Tag Archives: parenting

New Measure of Manhood

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By Jason Menard

Just one word is all it took to remove any of the last vestiges of any sense of cool masculinity to which I was still clinging. Of my own volition, I uttered the word “tummy,” and completed my decent into the land of doing fatherhood.

And you know what? I’m a better man for it.

There were no excuses for my actions. I awoke at night, feeling slightly nauseous, and when my wife turned to ask what was wrong I replied, “My tummy hurts.” And, at that point, it felt even worse as my concept of masculinity plummeted into my gut. Sure, I was tired, but there were no kids around. Just me and my vocabulary diluted to the point where “tummy” was my first reference.

The overall decent has been slow and gradual, like a glacier eroding away the rugged edges of a coast, my carefully crafted, grizzled exterior has been systematically smoothed away by an unyielding force of nature – children.

It’s an interesting parallel watching my son enter that delicate pre-teen age bracket. At 11 years old, his life is all about proving himself in front of his friends. Like all of us at the time, he has a foggy idea of what it means to be a man, but is unable to comprehend what manhood is truly about.

That lesson is one we don’t truly learn until later in life. Even as we progress into our teenage years and our young adulthood, our growth is all about defining ourselves as individuals, showing ourselves to be rugged men capable of standing up against the ravages that the world throws on us. We engage in social rituals and sporting events, which at their very root, are designed to establish a masculinity hierarchy. It’s just nature over nurture and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Yet, for all the chest-thumping, testosterone-fuelled bellowing we do in our youth, the irony is that the true indication of when we become a man is announced not with a roar, but with the dulcet tones we use with our children.

We spend our lives searching for ways to show our dominance. Whether it’s through drinking contests, games of one-on-one, or comparing financial statements, we spend our youth looking for external validation of our manhood. And when we do find it, it’s not through our friends or co-workers, but in the outstretched arms, unconditional love, and unyielding trust of our children.

It is at that moment, when we look into our children’s eyes that we see, reflected back to us, all we need to know in life. It is at that moment when nothing else matters in this world. We stop caring what anybody else thinks, because all that matters is that we do right by our children.

It is at that moment too when we can drop all the pretences and tear down the artificial walls with which we have surrounded ourselves. We can lie down on the floor and just be ourselves with our family. It is in that time when everything finally seems to make sense.

Yet still there are stereotypes that persist. As a parent with two children, one boy and one girl, I can attest that there are differences in the way we experience things. For my initial interaction with my son, the need to remove those traits of masculinity was lessened. He was and is going through the same things that I was and I can understand where he is in life. I can tell him what it truly means to be a man, but it’s a journey that he’ll have to take for himself, so that he can appreciate it more. But, as such, we can fall into the same trap of reliving a juvenile form of masculinity.

In a father-son relationship, we often look to help our children be what we determine a man should be: strong, yet caring; respectful, yet willing to stand up for your beliefs; tough, yet compassionate. Yet those are the same ideals that I strive to impart to my daughter. In the end, gender is a generality, and it’s the individual that matters. So there should be no difference in my experience with my children.

But there is. My son and I share common ground through his current experience as it mirrors my own youth. I’ve walked the path that he’s walked down, so there’s a comfort level associated with him. My relationship with my daughter has required me to step out of what I know and see the world with an entirely new perspective.

Of her own volition, my daughter became interested in babies, princesses, and all the traditional things that some would say stereotypically define a girl. My wife and I left her the choice to select her toys (and with a bunch left over from her older brother, there were no shortage from which to choose), yet she gravitated towards these choices on her own – and forced me to come along for the ride. And, in the end, it’s hard to cling to those youthful ideals of masculinity when you’re one the ground playing with your daughter’s Princess dolls.

The 17-year-old version of me may have laughed at seeing a grown man playing with dolls. But the 32-year-old version of me knows that young punk doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. They say that a parent’s job is to teach their children, but it is with great thanks that I can say that my children have taught me the most important lesson of all – what it truly means to be a man.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Parenting Lets Us Be a Kid Again

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By Jason Menard

Children are truly a gift. They enrich our lives, make us put things into a new perspective, and help us see what’s truly important. Those of us who have had the good fortune to have children have been blessed with a gift that will grow and blossom as the years pass.

Oh, and let’s not forget the toys!

While the politically correct thing to do when talking about our children is to wax poetic about the profound impact they have on our lives. And while all of those things are true, we parents have to admit that the toys are a pretty cool benefit too.

Having children allows us to relive our childhood. Take a grown man playing with Barbies in his basement, and you’d be ready to write him off as a borderline-psycho loner who probably hasn’t had a date in the past few years. But throw a three-year old daughter into the equation, and this more-than-creepy image morphs into a heart-warming expression of love between a father and daughter. A man lining up alone to see a Star Wars film? Probably living at home in his parents’ basement. However, when you add a son to the mix, then you have a devoted dad sharing a bonding moment with his child!

The most enduring films and TV shows are the ones that capture the imagination of our children, while appealing on another level to the adults who watch along with them. Shows like The Muppets and movies like Aladdin and the Shrek series resonate with our children because of the characters and the slapstick-style humour, whereas the parents are privy to another level of appreciation through carefully crafted dialogue and pop culture references. As The Simpsons has shown, kids will be drawn to the Bart and Lisa characters, whereas parents gravitate to the parents and the social commentary underlying each episode.

Kids let us revert to our childhood and recapture the innocence and freedom we enjoyed in our youth. Many parents will sit and complain about the quality of cartoons or movies directed towards our youth. We grumble and grouse and state that the shows of our youth were so much better. But it’s not a matter of whether or not we think they’re better or not: we’re just not-so-subtly trying to coerce our kids into watching what we did, so that we can justify our adult enjoyment of such childish pastimes.

Recently I was walking through a store and a DVD caught my eye, an anniversary edition of Schoolhouse Rock. In my youth, these brief snippets of animation were the highlight of my day. Wedged between Mary Lou Retton imploring me to get off the couch and exercise and Menudo showcasing its Latin-lite, choreographed vignettes, these slyly produced cartoons that mixed education with entertainment were captivating to me and many of my peers. The memories stuck with me so much that on a trip to Washington a few years back, I made sure to sit on the steps of the Capitol, singing quietly “I’m Just a Bill.”

The fact that I have an 11-year-old son and a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter made the decision to buy it a no-brainer. Not only could I make the purchase guilt-free, I’d also have a built-in reason to watch them! Fortunately, both kids seem to enjoy them, so all works out well in the end.

Obviously, as parents, we want to encourage our children to forge their own identities and explore their world. Just as childhood remembrances of The Electric Company, Star Wars, and the like have become shared points of reference for my generation, so too do my kids need to experience the memories and the cultural phenomena that will act as a common bond with the people they meet in the future. But if I can expose them to the occasional reference from my youth — then all the better.

The funny thing about all of this is that as we age, we’re constantly worried about whether or not we’re ready for parenthood. We question whether we have the maturity and the wherewithal to be good parents. But maybe we focus too much on the responsibility component of parenthood and not enough on the joy.

Growing up is a part of life, but who knew that having children would let us be a kid again?

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Overprotecting our Youth Today Limits Their Future Tomorrow

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By Jason Menard

I worry, what’s going to happen to today’s children when we remove the protective bubble wrap and force them to head out into that big, bad, dangerous world all by their lonesome?

Sometimes too much knowledge can be dangerous. Many parents, who are regaled with new and potentially explosive news about the latest threats to their children, live in fear of letting their kids do the one thing they do best – be kids.

Kids are supposed to get dirty, they’re supposed to take a few chances in their life – that’s how they learn. As sensitive parents, we understand that we’re supposed to forgive our children’s mistakes and encourage them to use them as a learning tool. But how are they supposed to make mistakes when today’s society doesn’t even encourage them to go out and test the waters.

I feel my parents did a good job, overall. I’m still here, in general good health, and I take an active interest in the world around me. And, while they were aware of where I was in my youth, I remember spending all day riding my bike around the neighbourhood or playing in the park, no matter what the temperature. Rain, sun, heat, cold – we were out there enjoying life to its fullest – and we weren’t restricted to a 50-foot radius around our front porch.

Now, I don’t want to come across as an old fogey harping on about the Good Ol’ Days, but more and more today’s kids are being restricted in what they can do, what they can experience, and where they can go. Our societal fears are overwhelming our desire to watch our children live, thrive, and survive on their own.

On an average day, my wife and I will send our son out to play, only to have him come back shortly thereafter saying that none of his friends will come out, because it’s too hot (we’re talking mid-20s here, not fry-an-egg-hot summer days) – they’d rather stay inside and play video games. Looking back on my youth, heat was never a consideration – and the concept of dehydration was never even brought up. You played until you were ready to drop, came home, ate lunch or dinner, and then headed outdoors again.

Parents are dousing their kids in waterless antibacterial cleaners, because – God forbid – they come in contact with a germ. But what will the long-term ramifications of this desire to protect our children from disease be? Will we create a generation of kids who are in danger of being felled by the common cold because they’ve not developed a normal immunity, like the rest of us?

Even a recent trip to an amusement park indicates how protective we’ve become. Rides, which once sufficed with a lap bar or a shoulder restraint now feature intricate protection devices, double-belts, and the like. Signs for rides indicated so many exclusions, that only Olympic athletes appear to qualify to get on board.

Gone are the days where kids would get on their bikes and ride. Gone are the days when a forest was a place to explore with friends. Gone are the days when time could be wasted, pleasurably. Gone are the days when kids could get dirty all in the name of exploration, discovery, and fun. What those days have been replaced with

We live in a society built on fear – fear of litigation, fear of our children hurting themselves, fear of our children being abducted – and that fear has clouded our parental instincts to the point where we’re suffocating our kids’ abilities to experience the world in the same way we have.

Parents often issue the similar refrain that today’s world is different, which is true. But what’s more true is that today’s parent has changed. The available world around us has expanded to the point where its farthest reaches are within the click of a mouse, yet we’ve done our utmost to confine our kids’ world to their immediate surroundings.

Once, in my youth, I decided to take a running leap at the tree in our front yard, which featured parallel branches. Thinking I could make like an Olympic gymnast I leapt for the first branch, only to miss spectacularly. Lying in a crumpled heap, the wind knocked out of me and my head ringing, I learned a valuable lesson about risk management that I have applied to my every day life since.

And that’s the whole point. Our childhood follies and experiences teach us lessons for the long-run. We learn what to touch and what not to touch. We learn how to look before we leap. And, most importantly, we learn how to make our own way through this big, exciting – and sometimes scary – world.

By over-protecting our kids, we’re ensuring that they’ll make it to their future without a scratch – but are we not restricting the future they have by robbing them of the ability to experience life first hand? When we’ve finished holding their hands through their youth and keeping them at arm’s length, where will they go? What will they do? An animal raised in captivity often times is unable to be released into the wild because they don’t have basic survival skills. Are we doing anything different to our children by holding on so tight?

We need to give our kids the same gift our parents gave to us – the gift of a childhood. And if my son or daughter come home with a cut on the leg or a bout of Poison Ivy, then my wife and I will take care of them, and take comfort in the idea that each experience will add one more lesson learned to their youthful experience.

And it’s one more lesson that they can take with them when they step out on their own into that big world that’s full of the unknown, full of fear, but also full of beauty, excitement, and potential.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Chewing the Fat on our Kids’ Health

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By Jason Menard

Does it really come as any surprise that Canada received a D for its overall commitment to our children’s health, when our kids have us setting an example?

On Thursday, May 26, 2005, the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth was released to the public and the results certainly give us something to chew on – unfortunately, it appears that we’re chewing on fat.

Essentially the report states that Canada is failing its kids by not ensuring that they’re active enough each day to ensure optimal growth and development. The report continues by saying that “less than half our kids are expending the energy required to maintain a healthy weight, and to develop healthy hearts, lungs, muscles, and bones.

But should we really expect anything less? We’ve gone from a society that had to chase down our own food and kill it with our bare hands to survive to one where we can sit in our boxers at a computer screen, click a mouse, and have our groceries delivered to us.

And it’s a good thing that we only need one hand to use a mouse, because the other’s usually immersed in a bag of Doritos.

Physical activity, which was once a given component of daily life, is now nothing more than an afterthought for the majority of people. Instead of being an expected part of our day, exercise is treated as a luxury for which we don’t have enough time. Most of us – and speaking as a parent, I am more than guilty of this – find that by the time we’ve come home from work, prepared dinner, and done our evening chores, there’s precious little time to enjoy with the family. So because it’s difficult to shoehorn physical activity into our evenings, we make excuses to avoid it.

The end result is that, because of this, we have to shoehorn our own butts into our jeans. The long-term effects can be catastrophic, with poorer long-term health, increased diabetes, and a whole host of other health-related problems all of which can be attributed to our added girth. It’s a good thing

We’ve undervalued the importance of physical activity at school. We look down our noses at physical education classes – and really, is there any profession more maligned in our popular culture than the gym teacher? Instead of realizing the value of daily exercise, we look at gym class like a glorified recess. We talk about the three Rs and lament how our kids aren’t getting a solid foundation in the basics, but there seems to be no recognition that a fourth R should be added to the list – running!

However, the problem does not lie within the confines of our schools. It’s time we look squarely in the mirror for the real source of the problem – the parents. The Report Card gives parents a D for Family Physical Activity, professing that only 43% of parents are physically active with their kids. The saddest thing is that the number drops off as our kids get older: a reduction of 25% by the time our children turn five, and a further drop-off of 30% when they become teenagers. It appears that we, as parents, abdicate our responsibility believing that the school system will pick up the slack.

The end result of all of this? The prevalence of childhood obesity in our kids has jumped from 2% in 1981 to 10% in 2001 – and is there any reason to believe the trend hasn’t and won’t continue?

A 1998 Gallup Poll showed that 78% off Canadians were in favour of instituting 30 minutes of daily physical activity in schools, but that’s not enough. Our kids are not somebody else’s responsibility, but when it comes to ensuring the health of our children, a tragically large number of us take a hands-off approach to their physical development.

Unfortunately, the school system is going to have to be the one that picks up the ball we’ve dropped – after all, the exertion may be too much for us. Parents aren’t going to change their ways no matter how many publicity campaigns or surveys come out. It’s easy to sit here and say we should all spend a half-hour riding a bike, going for a walk, or tossing around the ol’ pigskin with our sons and daughters – but we have to deal with reality here.

This isn’t a matter of who should shoulder the responsibility – it’s about who will. Our school systems – both elementary and secondary – are in the best position to quickly and effectively institute mandatory physical education periods. Just a half hour a day will give our kids a good foundation. There’s really no reason why gym should be an elective course in high school – if we put a premium on developing the mind, we need to do the same for the body.

Looking long-term, by making exercise a regular part of our kids’ lives, they’ll be more likely to continue to make it a part of their everyday routine. Ideally, spending a half-hour or more working out, walking, or just being active won’t be an imposition but rather an afterthought in their lives.

And then maybe they can turn around and show us the right way of doing things. For the good of our health, our kids will have to be the ones teaching their parents – because we’ve shown that, when it comes to healthy living, we’re no role models.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Raising Our Kids is Not a Game

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By Jason Menard

While some parents are hailing the decision of the Retail Council of Canada to voluntarily restrict the access of certain video games to children, I have to wonder if this is truly a step forward in protecting our youth – or whether it’s just another case of parents abdicating their responsibility to someone else.

Once again, instead of taking the active role in child-rearing, we’re looking to external bodies to regulate our environment. To take the choice out of our hands, and to protect us from ourselves. The problem is, it won’t work. By making these games harder to get, all we have done is made them more appealing to kids.

My generation was one that grew up with video games. Whereas it’s unthinkable that many of my parents’ peers would be caught with a controller in their hands (my mother, addicted to Pac Man as she is, is a notable exception), I’m hard-pressed to find anyone in my early-30s circle of friends that don’t own at least one video game system. They are as ubiquitous as DVD players and TVs.

And, as my generation raises their children, we are exposing them to video games. The key for us is to do so responsibly and to do that we need to be active parents. No ratings or restrictions are going to change that.

As parents, my wife and I have chosen to restrict the types of games that our 10-year-old son is allowed to play. The reality is that there are plenty of games with content that some people would find unsavoury. We’ve rented games filled with strong language, violence, sexual themes, gore, and any number of illegal activities. The key thing is that we don’t play them when he’s around. Nor do we allow him to play them – and we explain to him why. There are plenty of video games out in this world and there are more than enough for him to enjoy without subjecting him to adult-themed games.

But we’ve decided to set these rules. In the same way that we guide what movies he watches, what TV shows he’s exposed to, and what access to the Internet he has, so to do we monitor the video games. In fact, we generally try any game he gets before he does, to be sure we’re comfortable with the images and activities he’s going to presented with.

It’s called active parenting – and no rating system can give that to you.

In fact, ratings are only good as guides, not as enforcements. There are two sides to this coin. First off, ask most teenagers which movie they’d prefer to see – one with a PG rating or one with a Restricted rating – and they’ll choose the latter, greatly because of the stigma attached to it. The sense of mystery and the idea of the forbidden are far more appealing than the “parentally accepted” former choice.

Secondly, ratings are not absolutes. Whether they’re industry-defined or independently assigned, they only serve to provide a general guideline of the content. There are R-rated films that I have no problem allowing my son to watch, and that have more value than many of the so-called age-appropriate films. But we don’t allow him to watch these in isolation. If a broadcast has strong themes present, it’s our responsibility as parents to talk about them, not ignore them as if they don’t exist.

Many parents, including ourselves, have been guilty at times of using TV as a babysitter. And now, as my generation continues to have children, the video game system is taking the same function in many cases. But, just as you wouldn’t hire a baby-sitter to watch your children without performing a thorough screening first, nor should you fire up a PS2 or Xbox without some prior knowledge of what’s going to happen.

I’m not so naïve as to think that my son is being completely sheltered from these images. In fact, I know acquaintances that allow their pre-teens free access to games that I would consider challenging for most adults, but that’s their choice and their kids. My wife and I can only control our environment and hope that the lessons we’re teaching, the messages we’re imparting, and the choices we’re making are enabling our son to feel comfortable in the world we live in.

Stricter enforcement on sales and ratings systems won’t do anything to diminish the appeal of violent and suggestive video games. It’s our job as parents to be actively aware of what our kids are exposed to. Raising our kids is not a game – so let’s start taking it seriously and stop looking for others to regulate what we do.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved