For Women, And In Ways, Everyone

I wrote a letter to my wife a few months before our child was born, and I described the ways in which I loved her, how much I was looking forward to the growth of our family, and the aspirations I had for our child–boy or girl. Yet as I thought about the complex task of raising a strong child, I too thought of the inherent challenges of raising a girl amongst a media-influenced landscape that has established shameful norms that have for decades helped shape the way girls, young women, and grown women see and think about themselves. This is not to discount the influences that boys, young men, and grown men experience, too; however, my aim in writing this post is to better understand and articulate how women experience a world and media long dictated by norms established by men and how I will raise my son accordingly.

Maybe this post was best prompted by a recent viewing of the 2011 film “Miss Representation,” a documentary of sorts that explored, while offering astounding statistics, graphics, and testimonials, the complex and often confidence-shattering world that girls live among–one that I will never fully understand. Yet as I held my wife’s hand through the early morning hours of February 16, I contemplated (that if we had a daughter) what would drive her self-worth and self-image, what role we would play, and how she would come to think of herself. And it struck me even more deeply this morning, as I spoke with some colleagues about this very topic, that even though I am a father to a little boy, my role as advocate for women, and people in general, is no less.

For years, I felt my responsibility to women, and all people for that matter, was to demonstrate respect, compassion, love, and understanding. Yet as I think more deeply about what our world needs, and specifically what I can offer and influence as a highly educated, white, middle class, married man, I have come to recognize that my role has to be so much more than simply demonstrating respect in my relationships. My role has to be one of engaging in uncomfortable and difficult discussion, seeking comprehension of the struggles of those less fortunate, and teaching my son, as well as others in need of guidance, that it is critically important that they learn to value the uniqueness and vulnerability of all people.

It is critical that I teach my son how girls and women are portrayed in our culture–both negatively and positively. He needs to understand that to provide the same values and platforms to women that we provide to men is to build a world together, not to take what has been traditionally and historically seen as exclusive to one gender. He needs to understand that a woman’s body is not indicative of her worth as a human being, nor is it an object to be lust after. He must learn this lesson for men, too. And one of the most challenging parts in teaching him these lessons will also be the greatest: time spent together.

Today, possibly more than ever before, time spent together as a family, without the distractions of technology (which we dictate), can be hard to come by. If statistics floor you as much as they impact me, then you might be surprised to discover that according to a 2015 study performed by Common Sense Media, average daily media use for tweens (8-12 years old) hovered around 6 hours/day. By the time they reach their teenage years (13-18) this figure jumped by 33%, catapulting them to 9 hours of average daily media use, or more than a third of their day. As if this was not alarming enough, the study also suggests that these figures do not include time spent using media for school work or homework (link to study findings: Common Sense Media Infographic).

So if our children are exposed to media during 25%-33% of their day, what messages are we sending them in the time we have when our phones, iPads, televisions, and other devices are shut off and tucked away? Are we finding moments throughout the week to ask them about a provocative ad campaign and their thoughts? Do we challenge their perspectives of what it means when a film depicts women as completely helpless and totally dependent on men? Will I confront my son when he tries to act macho and suppresses his emotions because that is what he has learned from the world around him? Hopefully I will have presence enough in his life that he admires me and trusts that he can talk with me about what he sees in the world–and I’ll use this time to let him know of everything I understand, the mistakes I’ve made, and how I believe we should treat one another, ourselves, and what that might mean for him and his future.

So in revisiting the original idea of writing this post with women in mind, I will do my best to raise my son in a way that he might be wholly conscious of the influences around him and how he can be strong of character, compassionate, vulnerable, and trustworthy–and he will likely learn a great deal of these aspirations I hold by the way I treat his mother, the woman I love more than anything.

Proceed Consciously

Mark Twain once suggested, “Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.” Dude was right.

Maybe Twain held this belief in part because of his humble childhood, but I wouldn’t overlook or underestimate his intellectual prowess as a means for reaching this conclusion. It seems the more we advance our lives, the more goods we take on and deem vital to our existence and status.

But what if we were honest with ourselves? What if we asked our inner person what we needed to live? Yes, the Internet, imported rugs, reclining sofas, iPads, separate sets of dish ware for unique events, cuff links, bagel slicers, 50 piece tool sets, diaper pails, jewelry boxes, and other imaginable items from various periods of modern industrialization are quite nice and make life more convenient. But haven’t you ever stepped full-force into a new stage of life only to look back a few months, years, or even decades later and think, “I really miss the simplicity of an earlier time.” To reminisce is fun, and by no means does it suggest a lack of appreciation for the current moment, yet it can bring to light the extent to which we have developed our lives and how we live in accordance to the material we have accumulated.

Example: My wife and I utilize DirecTV as our cable provider, and one of their most popular add-ons is the NFL Sunday Ticket–a seasonal package that provides a fairly unhealthy dose of football for those with seemingly insatiable appetites for the game–particularly since the rise in popularity of fantasy football. Well, naturally I had to have this package as soon as Tara and I were comfortable enough with our disposable income that it became feasible. And just like that I couldn’t get enough. It was intoxicating–and when games went to commercial, I could flip to the addicting Red Zone channel that would keep me posted on all scoring drives and mega-highlights. I was hooked.

Fast forwarding a few years from the day that I stumbled across the glorious football package, I recently took a step back to consider how we could save money and spend more quality time together. Not so ironically, the first thing that popped into my head was, “Well shit, we have a pretty robust cable package.” When I ventured online and actually viewed our deal, I realized how far down the rabbit hole I had fallen. Not only did we have NFL Sunday Ticket, but we had HBO, Cinemax, and the second highest cable package offered. We also have Netflix and Amazon Prime. We were basically prepared to provide television for toddlers, teenagers, young adults, full-blown adults, the elderly, and whomever else wanted to pop in for a show or two. We could have never viewed everything, and we were paying out the nose for it, too. We had fallen victim, and mostly by my doing, to Twain’s admonishment regarding the lure of civilization.

My point? Keep developing the world. It’s awesome. I love advancement. I desire change. I welcome a good binge-watching of Parenthood or Breaking Bad from time to time, but I am learning much more of what balance looks like and how rewarding it can feel. I am beginning to understand that because I can have something does not mean I need to or should have something. I am furthering my discipline as a man–I am, as Immanuel Kant suggested, seeking enlightenment. I am chasing personal responsibility. And perhaps with the utmost of timing, a college professor that taught me much on life and writing, Dr. John Nordlof, shared an excerpt from Kant’s “What Is Enlightment?” (1784) through his Facebook page today. He referenced Kant’s words that I have turned over in my mind many times:

It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.

While this passage touches more on the notion of personal responsibility outlined above than it does the emergence of civilization and necessity, it poignantly demands the individual be his own advocate–a concession likely resonant with Twain’s call for awareness and mindfulness of what we own and being careful that it does not eventually own us. For isn’t that the fear? Don’t we all catch ourselves staring at our phones far too long? Don’t we all watch one too many episodes of our favorite show? Maybe not–I’d hate to generalize, but I do feel that the temptations of the modern world naturally present themselves with greater intensity for each new generation, and that is simultaneously a gift and challenge.

Advancements can be brutally intoxicating, life-enhancing, empowering, and destructive all at once. The beautiful and frightening component of that truth is that we are at the helm and responsible to navigate wisely and proceed consciously.

At the Center of Our World

via Daily Prompt: Center

Internally, and at the center of my mind, is a resounding sense of responsibility and excitement. Our baby boy was born on February 16, and he has changed our lives forever in an instant. My wife and I had dreamed of his presence and impact for months, even years, and our wildest expectations still did not pale in comparison to the moment of his arrival and subsequent joy we have experienced in the short time that he has been part of our lives.

More overtly, at the center of my day to day experience is the realities of those responsibilities and excitement. Nights long filled with television shows, darts, beers, card games, dinners out, and things of the sort have quickly and without great warning been replaced by lullabies, diapers, baby bouncers, feedings, cuddling, swaying and consoling, and yearning for sleep. And somehow my wife emerges and answers the call every single morning, day, and night when she invariably proves that she can operate with less sleep than a dolphin–a creature proven to be able to literally put half its brain to sleep at any given time and still function. Comments from colleagues and family members regarding sleep deprivation and learning to function under new circumstances that brought us to the cusp of parenthood sounded silly and hyperbolized only a few weeks ago. Yet now, I can say with what little experience I have, that parenthood is that video game you craved as a child–the one you couldn’t put down at 3 a.m. when you knew you needed sleep anyway. Only this time around, the stakes are so much higher, and the feelings are far more real, emotionally driven, and full of promise.

And so shifting from the internal to the overt forces me to contemplate the context of the world beyond my newly formed family. In his short time with us, Brooks has latched onto our hearts and minds in a way he will likely not fully understand unless he someday fathers a child. Yet we will slowly introduce him to a world that will never know or view him like we do, and by nature he will likely accept and grow from the criticisms that fall on his shoulders with greater ease than Tara and I ever will. As we already do, we will try to protect him and provide for what we perceive to be his best interest in ways that will demonstrate our love, bias, and fear. He is at the center of our world already, and right now he has but a small understanding of how deep that love runs.