Because Time Warner magazines like their readers to be dictated to, rather than figure things out on their own, many of them have some sort of end-of-the-year-ish grand statement about a person, place or thing. People has its “Sexiest Man Alive”, Time Magazine has its famous “Man of the Year” (which, oddly, these are never the same two people), and Sports Illustrated has its Sportsman of the Year.
I’m sure other magazines in the Time Warner stable have similar end of year features (“Spiky Heels of the Year” in InStyle or “Pudding of the Year” in Cooking Light) but they tend not to be as widely displayed at the 7-11 checkout.
At any rate, one of the features of SI.com, the online and superior version of Sports Illustrated (not the least of reasons is that it’s free), their staff writers spend 500 words and maybe 30 minutes coming up with who their choice would be if they had the power. They are either the relatively obvious (Drew Brees) or the relatively obscure (Kurt Fearnley, a wheelchair marathoner). On occasion, SI selects vaguely undefined groups of people as their Sportsman of the Year; in 2004 they selected Red Sox Nation, a nation I was far more irritated to live in than George Bush’s nation, which is saying something.
This year, though, writer Aimee Crawford chose a group that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with.
She selected “Working Mothers.”
(Keep reading if you want to see me dig myself out of this. Or don’t keep reading and satisfy yourself that I’m a jerk.)
The whole “mommy wars” thing is out of control anyway, so to say that working mothers define sportsmanship is a provocation in and of itself.
Now, it must be said: my wife is a working mother. And she works hard as both a mother and as a worker. In this day and age, it is not easy to be a stay-at-home mother (who, clearly, are working mothers, too). But Crawford provided examples, not of mothers who work during the week, come home and help with the house and homework and bedtime, sometimes then doing work for their jobs, and on the weekends and every so often during the week take kids to soccer games/swim meets/ice skating practice/you name it.
No, her examples are people like Kim Clijsters, who took two years off from professional tennis to get married and start a family, then returned to win the US Open. Or Candace Parker, who is perhaps the biggest star in women’s professional basketball. Parker took some time off to have a baby with her husband and then came back and continued to dominate the WNBA.
These women are inspirations. These women show that a woman can succeed at the highest level of their fields and still have families. And these women are fabulously compensated.
The woman who works hard during the week so that her kids can play hard on the weekends, holding down a job, helping raise her family, helping keep the house – without nannies, parental help, or other assistance – they are far more heroic and worthy of praise than Kim Clijsters or Candace Parker.
But this is not the only thing that makes me look at this article with a slightly jaundiced expression.
What about the working father?
My brother-in-law has an important job in Philadelphia that tends to keep him away from his wife and two sons in New Jersey during the week. He still manages to help coach their lacrosse teams, go to their flag football games, and stay involved in their sporting life. That’s an arduous schedule, and I know that he’s dying inside a little bit when he can’t help with the practices during the week.
In 1993, David Williams, an offensive lineman for the Houston Oilers, took a game off to be at the birth of his son. The amount of excoriation was overwhelming. I’d suggest an action like that is worthy of Sportsman of the Year – fathers who choose to fly in the face of all that society instructs is the role of the father in order to be a partner in the raising of a child from the very moment of birth.
Little known fact: many of the fathers I know feel a vast amount of guilt when they’re away from their kids. I know I do. I’m writing this from backstage at a concert that I’m working on, and I would rather be reading to Josie and putting her to bed.
So here’s my suggestion to Aimee Crawford: how about recognizing working parents, not just mothers, and recognize that these days a large number of fathers take just as much time in their day to do sports and activities with kids as mothers do.
And the last time I checked, Candace Parker and Kim Clijsters were making buckets more money than I was.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Father Doesn't Know Best
In another epoch, I spent a little bit of time in Las Vegas. I had thought that it would be a great place to work, given the number of shows that were done there, so after graduate school and a trip to Singapore to work on a show there, I went to Sin City.
Of course, there was also a girl there. But that’s a whole ‘nother story for a whole ‘nother time. Preferably when my wife isn’t reading this.
At any rate, it turned out to be a really crappy place to try to get a job. There was nothing hiring on the Strip unless you knew someone – and I didn’t, really – and unless you were in home construction, it was a dry town for jobs. So, I temped.
Oddly enough, one of the temp jobs that I had was, in fact, in the construction field. I didn’t have to use any tools other than a copier – not even my rapier wit and my razor-sharp intellect. (I aver that these things atrophy when you’re in Vegas. I have never been dumber than the four months or so I lived there.) I organized papers in the local office of a cabinetry company.
It’s not just the climate that makes Las Vegas arid, and not just the gambling that makes you dumb. When the best one can do as far as art museums is a collection by a casino magnate that charged $12 to see a few paintings, you know you’re not in a cultural hotspot. (Other kinds of hotspots, yes.) There’s a modest ballet company, a mediocre symphony, some smatterings of theater, and an under-supported NPR station. Even the legitimate musicals that made their way out to Vegas were shortened so that a full experience in the theater wouldn’t detract from a full experience on the gambling floor. My guess is that the chandelier in the Vegas “Phantom of the Opera” stayed on the floor for the whole show.
So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at the conversation I found myself tangentially engaged in with one of the administrators at the cabinet company. He was a perfectly nice guy, and was very excited about his new son.
At some point, the conversation got around to how he was going to expose his son to as many experiences as he could. That way, his son could decide for himself what he liked. I thought this was a great idea.
“Yeah,” the new dad said enthusiastically. “I’m hoping to take him to a World Series game. Maybe a Super Bowl or at least some pro football. We have the racetrack here, just down the road, and that’s on the NASCAR circuit. I want him to see everything!”
Um. That’s what passes for “everything” here?
I wanted to say, “Why not also take him to a play? Or a museum? Or a ballet? Or a book club? That would also be exposing him to everything.”
Then I realized I would have had to follow up that statement with “Oh, right. You live in Las Vegas. People live here because they HATE those things.”
As time went on, I married the right woman (who followed me! Ha!), and had kids of my own, I never forgot that conversation. As parents, we want our kids to have as many experiences as possible, most good, some less good, but enough provide them with cake-like layers of depth: rich in ingredients, variety, and flavor. (Me, I have an onion-like depth: many-layered and difficult to love. And I make you cry if you cut me.) I have every intention of having Josie experience sports.
But I’ve worked in the arts too long to discount their importance. They don’t just open up your mind, they open up your soul, open it to a fuller understanding of the pageantry and tapestry of life. You understand why things are they way they are in a way that no NASCAR race can show you. (Although the pageantry at such an event is a sight to behold.) To me, Josie taking violin or guitar lessons is as critical as her taking swimming lessons or playing soccer.
The problem is that we are often to willing to expose our kids to things within the limits of our own experience. I would love to have Josie take a liking to science and math in ways I was never able to. I would be the wrong person to help with that homework. I always thought that Avogadro’s number referred to the ratio of ingredients in guacamole. And I don’t like guacamole. But I would never discourage her from checking it out and finding someone who could mentor her, since I sure couldn’t.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a sportswriter. My dad told me that I should aim higher (although I’m not sure that there is a higher calling in journalism than to be the second iteration of Shirley Povich). It’s that lack of encouragement that can cause your kid to second-guess themselves. Mind you, I would never suggest that if she wanted to be an amateur vivisectionist or perhaps an arms dealer that I wouldn’t offer alternatives. But why wouldn’t we find a way to mentor our kids, or find mentors, if they want to go in a direction that is unexpected?
The father in Vegas was interested in exposing his kid to the world that the father knows. Which, in Vegas, is very small. Very bright and noisy, but very small. The world is bigger than anything he knows, or anything bigger than I know. I want MY kid to experience it on her terms, not mine.
Of course, there was also a girl there. But that’s a whole ‘nother story for a whole ‘nother time. Preferably when my wife isn’t reading this.
At any rate, it turned out to be a really crappy place to try to get a job. There was nothing hiring on the Strip unless you knew someone – and I didn’t, really – and unless you were in home construction, it was a dry town for jobs. So, I temped.
Oddly enough, one of the temp jobs that I had was, in fact, in the construction field. I didn’t have to use any tools other than a copier – not even my rapier wit and my razor-sharp intellect. (I aver that these things atrophy when you’re in Vegas. I have never been dumber than the four months or so I lived there.) I organized papers in the local office of a cabinetry company.
It’s not just the climate that makes Las Vegas arid, and not just the gambling that makes you dumb. When the best one can do as far as art museums is a collection by a casino magnate that charged $12 to see a few paintings, you know you’re not in a cultural hotspot. (Other kinds of hotspots, yes.) There’s a modest ballet company, a mediocre symphony, some smatterings of theater, and an under-supported NPR station. Even the legitimate musicals that made their way out to Vegas were shortened so that a full experience in the theater wouldn’t detract from a full experience on the gambling floor. My guess is that the chandelier in the Vegas “Phantom of the Opera” stayed on the floor for the whole show.
So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at the conversation I found myself tangentially engaged in with one of the administrators at the cabinet company. He was a perfectly nice guy, and was very excited about his new son.
At some point, the conversation got around to how he was going to expose his son to as many experiences as he could. That way, his son could decide for himself what he liked. I thought this was a great idea.
“Yeah,” the new dad said enthusiastically. “I’m hoping to take him to a World Series game. Maybe a Super Bowl or at least some pro football. We have the racetrack here, just down the road, and that’s on the NASCAR circuit. I want him to see everything!”
Um. That’s what passes for “everything” here?
I wanted to say, “Why not also take him to a play? Or a museum? Or a ballet? Or a book club? That would also be exposing him to everything.”
Then I realized I would have had to follow up that statement with “Oh, right. You live in Las Vegas. People live here because they HATE those things.”
As time went on, I married the right woman (who followed me! Ha!), and had kids of my own, I never forgot that conversation. As parents, we want our kids to have as many experiences as possible, most good, some less good, but enough provide them with cake-like layers of depth: rich in ingredients, variety, and flavor. (Me, I have an onion-like depth: many-layered and difficult to love. And I make you cry if you cut me.) I have every intention of having Josie experience sports.
But I’ve worked in the arts too long to discount their importance. They don’t just open up your mind, they open up your soul, open it to a fuller understanding of the pageantry and tapestry of life. You understand why things are they way they are in a way that no NASCAR race can show you. (Although the pageantry at such an event is a sight to behold.) To me, Josie taking violin or guitar lessons is as critical as her taking swimming lessons or playing soccer.
The problem is that we are often to willing to expose our kids to things within the limits of our own experience. I would love to have Josie take a liking to science and math in ways I was never able to. I would be the wrong person to help with that homework. I always thought that Avogadro’s number referred to the ratio of ingredients in guacamole. And I don’t like guacamole. But I would never discourage her from checking it out and finding someone who could mentor her, since I sure couldn’t.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a sportswriter. My dad told me that I should aim higher (although I’m not sure that there is a higher calling in journalism than to be the second iteration of Shirley Povich). It’s that lack of encouragement that can cause your kid to second-guess themselves. Mind you, I would never suggest that if she wanted to be an amateur vivisectionist or perhaps an arms dealer that I wouldn’t offer alternatives. But why wouldn’t we find a way to mentor our kids, or find mentors, if they want to go in a direction that is unexpected?
The father in Vegas was interested in exposing his kid to the world that the father knows. Which, in Vegas, is very small. Very bright and noisy, but very small. The world is bigger than anything he knows, or anything bigger than I know. I want MY kid to experience it on her terms, not mine.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
A Daddy Bailout
I’ve been a parent now for the last 4 ½ years. And yet, even now, there are words that can cast a pall of fear over me:
“I have to work this weekend, so you need to take care of Josie.”
The chill that runs up my spine is not a result of the broken furnace.
Never mind that Kari has to do it all the time, given the kind of work that I do. I work nights and weekends all the time, so Kari and Josie have their fun times together.
But me? I love spending time with Josie. I just don’t know how to do it very well. But you don’t babysit when you’re watching your own kid, so we were forced into close contact a few weekends ago.
The night before, I pored over the Weekend section of the Washington Post. The Weekend section used to be a great repository of information, providing all sorts of information about free or cheap family events. It was going to be a rather gloomy and chilly weekend weather-wise, so I tried to find some interesting indoor things to do in my area.
I’m sure the paper had that information. But it was presented so poorly that I couldn’t find anything. I looked through it once with curiosity, then again with panic. If the Post can’t tell me what to do with my daughter, then what will I do?
Josie and I ended up spending the morning running errands. It sounds like a chore but turned out to be an entertaining way to pass a morning. I told her the stores we were going to, and she was very excited that Target and Trader Joe’s were on the list, the latter in particular since she wanted a green balloon. (“Not white. Not yellow. Not rosa. Green!”)
I let her do all the things you aren’t supposed to let your kids do in these places. She climbed on the flatbed cart at Home Depot. She played with some of the dog toys at Target. She rode in the basket at Trader Joe’s. (She also tried to ride the side of the shopping cart. Trader Joe’s almost had a mélange of cheese, vegetables, and coffee on the floor.) She got to lay down on the nasty love seat that is inexplicably rattan in the dry cleaner’s. And even though she sighed in resignation at the beginning of the morning, “That’s a lot of stores, Daddy,” she and I actually smiled and giggled a lot.
And, by gum, she got the green balloon.
Feeling quite proud of myself that I managed to get through a shopping morning with a busy three-year-old, I began to unload groceries and put things away. As I was maneuvering around in the unfamiliar territory of the refrigerator – my wife’s domain, including finding places for the beer – I heard a rattle behind me. Thinking it might be the dog once again trying to eat the cat’s bowl, I pulled my head out as fast as I could.
As the vertigo cleared, I saw Josie waving a DVD at me. “Daddy, can I watch this?”
“How about after lunch?”
“NO I WANT TO WATCH IT NAY-OW!”
Deciding that the path of least resistance was the way to go while there were perishables on the counter, I put the DVD on while I finished with the groceries and making lunch.
As I cleaned up the lunch dishes, I heard a scrape across the floor as she got her chair ready for the continuation of the cartoon.
“How about this,” I began. “We watch this in the front room and then go take a nap?”
Negotiations ensued. We decided that she would watch the video twice – only about an hour or so – on the mini DVD player while I had football on the big TV. “But football is not too loud.” The tense was wrong but the demand was clear.
So she sat in her chair and watched videos, in between her taking a two-hour nap, and I watched football and read the newspaper. As she woke up from her nap with the all-time favorite “Harold and the Purple Crayon” playing and a cup of chocolate milk in her hand – both weekend treats – it occurred to me that I was wasting an opportunity.
Josie and I should be playing Candy Land! Or raking leaves! Or running around outside! Never mind that it’s cold and wet outside! We should be drawing or reading or looking at pictures or…!
My childhood as a Lutheran (Missouri Synod/Catholic Lite) built a strong, sturdy foundation of guilt that to this day withstands all attempts at going with the flow. There’s always SOMETHING I should be doing that isn’t what I’m doing right now. And if I don’t do that something, then it’s two guilts for the price of one.
I was sitting on the couch, some random college football game smearing across the television, looking at the back of my daughter’s head and wondering if she will resent me not spending the right kind of time with her. I was doing it wrong.
Soon after that, my wife came home, and Josie ran to her mother and gave her a big hug. She told mommy how she liked the Christmas decorations at the Home Depot and how she got a green balloon at Trader Joe’s. I told Kari how much I had wasted the day and how little actual interaction Josie and I had. She spent more one-on-one time with Harold and his purple crayon (STOP THAT!) than she did with me.
I was certain that the daddy’s-girl account was as bankrupt as the US auto industry. I mean, I was resorting to metaphors like “bankrupt as the US auto industry.” I was spent.
And then something amazing happened: I was proved wrong. Doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is cause for celebration. Sort of like the US auto industry actually selling cars.
Josie wanted me to give her a bath, not Mommy. And I’m not good at baths. She told me this after she walked past a hug from Mommy to give Daddy a hug. And it was Daddy that not only read her stories but got her in her jammies (the pink ones, with no feet, so she could wear her new Hello Kitty slippers, thank you very much) and tucked her into bed.
After Josie went to bed, all Kari had to do was look at me and go, “See?”
Spending the day watching television is not high on my list of activities, either with or without Josie (football Sundays notwithstanding). But it was so fun going shopping with her in the morning, and we interacted directly for hours. I even put on her Dora soundtrack (“Dora regular,” rather than Dora Dance Fiesta, which is “Dora Celebration”) and we danced in the car. As I lay in bed going over the day, it occurred to me that over the course of the time she was watching movies, she would come over to me on the couch and sit with me, just for a minute, like a butterfly lighting on a partially eroded statue, and then she’d flit back to the colorful cartoons.
In the days after, it became clear that I was panicking about the withdrawals from the daddy’s girl account. There was no need to create a great depression. There’s a deep reserve there. I will jealously guard it, and not rush to spend it.
And the next time, I will remember that enforced Josie time is enforced joy, not enforced fear.
“I have to work this weekend, so you need to take care of Josie.”
The chill that runs up my spine is not a result of the broken furnace.
Never mind that Kari has to do it all the time, given the kind of work that I do. I work nights and weekends all the time, so Kari and Josie have their fun times together.
But me? I love spending time with Josie. I just don’t know how to do it very well. But you don’t babysit when you’re watching your own kid, so we were forced into close contact a few weekends ago.
The night before, I pored over the Weekend section of the Washington Post. The Weekend section used to be a great repository of information, providing all sorts of information about free or cheap family events. It was going to be a rather gloomy and chilly weekend weather-wise, so I tried to find some interesting indoor things to do in my area.
I’m sure the paper had that information. But it was presented so poorly that I couldn’t find anything. I looked through it once with curiosity, then again with panic. If the Post can’t tell me what to do with my daughter, then what will I do?
Josie and I ended up spending the morning running errands. It sounds like a chore but turned out to be an entertaining way to pass a morning. I told her the stores we were going to, and she was very excited that Target and Trader Joe’s were on the list, the latter in particular since she wanted a green balloon. (“Not white. Not yellow. Not rosa. Green!”)
I let her do all the things you aren’t supposed to let your kids do in these places. She climbed on the flatbed cart at Home Depot. She played with some of the dog toys at Target. She rode in the basket at Trader Joe’s. (She also tried to ride the side of the shopping cart. Trader Joe’s almost had a mélange of cheese, vegetables, and coffee on the floor.) She got to lay down on the nasty love seat that is inexplicably rattan in the dry cleaner’s. And even though she sighed in resignation at the beginning of the morning, “That’s a lot of stores, Daddy,” she and I actually smiled and giggled a lot.
And, by gum, she got the green balloon.
Feeling quite proud of myself that I managed to get through a shopping morning with a busy three-year-old, I began to unload groceries and put things away. As I was maneuvering around in the unfamiliar territory of the refrigerator – my wife’s domain, including finding places for the beer – I heard a rattle behind me. Thinking it might be the dog once again trying to eat the cat’s bowl, I pulled my head out as fast as I could.
As the vertigo cleared, I saw Josie waving a DVD at me. “Daddy, can I watch this?”
“How about after lunch?”
“NO I WANT TO WATCH IT NAY-OW!”
Deciding that the path of least resistance was the way to go while there were perishables on the counter, I put the DVD on while I finished with the groceries and making lunch.
As I cleaned up the lunch dishes, I heard a scrape across the floor as she got her chair ready for the continuation of the cartoon.
“How about this,” I began. “We watch this in the front room and then go take a nap?”
Negotiations ensued. We decided that she would watch the video twice – only about an hour or so – on the mini DVD player while I had football on the big TV. “But football is not too loud.” The tense was wrong but the demand was clear.
So she sat in her chair and watched videos, in between her taking a two-hour nap, and I watched football and read the newspaper. As she woke up from her nap with the all-time favorite “Harold and the Purple Crayon” playing and a cup of chocolate milk in her hand – both weekend treats – it occurred to me that I was wasting an opportunity.
Josie and I should be playing Candy Land! Or raking leaves! Or running around outside! Never mind that it’s cold and wet outside! We should be drawing or reading or looking at pictures or…!
My childhood as a Lutheran (Missouri Synod/Catholic Lite) built a strong, sturdy foundation of guilt that to this day withstands all attempts at going with the flow. There’s always SOMETHING I should be doing that isn’t what I’m doing right now. And if I don’t do that something, then it’s two guilts for the price of one.
I was sitting on the couch, some random college football game smearing across the television, looking at the back of my daughter’s head and wondering if she will resent me not spending the right kind of time with her. I was doing it wrong.
Soon after that, my wife came home, and Josie ran to her mother and gave her a big hug. She told mommy how she liked the Christmas decorations at the Home Depot and how she got a green balloon at Trader Joe’s. I told Kari how much I had wasted the day and how little actual interaction Josie and I had. She spent more one-on-one time with Harold and his purple crayon (STOP THAT!) than she did with me.
I was certain that the daddy’s-girl account was as bankrupt as the US auto industry. I mean, I was resorting to metaphors like “bankrupt as the US auto industry.” I was spent.
And then something amazing happened: I was proved wrong. Doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is cause for celebration. Sort of like the US auto industry actually selling cars.
Josie wanted me to give her a bath, not Mommy. And I’m not good at baths. She told me this after she walked past a hug from Mommy to give Daddy a hug. And it was Daddy that not only read her stories but got her in her jammies (the pink ones, with no feet, so she could wear her new Hello Kitty slippers, thank you very much) and tucked her into bed.
After Josie went to bed, all Kari had to do was look at me and go, “See?”
Spending the day watching television is not high on my list of activities, either with or without Josie (football Sundays notwithstanding). But it was so fun going shopping with her in the morning, and we interacted directly for hours. I even put on her Dora soundtrack (“Dora regular,” rather than Dora Dance Fiesta, which is “Dora Celebration”) and we danced in the car. As I lay in bed going over the day, it occurred to me that over the course of the time she was watching movies, she would come over to me on the couch and sit with me, just for a minute, like a butterfly lighting on a partially eroded statue, and then she’d flit back to the colorful cartoons.
In the days after, it became clear that I was panicking about the withdrawals from the daddy’s girl account. There was no need to create a great depression. There’s a deep reserve there. I will jealously guard it, and not rush to spend it.
And the next time, I will remember that enforced Josie time is enforced joy, not enforced fear.
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