Let's Not Talk About Sex: Having "The Talk"

We walked past the back wall of board games, looking for that unique gift idea that never seem to present itself in retail stores; no, Uno would not do.

"Wha! That is so inappropriate,"  my daughter Lily shrieked.  

Oh goodness, what could it be this time? A Bratz doll with a heart tattoo on her cleavage?  

No...I laughed to myself, as Lily pointed out the culprit.  

There is nothing sexy about this board game.  

It was a board game called: Battle of the Sexes.  

"It says Sexes!" she half yelled to me in her whisper tone.  

So, there, in the middle of the toy section, on an isle painted in every color of not-gender-nuetral pink, I had to explain the dictionary (1a) definition of sex.  The two definitive categories of gender based on reproductive organs. I did not include transgender or omnisexuals or androgynes, as the world is confusing enough to a nine-year, that referencing these "others" was...well, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about anymore. I just know that the board game Battle of the Sexes does not have a game piece for gender neutral individuals. I know, right; discrimination.  

Anyway, I know what SEX she was referring to, even though she doesn't know what that SEX really consists of.   

Which means, sometime soon, I or her mother, will have to give her the talk (please, God, let it be her mother).  

And she still believes in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and that I'm the strongest man in the world.  

It's not fair, because quite frankly, she isn't ready. She attends a little private school (that we parents can barely afford) and her friends are still heavily interested in dolls and singing Frozen songs. She only has a few years of carefree living before the fission of hormonal lunacy and emotional drama turn her into a temporal irrational Medusa.  

I'm not making it sharper.  I'm dulling it,
so it will cut through flesh slower...

And I'm not ready to be turned to stone (or permanently stoned, now that Oregon legalized weed), although I somewhat understand why many parents want to "check-out" during the middle years of their children's existence.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not ready for my little girl to grow up. I don't want her to be a woman. I'm not ready to deal with boys or men. I haven't even built my axe grinding stone near my front entrance to deal with potential suitors, yet.  

But she has so many questions, mostly because of the crap that gets plastered all over media. The other day she was singing Salt 'N Pepa's "Push It" song because somebody in the GIECO advertising department has no lyrical analysis skills, and used a song about SEX to sell insurance. (Well, sex does sell).  

And then she's discovered music. We couldn't stop it. She hears songs. She thinks she likes Katy Perry (even though she "dresses gross"). And she and her sister (Nadia age seven) love Christina Perri. And because we (her parents) are too cheap to buy these CDs, they access them through the Pandora app, or worse, through YouTube on our computer.  

I don't think Salt 'N Pepa were talking about "Pushing it"
in regards to childbirth, either. But nice try GIECO.  

For a while, I was adamant about not watching the videos, just like my mother was about MTV. Most of the messages that popular music portrayed went way over my head in the 1990s (like Naughty By Nature's OPP)...although others, like Baby Got Back didn't need Sir Mix-A-Lot's risqué video to convey the theme (although now I understand the "anaconda" reference).  

Many of the songs, though, have neat little messages to go along with the video. My girls fell in love with Taylor Swift. Love Story was a sweet little song, and a harmless little corresponding video. Swift is a smart girl. I like how she challenges the music industry, and her songs are often ironically criticizing her critics. She isn't trying to do the challenge the morales of the times, Madonna-thing, either.  

But YouTube doesn't let you just listen to one song. It entices you with "other related" videos.  Each video is a doorway drug that leads you to something a little harder, a little edgier, a little more sinful.  

Maybe the song is about "shaking off" the pounds?

My girls traveled down this looking glass, and wound up listening to Swift's Shake It Off. Sadly, I like this song (and again, it's message of ignoring critics). But halfway through the video, a strange twerking montage ensues as Swift snakes under the legs of some bustier butted women nearly bouncing their backsides on her head.  

Now, I think this is Swift maybe showing solidarity to Miley Cyrus, and the whole twerking VMA fiasco of last year.  Or Swift is owning the fact that she herself has very little backside (as she attempts to twerk and laughs it off). Again, I like her as an artist for this.

But my daughter watching said, "why do girls do that with their butts?  Isn't it gross?"  

She asked me, and not her mother.  I'm not sure how I feel about twerking. I like the female body, of course. I like backsides. I think there are about a billion sexier or more erotic things a woman can do than shaking her rump like arm flab...but...on some basic chromosomal level, the dance is appealing (even as I don't want it to be).  

This was once risqué. Now it's a huge statue.  

I wanted to say, "Well, you see, for the last forty years, sexuality, and more correctly, pornography, has devolved from exposure, to debasement. Playboy, a magazine that many men grew up salivating over even though it had a stigma of "sin" attached, has become almost mainstream. Even Playboy set up many men for disappointment, even though it only showcased nude women. Then the internet came along and said, "Playboy is for sissies, check out what we got some women to agree to______."  Most men initially looked at some of these fetish-like images with disgust...but then this became the new normal "porno."  And if no woman looks like the images in Playboy, no woman can (or will) do the stuff in most of these internet sites and porno movies. Yet some men still expect this kind of debasement to get turned on.  When women twerk in videos, it is really some music executive saying, "We need more sex in this video, because we need more guys watching it." Sadly, the secondary message is "Girls, this is how you attract guys...just like how hookers attract Johns by shaking their ta-tas on the street corner."  

Of course, I didn't say this.  Because my daughter is 9. Instead I said, "Umm...it is gross. Music producers like gross, and encourage their female artists to show off more and more of their flesh, because people are unnaturally curious if famous people's bodies look better than their own.  Unfortunately, having a great voice and catchy songs is not enough to sell CDs. A singer also has to sell the idea that she (or he) is physically superior to the average person as well. Swift isn't necessarily exposing herself in this video, instead she is having dancers do it for her...all in an attempt to sell her music."  

Thankfully, Lily accepted this answer and said, "That's dumb."  

Yes it is, Lily. But most of our over-sexualized society is dumb. The world is going to keep "pushing it, real good" when it comes to glamorizing sex. And as your parent, I'm going to eventually explain the deep connotations of sexuality, and I'm going to say that innocence is blissful, that purity is a virtue, and that someday, when you bring a boy over, I may or may not club him with an axe.  

Start an Affirmation Day Tradition to Celebrate Those Closest To You.

"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it." -Dumbledore (movie only).

My Patronus would be a Skunk.  

While it's unclear whether J.K. Rowling wrote this line or if it was added by one of the many writers/producers in pre-production, it clearly symbolizes how she wanted her books/movies received. Words have power. Even in her world where dragons, trolls, magic wands, and ghosts flitter through the rooms, at the essence of what the series is about is human relationships.

Unlike Harry, I am blessed with a fantastic family that never locked me under the stairs. We are a family full of talented, loud, opinionated, funny, fun-loving, individuals that would drop everything to be there for each other. Yet, even with this unconditional love and guaranteed approval, we all still act like Dementors at times, casting Crucio curses at each other for no reason other than having a bad day.

It's not just us, it's an American thing. Think of the words we say about our President, our government, our Governor, our city council, our sports teams (when they are losing), our bosses, our friends (when they aren't in the room), our spouses...even our kids. We are a nation full of loose-lipped blasphemers that rarely find the time (or need) to apologize.

Even Potter struggled with this:

Harry: "Been having a nice little chat with her {Lavender} about whether or not I'm a lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?"

Hermione: "No, I told her to keep her {Lavender} big fat mouth shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down Ron and my throats, Harry, because if you haven't noticed, we're on your side."

So this year, after Foot-in-Mouth disease had infected many members of the family, and threatened to dismantle the Christmas season, we decided to combat the malady with a new holiday tradition: Ending the year with a session of positive words aimed at every member of the family--Affirmation Day.

Being affirmed, means strongly and publicly declaring one's support for, or defense of another's validity or existence. What greater gift can one give during the holiday break than to be 100% loved and validated by your closest kin, with only words meant in praise of your existence.

Some wrote a word or two, others a paragraph. I'm keeping mine.  

I'm not saying it was easy. We all had to write a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph of all the positive attributes of EVERY member of the family. We even did this for Eleanor (or Ellie as we call her), our 6 month old niece, who clearly will have no concept of the affirmation we just bestowed upon her. But it can, perhaps, be absorbed into her psyche. You don't have to be a believer in a Higher Power, like we are, or a Wiccan to understand that light or darkness can be imparted into other's lives by our choice. And we choose, as a family, to speak Life into each other.

So we bogged down, and spent a few hours writing and then sharing our words, sentences, and observations of others. Sometimes it was funny, as when my niece and nephew both choose "weird" and "crazy" to define me. I own those words. I am those words. I love that they chose those words to define me. Other times it was so emotionally overwhelming that it was hard to read out the words. Sometimes I heard words to describe my sisters or brothers-in-law that I wished I would've used myself; but by the end, after all 13 people had received their "anonymous" gifts of praise, nobody could possibly feel bad about themselves for at least a week.

My favorite line before and after the session, was when my 9-year-old niece said, "It's embarrassing, and hard to have people say nice things about you" (before we did the assignment), and afterwards saying, "It wasn't as hard as I thought, it actually felt quite nice to get compliments."

I don't know if it's sadder that we've conditioned ourselves to not receive compliments, or that we are so reluctant to give them out.

This world barely recognizes the light you bring to the world, and more often than not, tries to snuff it out. But this little Lumos light of ours? We're going to let it shine by praising those around me. We all could use a little Patronus on our side.

So this holiday and next, I encourage you to start your own Affirmation Day tradition. It might be awkward, and it might be difficult to think of nice things to say, but who else is going to do it?

What a better way to end the year, after all the drama, pain, frustration, and misplaced words, than to open a new chapter with the words that need to be shared? It's nice to know that somebody is on your side.

When you are comfortable with your family, it opens up opportunities for mockery. Like the flying LB bro-in-law.  

Say what you will, but this is all the evidence I need of God.  

Forget Straight A's, I Want My Kids to Have Sensibility

My little daughter, Lily, had her heart broken this Friday. No, not by a boy; she's eight. She still thinks boys are disgusting (an observation I dutifully reinforce).  Sadly, her best friend, also named Lily, moved three hours away. I didn't go to the going away party (my wife is much better at those type gatherings) so I didn't do much of the 'on the battlefield' grief consoling; but when my Lily got home, she was such a blubbering mess that she crawled into my arms and wept uncontrollably for what seemed like eternity.

Tonya Harding never transitioned
out of 7th grade.  

As a human being, my instincts were to comfort her and tell her it will be all better. People have this thing about being uncomfortable around crying and wanting to make it stop. I couldn't handle teaching 7th graders because they were always crying. Crying when somebody called them fat, crying when their pencil wasn't sharp enough, crying when "today's date" was wrong on the top of my whiteboard. 7th graders grip on reality is pretty sad, and many of the "criers" of my past 7th grade class are now the outcast and "at-risk" kids in my 10th grade classes (yes, I do teach many of the same kids 3 years later). Why has being emotional become synonymous with craziness?

I wanted my daughter to stop crying. But crying---grief---is normal. Grief is good. I'm okay happy my daughter cares for someone so much that it breaks her heart when they've gone away. I'm glad she loves so deeply that feelings are sometimes uncontrollable. Some day, when the situation is bigger or smaller, she will have experience with which to gauge her emotions. As parents we are always teaching our children what the appropriate reaction to disappointment and/or victory is. Sometimes my daughter can be overly dramatic, but this was not a performance, this was genuine heartache. I'm raising an empathetic human being. And the empathetic human being is an endangered species.

And that's just after reading the
back cover!  

I've experienced a Nicholas Sparks novel of heartache and disappointment in my thirty-four years.  I've always tried to make myself a well-rounded person, and I've mostly succeeded only in the physical aspect of that goal; but whatever character strengths I have, it's because life was never cherry-coated for me. I switched schools five times and moved homes even more. I've loved and lost all over the West Coast, and all before the interconnectivity of social media. Most of those friends are just distant memories.

There were tears shed on a few occasions. My parents have repeated how guilty they feel about all the moves, but they are guilty of nothing. They did what was best for the family. And you know what, I became resilient. I made friends faster. I got funnier. My discernment for jerks, trouble-makers, and drama-queens, got better. I learned to stop being a cry-baby, and learned to use emotions when appropriate. I learned who I was apart from the crowd.

I hate enlightened dogs.  They're just
dyslexic animals with a God complex.  

Knowing yourself is such an important part of the journey. I fear for those who refused to cry growing up. I mourn for those that weren't allowed to cry. I fear for those so protected from heartache/pain that they have no criterion on which to judge emotions. I'm scared for those who only know victory and trophies, and never felt the pain of defeat. Many are so ill-prepared for their first breakup, that it becomes a very public (sometimes via social media) breakdown.

I'm afraid because we keep trying to do all this bullsh!t to make the world happy-go-lucky. We keep trying to PC our language so that nobody is ever offended. We tell every person that they are special so much that nobody seems that special anymore. We've made bullying the most offensive word in the educational system, and yet it seems that kids, if anything, are more mean spirited than ever before.  We  tell kids to keep their hands to themselves, and "no hitting--ever," and yet this generation is in LOVE with physical violence. We've built a holographic world that isn't based on the harsh realities of pain, disillusionment, and loss, and they've seen right through it.

The youth have rebelled against our pacified, vitamin-filled, helmet-wearing, peace-loving illusionary world. And empathy? Feeling and understanding the pain of someone other than yourself? That seems like the least important skill in the modern American world of individual testing and talent based acumen.  But you know what? A friend or family member that will listen and cry with you after a terrible ordeal? That's a beautiful trait to have. It may not lead to ivy league schools or fortune 500 jobs, but it will lead to something much more important: Real human interconnectivity.

My little girl has a heart. She has beautiful compassion for the hurting, and I couldn't be more proud. This nation could learn a lot from "the mouths of babes." (7th graders aren't considered babes anymore, are they?)

Matthew 5:1-12

The Message (MSG)   You’re Blessed (the Beatitudes) 

5 ^1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

³ “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule.
⁴ “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
⁵ “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
⁶ “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
⁷ “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
⁸ “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
⁹ “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
¹⁰ “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
^11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

                                                         

A great video on the difference between empathy and sympathy 

Kids Are Great, They'll Make You Punch Holes in Walls

I get to see this beautiful girl (my niece Eleanor)
almost everyday when I pick up my children from
school.  (My sister and bro-in-law are teachers
 at the small private school).  

Baby eyes.  Those deep, whimsical, adventurous, inquisitive, questioning, trusting, loving, cuddly, light bulbs which illuminate any room they're in. Those intoxicating eyes. They say, "squeeze my leg fat, let me wrap my tiny paw around your finger, and just try and not pick me up: I'm adorable!"

I'm surrounded by the BabyBoom 2.0 in my sphere. All my friends have little Kates, Eleanors, Evelyns, Harrisons, and Oscars in every stage from infant to toddler.  My own children, in comparison, are the wizened ages of eight and six.  Needless to say, these baby parents harass all of us whose uteruses and urethras are still somewhat usable with suggestions like: "Have you guys ever thought about having another ba----?"

Get thee back, Satan!  I said your child had lovely eyes. Not that I want to join the Dharma Initiative, again! I've done my time. I've scaled that mountain. I've slain that dragon. Why?  Why would any parent knowingly coax another into "increasing the fold?"

Because they want you to join in their misery.

Oh yes, those eyes are alluring. They're femme-fatale eyes (the kind that lure you in, and then steal your entire 401K). I love babies. I love them for about five hours. And then the memories come back.

Some people don't have very good memories. They don't remember those years with tiny tots when you realized that 76 consecutive minutes of sleep is enough for REM sleep and four hours total was an "amazing" night. They don't remember how you gave up on looking presentable, and settled for "not-slovenly."  How an uninterrupted shower for fifteen minutes was like being serenaded by an angelic Hawaiian waterfall.  How you just get used to the smell of spit up, old diapers, and butt paste. How sounds at 92 dBs seem normal, and when you walk into a silent room, you actually start getting paranoid...When will the crying begin? How every baby scream makes you think of your baby. How even as a man, you feel like you will lactate out of sympathy for your screaming baby.  And poop. More poop than would fertilize a Latvian farm.

"Oh, Chris, aren't you being a little melodramatic and callous?  Don't you love your children?" 

Emphatically YES. My children are my world. Sometimes I even sing Michael Jackson's We Are the World to my children, just to show them how much I love them. I wouldn't change a THING that has happened to me in regards to my kids.

An "unkempt" morning with dad.  

But that doesn't mean it was easy. They still aren't easy.  Although being 8 and 6 years old vs. 3 and 1 is like doing long division vs. whatever math it was that introduced that horrible concept of the imaginary number i (√-1).  I'm fairly confident in my skills at long division, however that other math class is a blur.

A blur like most parent's memories of their children's infancy.

Let me share my lowest moment of being a dad.

My wife is the theatre teacher/director at the high school we both teach at.  She's incredibly talented; so much so, that I think they keep me around just to keep her happy.

Anyway, during her rehearsal/production months, we as a family go into Defcon 2 (think Cuban Missile Crisis).  She works between 10-14 hour days, and I become almost a single-dad during the school week.  It's usually only for two months out of the year, so we survive (I do however, exhibit elements of PTSD). I'm fairly good at the role by now, (unless you include house cleaning...).

Yet when Lily was not even three, and Nadia was a toddler, it was a different story. Two kids in diapers is litmus test of parenting (especially a single parent), and for two months I waffled between acidic and alkaline...never quite finding normalcy, yet never quite becoming toxic.  Until one night.

Ambitiously I had two items on the stove. Mac N' Cheese for the toddler and me, and some Malt o' Meal for the baby.  Suddenly I heard Lily screaming in the hall.  I ran down the hall to see that she was trying to pull a Little Mermaid toy away from Nadia who was busy slobbering all over it.

It was Lily's favorite toy.  But removing any object from a teething child's mouth is asking for the wail of a dying baboon.  I walked in just as Lily removed the object.  Thus began the crying. Girls have epic wills, and these two sisters knew right then that they would have to prove dominance over the other so that they would always get the hair brush/curler/shower/first car/ before the other.

I don't know how long the crying lasted. I tried to get Lily to see the logic of sharing her Mermaid with her teething sister.  "Logic! I'm THREE! I HAVE NEEDS!" she seemingly said to me. To exert my authority, I removed the toy from Lily, and put it in timeout.  If crying is x, and you add an additional crier y, and they see each other crying the equation looks like this:  x + y + m (mimicry) + d (dad's crying) = Loud decibels (dBs). I picked up Nadia, and tried to console her, but realized she needed a diaper change. I considered giving the Mermaid back to Lily when I heard the fire alarm go off.

Why is it when the fire alarm goes off, it is always during chaos, and it will never shut off with the button. Why is the button so hard to find on fire alarms?  The fire alarm scared my girls who started crying even louder.  (We'll call this part of the equation, chaos (K)).

Bon Appétit!  

The fire alarm went off because BOTH my Malt o'Meal and my Mac N' Cheese were burning. The mush had boiled over the pan and was on fire (451°F)...or burning, or whatever. I removed both pans from the stove and doused the flames/chars of mush residue.  The noodles were done.  I had left them on the stove on simmer (as I often do, to help melt the butter), but without the milk or butter (the step I hadn't made it to yet) the dry noodles decided to chemically bond with the pan, creating carbon (C).

With the alarm temporarily off (it would return like it always does), I went back to change Nadia's diaper.  Lily, realizing that her Mac N' Cheese was now indigestible carbon (C), began crying even louder.  She then informed me that she too, needed a diaper change.

Nadia's diaper was bad. What had I fed them for lunch?  I was complaining about all the poop when I ran out of diaper wipes.  CRAP!

I asked Lily to get me some toilet paper from the bathroom and she returned with two roles.  I grabbed one, and tried to finish the bum cleaning process.  Toddlers love being changed with dry towels (that's sarcasm).  Nadia cried her disapproval of the hygienic process.  I was just about to wet some toilet paper when I looked over at Lily who was trying to wipe her own bare bottom with no sign of her diaper.

"What are you doing!" I frantically yelled.

"I'm helping, Daddy!"

I was not grateful for this attempt at ambitious potty training. "Where is your diaper, Lily?"

"In da hawl (in the hall)."

I smelled the evidence before I saw any sign of it. It was a number 2 (Bilirubin C₃₃H₃₆N₄O₆ and many other waste elements). I heard our dog, Indiana, awaken from his slumber and began a vigorous round of sniffing.  "LILY, DON'T MOVE!"  I quickly finished installing the Huggies on Nadia, and placed her in the playpen (which started another round of crying).

I grabbed the dog before he could digest any waste products and placed him in the garage just as the smoke alarm went off for the second time. BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!

"NOT NOW. Please just shut up!"  I pleaded with the inanimate object. It did not heed my request.

Lily hadn't moved.  I scanned the dark rug for any land mines. I didn't see anything. Thank God it's all contained in the diaper, I thought. I went to grab Lily and put her on the changing table, but as I reached down, my left foot slowly submerged into a warm gelatinous substance, pushing it through my toes.  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

"You have to be kidding me!"

I wish it was just bread crumbs.  

I limp hopped through the hall to wash my foot off in the bathroom, but saw that Lily had left her own version of Hansel and Gretel crumbs from her diaper to her present location.  "I'm sick of all this {expletive version of excrement}." And with that, I found the one spot on the hallway wall not covered in baby pictures, and punched the sheet-rock (Gypsum - CaSO4·2H2O) with 1000 lbs. of force (1000ft·lbf), knocking a near perfect six inch hole in the wall.  BEEP!  BEEP! BEEP!

I pulled my white powdered fist out of the wall and instantly felt guilty.  I had lost my temper in the most embarrassing way in front of my children.

"Uh oh...daddy broke da wall. Mommy won't be happy."  Lily said, and started giggling, which made Nadia start laughing as well. The crisis was over (well, except for the cleansing of the poo, and the carpet shampooing).

I left the hole in the wall for three years (although covered up with another kid picture) as a reminder of how close to insanity I veered that night.  For me, the chemical equation of craziness is:

X+Y+M+D(K)(451F)(C)(C₃₃H₃₆N₄O₆) ≠ i (√-1)(401K)(<dBs)(Gypsum - CaSO4·2H2O)(1000ft·lbf)

Thankfully, I've completely forgotten how to balance a chemical equation, so when I see those adorable little baby eyes, I think, "Yeah, this (parenting) could be fun again." (Or maybe not).

My girls now.  (Fairly easy to manage...although attitude
and manipulation are beginning).  

My cute girls back in the day playing a game.  I opted 

not to show the video of them crying uncontrollably.  

With Risk Comes Reward, and Potentially, a Damaged Spinal Cord

No big deal, just an escaping inmate. At least it's not
Nurse Ratched.  She really scared me.  

In 1984, my parents rented a home in downtown Salem which was just a block away from the Oregon State Hospital in which Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was based (and filmed in).  Because of this proximity, and a fear that a real life Chief, Randall McMurphey, or Nurse Ratched might be lurking nearby, my parents rarely allowed us to loiter in the front yard.  It was one of the few regulations of my freedoms imposed on me by my parents.

Do not interpret that to mean I wasn't disciplined. I've taken many a lickings--deserved most of them-- and yes, I'm still ticking just fine. But as far as risk management goes, my parents let us be kids. We discovered a lot of scientific phenomena, like gravity, Mohs scale of hardness, inertia, chaos theory, and   Kinetic energy just from crashing our bikes.

We were always crashing on our bikes. It was an awesome time. We, like the previous thousands of years of human existence before us, YOLO'd through our childhood without helmets or leashes. We burned, scraped, scuffed, bruised, cried, and dared our way through challenges until our brains hopefully fully developed. Looking back, a helmet might have been a good idea...but I, for one, am glad we didn't use them.



I know there is plenty of evidence to show that bike helmets save lives, I agree. Dead argument. What I'm arguing about is the value of learning derived from taking risks without hundreds of safety precautions in place. Allowing ourselves the possibility to push our boundaries to extremes--and when or if we fail--to feel the risk.

Pain is a great educator. It teaches us our limitations. Sometimes the reward seems greater than the risk: Jump a natural dirt mound, get a few feet of air, then land it successfully? Endorphins flood the brain. If your buddy happened to see it as well?  Even better. Pure, unadulterated happiness.

On the other side of this equation is failure. Mistime the jump, miscalculate the landing, come in too fast or slow? Disaster. Crash and burn--and maybe limp home crying. But most will live to fight another day, maybe with a really cool scar.

Via pain, I learned that being a BMX star was not a logical or realistic goal for myself. I wasn't strong enough, or brave enough to do the complex tricks that we read about in underground magazines (this was before the X-games or youtube videos). My buddy Brain was more athletic on a bike. He could manipulate the frame to look like an extension of his arms or legs in an artful expressions of his imagination. While I was decent rider, I was afraid of air. Or rather, I was afraid of the landing.

Landing brought the cruel reality of science smack into my face. It only took a few face-plants before I learned to value my brain instead of my brawn. I'd rather paint, draw, write, or intellectually discuss the possibilities of jumps and twists and metallic bipedal contraptions disrespecting scientific laws than actually attempt the acts myself.

Of course, there are those who say things like, "No pain, no gain," or "Pain is just weakness leaving the body," and I say, "Your ignorance of biological survival instincts is just intelligence lacking in your body."

I've learned a lot about pain, which is why I tend to try to avoid it now.  I learned from bad relationships what I wanted to avoid in the future.  I learned from getting spanked as a kid that I shouldn't do the acts which got me in trouble in the first place.  I learned from getting punched in the face that fighting was not the life for me. I learned not to antagonize women (the key to happy life, is a happy wife). There are risks that are just unnecessary in life, and there are risks worth taking.

I'm made many mistakes in my youth. I crash and burned, and my momma was always there to patch up my owies.  But she never said, "you're playing too hard," or "I don't like this rough activity," or "Why don't you play something safe, like video games instead?"  No, my mom, my parents, wanted us outside learning from the hard knocks of life.

I have to remember this, because I, like many of my generation tend to overprotect my kids. I hover at the playground, worried that my daughter might break her arm on the monkey-bars again (I was only ten feet away when she did it at age four); or I steer them far away from the campfire, worried they might touch the glowing hot grill. But is this any way to parent? Do we really need to accident proof our children's lives, fearing that they might find harm? Worried that they might actually learn something from pain that is all around the world?

                                    My daughter Lily after breaking her arm: "Mom, you have four eyes!" 

I can't hold my children's hands forever.  They, like I did before, have to get bumps and bruises and find their own way through the gauntlet of life.  We can't be there to catch them every time they fall...but we can be there afterwards to kiss their owies and make them all better.

If we don't let them be kids now, when they are young, they'll grow up and YOLO it up in defiance.  I'd rather they take their licks now, when they are three feet off the ground, than when they're all grown up and the fall is much greater.

Being a Single Parent? Don't Sign Me Up.

I'm tired. Running around keeping my two girls, 7 & 5, occupied, happy, fed, and disciplined is kicking my butt.

Italy, Greece? Blah.  Give me a
Denny's off the highway, any day.  

Not that I haven't done this before (although never for two weeks).  My wife has special opportunities in the school she works at.  As the theatre teacher, she's inherited a relationship with the Manhattan Theatre Company, and gets to go the NY City every other year and work on new plays and develop curriculum (she also drops a small fortune on "essential" Broadway plays).  She's also the Traveler's Club advisor, which means every few years kids fundraise to go see educational tours, like Japan, England, and currently Italy/Greece.

She took 11 kids this year.  A twelfth would've secured me as the second paid chaperone.  Alas, the 12th man in football is the crowd, the ever hopeful audience, and so it is that I am that cheering section for her. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.  But I'm happy for her.  She's having fun, and I'm...I'm watching the kids.

Which is why I'm exhausted.

They're older now, and easier in a lot of ways: I should be fine. The first time my wife left on holiday (as they say in England), one girl was barely out of diapers, and the other was earnestly filling them up. I learned a lot about myself during that week.  Things I don't like about myself.  If I had the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter back then, I would've seen myself chanting incantations to bring He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, back.  It was a literal $#!tty dark Goth period of my life.

Thankfully, I've stopped speaking Parseltongue, and my kids have stopped fussing like infants.  We've all transitioned into the whining stage. We are all emo kids, now.

They whine about the food I make them.  They whine about their bedtime being too early (even though it is nearly three hours later than their school year time).  They whine, even though they had 11 softball games in 7 days (what a joy it is carting kids all over town for hour long games).  I've taken them to movies (Monsters University), rented movies, taken them out to eat almost once a day, gone miniature golfing, traveled to the Oregon coast, gone to both grandparent's house multiple times, gone swimming, etc.  I'd venture to say we've spent less than 20% of our waking hours inside our house (and it's nicely air conditioned---sorry rest of America).  I'm a little flummoxed.

I really feel like we should give the girls a timeout for
this latest outburst, what do you think coach? 

And then I remember...we're out of sync. Dad, even on entertainment overload, can never replace Mom. No matter how hard I try, these kids aren't experiencing the life they know.  We, my wife and I, are a team. And when one of the coaches is gone, the kids don't know where the signals are coming from.  I, like the town-drunk Shooter (Dennis Hopper) in Hoosiers, don't know how to coach when the real coach (which for the sake of this analogy is Gene Hackman, but also my wife) is incapacitated.  I'm trying my best, but I need Gene Hackman.

But he's in Greece (or at least my wife is...I don't know where Mr. Hackman currently resides). {That analogy was really awkward, remind me not to write like that}.

The Greeks had a lot to say about love.  They had many words to define it, even a god who supplied it, Eros. I don't believe in éros love. You know, that passionate/romantic love that is essentially, eroticism or lust. I mean, I don't believe éros love lasts very long. It has it's time and place, and fades, like all passionate emotions, quickly.  It cannot be the cornerstone of a partnership, IMHO. Real love, or real marriages, I should say, are based on agape love, which is translated as divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful --love.  Wow, those are great words.

Active.  How many of us are active in our marriages? (Not sexually active: we could all use more of that).  Just active?  Actively keeping it alive, fresh?

So these last two weeks, I'm taking one for the team. Self-sacrificing (while complaining) with two discombobulated girls who are pushing their limits with dad. It's okay. I'm learning a lot about myself again, like: I don't know how to disinfect earring backings/mild infections and I hate coaching softball to 1st graders in 94° weather (who only care about getting under the shade and squirting water on their face).

Late at night, when my impish princesses are finally asleep,  I put on movies like The French

The old mountain of diapers in the backyard.  Don't worry,
I burned them all on Earth Day to lower my carbon footprint.

Connection, or the Royal Tenebaums, because I need my Gene Hackman fix. I miss my wife. I need my wife.  Because I, I could never be a single parent. I don't know how anyone does it. It's exhausting, demanding, and unfair to everyone involved. I don't mean to demean any single moms, or (Han) solo dads, but this work, raising children is tough stuff.  Life is hard enough.  Raising kids on top of that?  

It doesn't necessarily take a village, like Hillary Clinton wrote, but merely a team, to raise a family.  And I need my Gene Hackman to come home.

10 Ways I'm Going to Screw Up my Children on Father's Day.

My brother and I took my father out to dinner tonight; tomorrow it's Father's Day, and his birthday.  He bought us both a drink, which was supposed to be our responsibility, but I think somewhere deep down, my dad still wants to be my daddy.  The night before, my sister Kayla (his first daughter) had her first child. I think he was feeling a bit of nostalgia. We talked and laughed and traveled down memory road with pops, and he basically asked, "Is there anything that we, your mother and I, did, that messed you guys up?"

They never looked this artistic in my cereal bowl.  

Well, no. Dad, you guys were great, no, prefect parents. But...but obviously, I suffer from no lack of personality issues. "Spirited," as my teachers once said.  Much of that was because of you, Dad.  And I love all my "character."  I've worked it into my parenting regime so that my kids can be just as "messed up" as I am.  Here's my 10 favorite eccentric memories of growing up.  

10. Mixing cereals. My dad hates waste and he's cheap. So when my brother and I would leave 1/2 or 1/4 of a bowl's worth of Cap'n Crunch or Wheaties rolled up in the box (never to be eaten), my father's culinary skills would kick in.  "Boys, come get your cereal."  How many times was I forced to eat cereal with a few Corn Pops, a hefty portion of Raisin Bran, and a few marshmallows and alphabet letters from the Western Family generic version of Alphabets.  This hodgepodge of breakfast varieties was the original Total cereal.  I got 100% of my daily nutrients from six different cereals.  We learned to finish off each individual box no matter what.  

9. It's level enough. My father would've made a great homesteader. He would've saved the Donner Party by building a fortress out of wagon wheels, elk bones, and discarded Book of Mormon pages (Donner Pass is near the Mormon Trails). His ingenuity and quick efficiency lead to great sheds, lean-tos, and temporary walls. This probably explains why my mother is over-anal about making things "Plumb."  Plumb literally means, "straight and true," yet you'd really think by looking at my father and my handiwork that it means "get it done today." Eh. Off-kilter craftsmanship takes years to rear its nail heads. We've often moved before that happens.  

8. It's just a flesh wound. My dad is Popeye. I mean, his arms and legs are shaped like Popeye's. And like Popeye with spinach, nothing hurt him ever. He would often walk into the house bleeding from some gash on his forehead or arm, or get tangled in briar patches and not even know. I still remember when he smashed his thumb in our old 700 lb. garage door (that's how heavy it seemed to me). He walks inside the house and his thumb is literally as thick as a CD case, twice as wide as before, bleeding everywhere, and nail-less; yet he casually looks at my mother and says, "Margaret, I think I need a band-aid."  

7. Casual Fridays. My dad was a minister. Often, churches would have him come in as a "guest speaker" as a pre-cursor to hiring him as their preacher.  One Sunday, while "trying-out" for a new church, he dressed up in his nicest sports jacket (this at a slightly redneck church). He got up in front of the podium, took one look at his audience and announced, "I didn't want to wear this anyway," and tossed his jacket onto the ground. The congregation instantly voiced their "hallelujahs." He always knew his audience.  

6. 200,000 miles is like new. "That's nothing in these Asian cars. Their engine isn't even warm until a 100K." Besides being a minister, my father also was a car salesman (I know...it is ironic), and this love of making car deals never faded. He was always coming home with a "good deal." Some were legit good deals. Most did possess good engines. It was the radiators, starters, tires, air conditioning, radio, seat cushions, and exterior that didn't age as well as those foreign motors. He did get me my ultra reliable '85 Accord (with 150K+ miles), so I really can't complain...but there were some real crappers in there as well.  My brother's first car, a 1990 Hyundai Excel, was made before Hyundai promised 100K mile warranties.  In 1990, you got a 100 mile warranty, and that's about all they were good for.  

Stupid Fruit 

5. Children's Plates. Whether I was 8, or 14, I was always just barely within the age brackets of the children's menu. How many $2.50 grilled cheese sandwiches have I had at nice restaurants? Mucho. But I was also tall enough to get onto rides (where I was clearly two inches too short for), and other "benefits" of having a convincing father, where restrictions were like the level bubble in carpentry.  As long as it was close to within the lines, it was okay.

4. Family Trips in the Car. I've never been in a commercial airplane. My father drove us everywhere. We merely put the canopy on the top of the Chevy Silverado and drove to wherever we wanted. Yellowstone, Disneyland, Yosemite, cowboy country, the Redwood Forest, the Oregon Coast, Seattle. We had tons of vacations, and I doubt any of them cost even five hundred dollars...but we never felt cheap. We slept like a sultan's harem on top of pillows, sleeping bags and cushions in the truck bed of that old Chevy.  "Wake me up when we get there."

3. Being a superhero. My dad saved me from drowning, twice. Once was on the Santiam River at a small park we stayed at to eat lunch during one of our Silverado vacations. The river had all these channels dug out of the bedrock. My brother and I could jump across the two or three foot gutters of fast moving water. "If you boys fall in, you're both getting spanked." Sure enough, my brother dared me to jump a three foot gap, I hit moss and fell in. I was jettisoned underwater down a fast moving underwater water slide. Somehow my dad made it across the river like The Flash, and pulled me out of the water by my neck. I had fallen down two mini waterfalls and hadn't taken a breath for close to a minute. I looked up at my hero and thought, oh great, now I'm getting a spanking. It was the weakest spanking we ever got. But Corey never forgave me for it. "It was a two foot gap, what's wrong with you!" Oh brother.

That's my dad, 27th to the right in the 46th row.  

2. Honesty. Dad never lied about anything. He wasn't always a minister. He--how do I say this carefully--he lived a full life in the late 60s; was a full fledged hippie. He was at the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Park, when the Hell's Angels "security team" stabbed a guy to death. I won't share his stories, they are his, but he was always open about his past. Many of his mistakes made great moral lessons, and this honesty shied me away from drugs, bad women, and business deals with friends.  Many "pks" as us pastor's kids are called, are horrible people, because of the hypocrisy of Sunday dad vs. Monday dad. No such disillusions here.

Cheesy, yes, but accurate.  

1. Unconditional love. How many guys of my generation are messed up from absentee fathers; father's who love from afar; father's who love based on performance. My dad loved me despite the fact that my sports exploits were always less than average; my grades in school, pedestrian; my talents mostly untapped; my choice of friends and girlfriends, questionable. He gave advice, then backed off. He let us find our own way, and was always there to rescue us when we failed miserably. Failure has been a constant part of my life, but his love (and that of my mothers) have always motivated me to get up, dust off, and try again.

The Beautiful and Damned? Parents Make the Difference.

In the last two hundred years, the world has speculated,with varying ideas, about what makes a person great, and what makes another a failure. Here's just a small smattering of some of these ideologies, of which, I am taking many liberties:

• Phrenology: the size of the head, and different bumps on the head control a person's intelligence, personality, and temperament.  
• Social Darwinism: like evolution of species, only that the strongest and fittest should/will survive.  Purely a DNA crap shot. The basic thinking behind eugenics and the Holocaust.  
• Marxism: In terms of the individual (not the political theory), the obstacle holding back the proletariate (or working classes) is the wealth and power of the upper classes.  The class you are born into is holding you back, not your individual drive, etc.  
• Capitalism: A sink or swim system, where everyone has the opportunity to fill a hole in the economy.  Ingenuity, hard work, and investment of capital into one's dreams, as well as demand and luck, play a large part in one's success.  
• Freudian Theory of Development: children develop into different psychosexual stages before adulthood. Like all things Freudian, it is overly sexual, and if one doesn't get past certain stages, he or she can have an "oral fixation" or "anal fixation" etc., that can limit their advancement.  
• IQ testing: A pure measure of one's ability to solve complex questions and riddles, or intelligence, is what separates the wheat from the chaff.  Later studies have shown that there is a small correlation between success and a high IQ, but barely quantifiable.  

I can see why my grandpa's generation would
want to "have" Lauren Bacall.

The world desperately wants a measuring stick to find what turns some people into haves, and others into have nots. 

And one variable, that is always mentioned, but never explored in great detail, is the role of the family.  

Working in a low income school district, the greatest variable, in my opinion, as to the success or failure of a child, is the involvement of his or her parents/guardians.  Most of my students come from broken situations. A parent who's passed away, a parent who did time in prison, a parent who isn't working so the child is living with grandpa and grandma. Not to mention the single parents, the foster-home kids, and the kids whose parents are homeless.  

I'm not blaming their parents for their situations. Life plays funny tricks on our dreams. Partners in parenting take off, jobs dissolve, misdemeanors catch up to us, etc. Choices, mostly ones of passion and desperation, lead to consequences.  One of those, sadly, is children. And these children get dragged around through a vicious cycle of bad decisions, which, in turn makes them bad decision makers. 

And while some will say that this is solely an issue of class and poverty, I say hogwash. I have plenty of poor kids who make good decisions and have good grades. I have wealthier kids who act like brats and fail on purpose, and poor kids with nice clothes and "bling" that make horrible decisions.  You'd think there is nothing quantifiable about why a kid is successful or not, until you call their parents.  

Of coures this happened at Walmart.  

I've had moms cry on the phone and ask me "what to do?" about their out of control 7th grader.  I've had parents cuss me out for having the audacity to call home, who then blame everything on "the system."  I've seen on average, less than 5% of my student's parents at parent teacher conferences.  And of the few that show up--their kids are usually academically and behaviorally, my favorites.  These kids are the ones I doubt I've ever had a worry about their futures.  

There are plenty of kids, however, who I fear for their future.  Not just employment, but their emotional, physical, spiritual, well-being.  Kids who can't seem to get anything together.  Kids who can't even organize a notebook, let alone a bank account, or a dependent.  And yet, these are the first I see to add to our population.  Which furthers the spiral of bad parenting.  

Don't get me wrong. Even in a poverty district, I see many open-hearted, loving, generous, kind parents and volunteers. Even these parents, sometimes, are burdened with a difficult child, whether it is in behavior or academics.  There are bad apples, even where the soil is most nourishing.  But, mostly these "type" parents have kids who are absolute joys in the system. Kids who any teacher feel privileged to educate.  

So in a day in age of high stakes testing and increased pressure on everyone to succeed, my plea to parents is this:  Get involved.  Turn off the television and limit video games to an hour a day.  Get your kid involved in activities beyond school.  Find their passions and motivate them to do well there because it usually translates to other areas as well. Don't be afraid to take away their phone/computer, especially when they prove untrustworthy in their online/social activities. Teach them empathy, and discernment towards others, especially friends. And if a friend proves a bad influence, be willing to transfer your kid to a different school to "save" them. You rule the roost, not your child. You hold the keys to their future even if you have a busy job, or are doing it on your own, or are not financially able to pay for many perks; if you show interest in your child's schooling and activities, he or she will respect you for it (eventually).  

Lastly, we are entering a new era of the "barely there" parents vs. the "helicopter parents."  While it is clear when a parent is not fulfilling their side of the social contract, there are other parents who are overstepping the natural boundaries of parent/child.  Often dictating every part of their child's life, not allowing them to branch out on their own. Be aware that your child will most likely rebel against your micromanaged lifestyle, and find the laissez faire world of the barely-there parents, appealing.  

I'm systematically against eugenics except in
the case of Uruk-Hai, who should not have kids.  

My children are still small.  I don't claim to be a parenting expert, as I have no idea how my kids will turn out. But dealing with young adults has taught me, that parenting, is ALMOST everything.  A single parent who is involved in their child's life, gives that kid a chance, despite starting life at a disadvantage (yes, I did say single parenting puts a child at a disadvantage).  A parent who shows interest and enables the pursuit of their child's ability to sing or dance or play music or hit a baseball or paint or do advanced calculus, is on the road to more successful parenting.  

So, even though there is some truth that DNA, and IQ, and how much money you make as a parent, and what neighborhood and school your child attends, and whether your kid successfully navigates each stage of human development, the real determining factor as to if your kid is successful (whatever that term means to you), is whether that kid has a loving parent who cares and is playing an active, but not over-bearing, role in their child's future.  

I guess we don't have to go to heaven to see the lion
lay down with the lamb (or in this case antelope).  

Some of you may be thinking, I just read a long diatribe of nature vs. nurture, heredity vs. environment,  that could have been summed up in a few words. Yes, you're right. But for me, I think I used to believe that DNA was mostly responsible for our outcome, and now, after all these years, I think it is nurture, that is the true determining force that leads to our CHOICES that equate who we are.