the end of the day of dealing with children you crave silence, solitude and some time without someone asking something of you. Beyond that, it might be nice to have an actual conversation with your spouse without being interrupted. Mind you, those conversations are usually tactical discussions about the children and managing their behaviours, menus, or schedules. Sometimes a discussion about something not related to your kids pops up - those are nice moments and you treasure them because they are so rare.

It's gotten pretty pathetic that much of my interaction/information sharing with my wife comes via cc'd emails or in awkward moments when a neighbour tells me something about what my wife (or even I am up to):

"So, that was a hilarious story Carolyn told me about being trapped on the elevator at work the other day."
"What are you talking about? Carolyn wasn't trapped on any elevator"
"Oh, sorry, not sure who I'm thinking about".

And then, about a week later, I mention to my wife in passing about the weird way gossip travels - for instance:

"Christina told me that you were trapped on an elevator at work. I mean, how did that get started?" "Oh. I was. Didn't I tell you that? I was sure I had."

We have a saying now, "We don't talk, we're married." It's funny because it's true. Ha ha.

There used to be a time (when we had fewer and younger children) when we would have a small life raft of time between their finally going to sleep and our bedtime. As we have grown increasingly exhausted (and our children older and more demanding), that time has shrunk to almost nothing. Our bedtime routines, begun in youthful and new parent enthusiasm and naivitee, are always in danger of consuming us.

For instance, in the giddy rapture of new fatherhood I made up a series of "special songs" for my eldest (and at the time, only child) which I would sing to him along with other songs I knew (which when I began mostly consisted of the Gilligan's Island and Mary Tyler Moore theme songs) after reading a score of storybooks. Equity demanded the same consideration for my second and third boys. What begins as a wonderful bonding time with your children can easily becomes more of a time of bondage (not in the 50 Shades of Grey meaning, sickos). As I now I have three boys, even divided by two parents, it breaks down to nearly a two hour bedtime routine with songs and stories and so much more (Polka Dot Door reference) for all three. I sometimes feel like a struggling singer songwriter facing a hostile crowd who reject my song choices and bark out demands. I have yet had to have to perform Freebird but it's only a matter of time.

I've had to scale back the bedtime performance time and again as it naturally tends to become more ornate, complicated and baroque. Sort of a Punk rock reaction to overblown Prog rock excesses. No more last minute requests for water allowed. No more trips to the toy box to get that critical stuffie. Only two songs. Only two books. No more pyrotechnic light shows complete with masks and props. Back to basics.

 

Even with extreme vigilance at keeping the time in check, there have been evenings when, exhausted and trying to get through the last story with the last kid, I enter into a waking dream state and start to read and say things which make no sense. Trippy stuff that confuses and exasperates my kids:

"There's no green rapping elephant in this book, Daddy!"

This usually ends with me passing out, drooling, beside them. Waking up with a start hours later, I stagger into the hall often to find my wife similarly blundering out of another bedroom where she had passed out.

All that said, it can be a great experience to introduce your kids to favourite books of yours as a kid and to discover new ones that you can share. Some of them lend a different meaning to the phrase Bedtime Routine in that you develop an almost classic vaudeville comedy routine with certain jokes and songs and books. Those are great moments.

As a dad who wonders often if this parent thing is a zero sum game designed solely to reveal my failings and weaknesses, I do hold onto those moments where I feel we've created something genuinely fun and cool together. One of the unexpected side-effects of being an involved and home-based dad that I enjoy most are those moments when I would be reading a picture book with one of my boys and, upon seeing a picture of what is supposed to be a mother animal and her cubs, my son points out excitedly:

"Look, it's a daddy and his babies".

That rocks me to sleep, I can tell you.

Sign of the Times

I was recently working with a friend on a project when he had to stop and take an email. He read it through and then snorted in disgust and started swearing.

"What's up? I asked.

"Ethan's snowboarding for this week is cancelled because of the rain," he answered.

"That's too bad. Piss you off?"

"No I was expecting that, given the weather."

"Why the swearing then?"

He handed over his phone with the email. "Have a look at that sign off and tell me if you can figure it out."

I had a look. The instructor listed his name, his contact details, his professional accreditations and then I saw it. On a line of its own. Right below the accreditations. It may have even been in all caps but I could be imagining that:

FATHER.

Oh, *#%& off, I thought and then laughed. "Father?" I hazarded.

"Yes! Am I right?" he asked. "What a wanker. I mean, piss off."

It was a funny reaction because neither of us are particularly old school dads. My friend is a very involved, divorced dad, with shared custody and was the first guy I know to take an extended paternity leave. He in fact was one of my inspirations to try it myself. He is a creative guy, a teacher and writer too. So, what was it about this sign off that pissed us both off?

I played Devil's Advocate (I know, unusual for me but, what the hell?) "Well, isn't it a greater accomplishment to be a father than to have your B.Ed.?"


"Oh, I don't know, I guess. Sure. You're supposed to say that. It's just so sucky. And self-congratulatory. And like it qualifies him somehow to be the instructor."

I also think it goes to the insecurity of what it means to be a father these days. It`s certainly in the news a great deal about how dads are an endangered species and how they may soon be irrelevant and unnecessary. First of all, my main response to that is: Crap.

Apparently kids raised by two lesbians are the happiest. This again strikes me as pop science glossy magazine 'reportage' based on and geared to an extremely small subset of people i.e. neurotic N. American bourgeois paralytically self-aware parents. I mean, COME ON, how can it possibly be a fair claim to say this - just how many lesbian parents are there in the world? Where do these kids come from - The stork? Men are involved in some fashion here and it`s certainly not realistically going to be affordable or all that common for IVF world wide EVER. I`m sure they`re all super happy and that`s just awesome but to go from this small sample to say that dads are unnecessary and of growing irrelevance is absurd. The fact it seems to be taken up by the media with solemn seriousness just makes it more infuriating.

So I see FATHER`s goad here to establish that he`s an involved dad who cares and is proud of that role. Great. Still it rankles.

Sure, some men are not pulling their weight - they are absent dads, never involved in their kids' lives and not providing any kind of support. In those cases the Mums have to make do on their own and in the men are irrelevant and unnecessary - and maybe they are all better off without the men. But I don`t think this is a fair representation of most dads out there either. Lots of us are flawed, not very good dads but we`re there putting in our share and doing our best - coaching, working long hours to help pay the bills, transporting kids to various play dates, schooling and sports also counts.

So maybe this is another problem with FATHER`s declaration. I mean, so what, that you`re a father?Any baby-daddy can make that claim. It is simply biology to father a child. My friend and I were joking you could instead insert other nouns: SPERM-DONOR. IMPREGNATOR. FERTILISER.

The title implies that FATHER is a good father and who's kidding who - he is tipping his hand to indicate he's a GREAT FATHER. And, just maybe, likely, better than YOU. So is it this level of Daddier-Than-Thou which is the most galling?

Sidebar - is it a bit rich that I am complaining about FATHER? After all, I write a blog and column about being a Dad. How am I different than he? Maybe I'm not. I hope no one is taking cues on how to do a good job from ME. Other than maybe a nod - oh yeah, I've done that. I've thought that. Or wow maybe I'm not so bad after all, reading about what THAT guy thinks and does. Still, does my criticism of FATHER mean that I think I'm a better Dad than he is? Hell no. He's likely way better at it than I am but seriously, so what? Keep it to yourself. It's so self-aggrandising.

And maybe that's a generational thing. For some reason I think that FATHER may be a lot younger than me and my friend. The generation who posts pictures of their dinners on Facebook or Tweets about the inconsequential details of their lives. Maybe what offends us is the implication that to be an involved Dad one must reject classic male/father attributes. FATHER's seeking validation, attention and praise for being a good father instead of demonstrating good ol' manly values like duty, responsibility, self-sacrifice, toughness, discipline, and hard work. And not asking for a gold star or a pat on the back afterwards.

My friend and I are likely older Grizzled Dads. And even though we're pretty different than our own dads in our involvement in child rearing, we carry forward those things our own fathers taught us about being men. Like that generation's idea of Actions Speak Louder than Words. Calling yourself a FATHER means nothing. It's what you DO and how your kid thinks of you at the end of the day - "Did my dad help me to be a better person?" It doesn't have anything to do with what some stranger thinks upon reading your email signature.