parenting

Leisure Suits

I was born in 1963, just before Camelot was obliterated. By the time I started grade school, sartorial splendor was becoming a thing of the past.  In the 70s, countering the culture largely meant wearing informal, poorly made, unflattering, and often, just ugly clothes.  Changing one’s appearances was meant to denote changing  one’s attitudes. Relaxed fit clothing (before we called a particular style of jeans “relaxed fit”) was supposed to reflect greater freedom, fewer constraints, undoing structures of culture, and a more casual attitude. Adults were uptight; youths were tuning in, turning on and dropping out, which meant building a new harmonious society. Imagine. Then came those horrific Leisure Suits. Even then, I thought they were hideous and silly. The worst part was that Leisure Suits were for dressing up. They didn’t look comfortable or flattering, and came to represent a cheap, synthetic, and middling culture; a culture that was apathetic and confused, low brow and lazy.

A generation later, our children have grown up with a more robust culture. While access to information and communication has been revolutionized in the last generation, there has also been a renaissance of leisure activities and accoutrements. The leisure business is enormous, and people invest great time and money into leisure activities. This has been a terrific boon over the last generation, not only economically, but culturally. Pursuing a leisure activity such as a sport or art is productive. For years I have cautioned parents about over scheduling their children. Children (and adults) need unscheduled free time, but pursuing a hobby or activity (beyond looking at a screen) on a regular basis can provide skills that may go beyond the activity.

When we find a leisure activity that suits us, we strengthen ourselves and can expand. There are all kinds of attributes to all sorts of sports and arts, but the activities themselves often become metaphors for us. I was a great swimmer as a young child, and enjoyed the competence and strength I felt in the water. Many  years later in college, I swam every morning, as it felt like the only way my thoughts could flow in order to write papers. I hardly go to the pool for a swim these days, but I’m very much a swimmer in other ways, and yes, still a lifeguard of sorts. I tend to dive into whatever I pursue. Somehow, I’ve been able to stay afloat, treading from time to time, but mostly propelling myself forward using all my muscles, along the surface of the tide. I was well suited to swimming, and swimming suits me.

Those who are well suited to their work are often quite successful. It’s not always easy to find work that suits us. We often think of work as effort, and leisure as effortless, but there can be joyful effort in both work and play.  Leisure activities are not only ways to  have fun, unwind and relax, but are often ways in which we can more fully realize ourselves and develop our strengths to use in various capacities.  Leisure suits!

Father Time

Much of our concept of fatherhood is culturally inherited. Motherhood and fatherhood may begin biologically, but the lifespan is cultural. For parents who adopt children, they know that parenting means providing a safe home with love and guidance regardless of conception. The ways in which we parent are largely codified in our cultural DNA.

Fathers’ Day was created in Spokane Washington over a century ago by a woman who was one of six children raised by a widower. It was an attempt to create an equivalent celebration to Mothers’ Day. While the initial Mothers’ Day celebrations sought to promote peace and reconciliation after The Civil War, the impetus for a Fathers’ Day was actually a sermon  delivered in July 1908 honoring the memory of 362 men who had died earlier in the year in a coal mine explosion in West Virginia. The first Fathers’ Day was celebrated in Washington State on July 19, 1910. Certainly there was a commercial aspect that drove Mothers’ Day in a way that was not quite captured in Fathers’ Day (i.e. flowers). With The Depression, retailers began promoting neckties, pipes, socks, hats and sporting goods. During World War 2, advertisers began promoting Fathers’ Day as a way to support the war effort and honor American troops. It was not a federal holiday, but it was an American institution. It was in 1972 that Fathers’ Day officially became a federal holiday. Meanwhile, it has been an economic boon for nearly a century, and has reinforced cultural concepts of fatherhood.

In the 21st century, the cultural expectations of fatherhood are rapidly changing. Some of our artifacts of cultural notions of fatherhood are contained in television shows from the last sixty years. Television, especially sitcoms, were never about reality, of course. They were simplified versions of aspects of society. In some ways they are ridiculous, which is also what makes them enjoyable. In honor of Fathers’ Day, I have compiled a very brief list of favorite TV dads. This is by no means comprehensive. I selected shows that had the word “father” or “dad” in the title, with the exception of a few, as examples of shows where the family revolved around the father, or the parent child relationship was with a single father. There are many, many more examples of fathers on television, and I did include a few that have fathers as the main character, even if there are ensemble casts. This sampling is merely that–some examples that reflect cultural attitudes about fathers and their kids and the times in which they lived. In many ways, these shows are as much about how time and place have become cultural references as well as our notions of fatherhood. These shows depict other, larger cultural forces, even as they revolve around representations of fatherhood.

First and foremost,”father” has been the (economic) provider. Very generally, there are the two types of fathers on television, especially in the middle of the 20th century: the comfortable middle (or upper middle) class father who is the provider and gentle sage; or the bumbling dad who never seems to know what’s going on at home. Of course, these two themes were (and are still) played out as the notion that the mother is the primary caregiver, homemaker, etc, even when she also works outside the home (which we don’t really see on tv until the 1980s). There are several examples of fathers or father figures without mothers. In those cases, there is often a substitute homemaker-usually live-in help. No messy spousal arguments. Just warm, fatherly advice, and someone else to take care of the logistics of the home.

So, here’s a brief list of the father archetypes from American television, from shows that revolve around the father:

Father Knows Best 1954-1960

Archetype of the fifties male (and kept woman). White. Midwestern? Suburban.Compliant kids. Calm, sagacious father. (Robert Young)

Bachelor Father 1957-1962

Handsome, wealthy Beverly Hills attorney with chinese “houseboy”. Bentley Gregg (John Forsythe) is the uncle who adopts his teenage niece. He provides economic and emotional security (in white Beverly Hills) for her while both of them support each other emotionally as they navigate the (bland) dating scene.

Make Room for Daddy 1953- 1964

Dad the professional entertainer. White upper middle class. Urban. Young, beautiful wife. Smart mouthed son and adorable daughter.The often frustrated dad (Danny Thomas) is trying to navigate his way at home .

My Three Sons 1960-1972

Widowed aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas (Fred Mac Murray) raising 3 sons with old crotchety father-in-law or uncle (depending on season). Steve is the calmest most zen-like dad ever. The sons are, likewise, rather easygoing. White. Suburban. bland. Middle class.

Family Affair 1966-1971

Another well-to-do uncle adopting kids. NY high rise living in the sixties (that was not much like the real sixties). Uncle Bill (Brian Keith) is a civil engineer who, with the help of his butler, Mr. French, is also the calm, sagacious, father figure for the teenage Cissy, and the young twins, Buffy and Jody. White. Urban. Upper-middle class.

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father 1969-1972

Beginning of the sensitive guy (played by Bill Bixby). Another widower of the professional class, this time magazine publishing, who is raising his young son and navigating the dating scene. His son Eddie is more invested in his father’s dating life than child characters in previous shows. Meanwhile, Mrs. Livingston, the Japanese housekeeper, also provides eastern wisdom.

Sanford and Son 1972-1977

Poor African American widower living with single adult son trying to make it . This is a new type of program for the time, showing an African American experience (as did other shows of the seventies), and life in the Watts area of South Central Los Angeles.  The son, Lamont, desiring independence, must take care of his troublemaking father. A decidedly different kind of tv father-figure.

The Cosby Show 1984-1992

Upscale, professional, urban, African American.80s. Changing roles for women across demographic categories and for African Americans of  both genders. Updating wise professional father figure who could also be silly and, at times, clueless of kids’ shenanigans. A bit more sophisticated view of family life, gender and race.

Everybody Loves Raymond 1996-2005:

The classic buffoon dad(s). Ray and his father are clueless. Although the women on the show are the ones seemingly holding the family together, the old cultural ideals of the middle class father are put on display for comedy and as a means to reminding us that fatherhood must continue to evolve.

Modern Family 2009-

Four fathers:  2 Gay dads. 1 Emotive heterosexual dad.  1 Old school remarried, virile (and gruff) patriarch ( Ed O’ Neill, who was also the bumbling and gross Al Bundy on Married with Children 1987-1997). Professional, wealthy dads in the suburbs of LA. White nuclear family extends, marrying Latina (with Latino child) and gay couple adopting Asian child.  A 21st century American family.

Some other favorite tv sitcom dads include: Ward Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver), Archie Bunker (All in the Family), Mike Brady (The Brady Bunch), Dan Conner (Roseanne), Homer Simpson(The Simpsons), Peter Griffin(Family Guy).

Of course there are so many shows that we could examine for insight into cultural attitudes about fatherhood, and I have neglected the Westerns and other genres to the exclusion of sitcoms. However, there are two dramas whose protagonists are unusually interesting as fathers:

The Sopranos 1999-2007

Tony Soprano is  the FAMILY man. Everything is for the family. Which family, is debatable. But, he does love his children desperately, and his children are incredibly important to his character.

Mad Men 2007-

As Mad Men takes place from 1960-1970?, Don Draper is the embodiment of the mid 20th century white suburban upper middle class, then remarried urban, professional father who leaves the care taking of the children to the wife. On the rare occasions when he spends time with his kids, he can be kind and loving, and fun. But his demons are too powerful. He is the anti-hero Dad. Sure, Tony was a mobster, and Don is just an ad man, but Don is too far removed from his kids and can’t share his life with them.

As our cultural notions of fatherhood continue to evolve, it will be interesting to watch. Television has reflected our cultural ideals of fatherhood in perhaps exaggerated and often lighthearted ways. As gender roles continue to evolve, the nature and culture of parenting is evolving. Until we have Parents’ Day, we can spend the third Sunday in June giving time to the fathers in our lives. Their roles will always be about their relationships with their children. It’s father time. Happy Fathers’ Day.

reality shows

Reality shows us unimaginable forces. Tornados violently devastating towns, leveling neighborhoods for miles; teachers sheltering children from savage storms and at other times, from deranged  murderers; first responders rushing to save and assist victims; caregivers everywhere attending to needs great and small; love among family members and friends…..These are the images of reality that are continuously shown on our screens in the aftermath of dramatic events. They may be gripping events, and often seem unprecedented, yet it is the reality of the human responses that grips us. We may not know or understand all the facts that contribute to such absorbing incidents, but we have immediate and visceral responses to them. Sometimes those experiences are overwhelming or maddening, but often they are invitations to examine ourselves.

These events become the stuff of history, and therefore lessons. The truths of these events– the forces preceding the events and the forces of the events, as well as the aftermath, become the stuff of art.  In the meantime, we watch and listen to images of reality that force us to imagine what we would be; what we could be; what we should be.

On days like today, reality shows us the art of living.

Change of Address

Complete. Progress. Calibrate.

Like any rite de passage, a graduation ceremony is a cultural construct that briefly freezes time –acknowledging an individual’s completion of the requirements for being a student and transitioning the student to a new status. The movement from one status to another is conferred in a diploma, but the process is addressed in the ritual commencement speech. The commencement address, whose banality is kept in check by the celebrity addressing the graduating class, is usually an appeal to the truths that we tend to discard until the next graduation. Still, they are usually the truths that are most necessary,and most necessary to bear in mind during the more mundane moments of life, not merely at  ritual celebrations.

Graduation/commencement…endings/beginnings….all in the same moment. Most students are thrilled to complete their grueling academic work and to be rightfully acknowledged for it. Commencing the often overwhelming march into adulthood without the supportive peer world of the college or university (or high school) can sometimes feel like a step backward. After mastering one environment and work, students must start over. (Hence, the commencement addresses that remind students of the excitement of beginnings and possibilities.)

While the noun (the) graduate has long been associated with Dustin Hoffman in 1967,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lKbMBab18

the verb (to) graduate really can inspire us as much as the possibilities implied by commencing. To graduate means to complete something. Completion is accomplishment, realization, fulfillment. We need not graduate from college to experience completion. When we complete we are whole. We may be constantly completing, but that is movement toward wholeness, which may be an ever expanding experience. Regularly completing in small and great ways, adds to our sense of fulfillment. We continue to graduate/complete throughout our lives.

To graduate means to progress. As we complete something we progress to the next something. It is optimistic and expansive, broadening and possibly deepening our opportunities and our lives. Sometimes the lousy jobs and difficult living experiences may also allow us to graduate to create a circumstance we may never have previously considered. All experiences may not be positive, but graduating is progressing. It is a forward motion and growth.

To graduate also means to calibrate. As we move toward completion, we measure, correct, adjust, and reset. We are always moving toward the next completion and always recalibrating. When we stop graduating and feel like we have already graduated, we get stuck in status-thinking. It is more like static thinking.  So, during this graduation season, whether you are finishing school or not, consider the verb to graduate–to complete, to progress, and to calibrate. Congrats, grads! Keep graduating!

 

Mother Culture/Mother Nature

Are you a mother-to-be? A new mom? An older mom? A working mom? A SAHM (Stay-at-home-mom)? A single mom? A teen mom? A soccer mom? A dance mom? A stage mother? A yoga mom? A mommy blogger? An activist mom? Do you wear Mom jeans? Are you the Mom In Chief? (Unless you are Michelle Obama, the answer is no.)

At home, are you Nurse Mom? Dr. Mom? Chauffeur Mom? Coach Mom? Cheerleader Mom? Teacher Mom? Event planner Mom? Administrative Assistant Mom? Human Resources Mom? Chef Mom? Housekeeper Mom? Librarian Mom? Accountant Mom? Shopper Mom? Nutritionist Mom? Stylist Mom? Police Mom? Detective Mom? Artist Mom? Singing Mom? President Mom? Dictator Mom? Queen Mom?

Are you joyful? Adoring? Content? Anxious? Cautious? Zealous? Spirited? Exhausted? Loving? Open? Comforting? Proud? Curious? Concerned? Careful? Bold? Kind? Protective? Discerning? Demonstrative? Caring? Nurturing? Guiding? Pedantic? Receptive? Clumsy? Consumed? Graceful? Grateful? Tender? Connected? Learning? Strong? Weak? Adapting? Evolving? Lifting? Creative? Delighted?

This Mothers’ Day, as we embrace our mothers and their nature, let’s use this cultural ritual to transform the culture of mothers (and others). Mothers, especially in the last generation, have been defined as a something-mom. The mom part is a bit self-deprecating. Is it because mothers feel like mothers first and then something else? Or do mothers still feel like they are not quite something else? Traditionally, mothers have not only played the role of domestic goddess and liaison to schools, but have been involved in civic and community projects (usually without recognition of being the ones who do the volunteer work, beyond donating and sitting on boards). Good schools and workplaces, as well as healthcare and nutritional, clean food must be more available and accessible for all.  Schools and workplaces must transform (not merely evolve to accommodate those with the most choices) to support the entirety of our lives. We must move beyond the 19th century industrialization model to a more fluid model of work and school, so that our mother culture supports and enhances mothers’ nature (and mother nature).

So Happy Mothers’ Day! Give your mother the love she needs! And check out Moms Rising.org. I’m going to make a gift right now! Join me in making a happy mothers’ day today and tomorrow.

http://www.momsrising.org/

Appreciation

It’s almost 7:00 pm; almost the end of the day. Soon Teacher Appreciation Day will be over. It’s not that the shout outs and appreciations are not appreciated. Teachers welcome appreciation. Who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, the appreciation seems limited. If we truly appreciated teachers, we wouldn’t set aside a day to appreciate us.

Perhaps teacher appreciation starts with appreciating learning; appreciating knowledge; appreciating studying; appreciating organizing; appreciating nurturing; appreciating culture; appreciating performance; appreciating patience; appreciating guidance; appreciating caring; appreciating growth; appreciating limits; appreciating work; appreciating differences; appreciating individuality; appreciating creativity; appreciating roles; appreciating responsibility….

Acknowledging qualities that we all need to appreciate will certainly be appreciated. Every day.

 

 

Script

Cursive!… Foiled again!

Among the seemingly perennial issues in education, there is a resurgence in the concern over no longer teaching handwriting (i.e.cursive English). Given that education is one of those paradoxical institutions that on the one hand has as its aim to prepare for the future, it is also, more often than not, conserving the past. The present state of education is one that generally feels like it is behind the present moment in the rest of our culture. K-12 education tends to play catch-up, rather than lead the culture. As schools across the country are debating and implementing the new Common Core Standards, many teachers have suggested that something’s got to go, and that something will be handwriting, as keyboarding has more  cultural relevance.

Many lament the notion that students may no longer learn cursive. For some, it is a cultural  loss for the next generation(s). In some scientific and educational communities, some point to studies suggesting an academic advantage for elementary students who learn cursive over those who don’t. Is learning cursive a necessity today?

With limited time and money,and mandated testing, many teachers have suggested dropping handwriting lessons from the curriculum. Certainly keyboarding is a necessity in everyday life in ways that handwriting is no longer requisite. Of course there are people who never mastered penmanship and were/are quite intelligent and high achieving. Physicians are not the only ones who can’t write a legible script in script. For those  who are dysgraphic, or perhaps less severely, just not good at handwriting, keyboarding is a gift, and can transform their written communication and ability to achieve. However, one of the more interesting arguments for teaching cursive, is that in practicing the smooth movements connecting letters, mental connections are also made, that are not replicated in keyboarding. The argument continues that even learning to read cursive writing advances certain mental capacities for making connections, as we see and interpret connected symbols.

What may have begun as picking up a twig or a rock and etching symbols in dirt or on caves, progressed into handwriting. With the quill and ink, cursive became more developed as the writing method was employed to limit spills and breakage. Of course, in our age, the keyboard is the most expedient form of non-vocal communication. The most obvious sacrifice in abandoning learning cursive is the individuality–the signature.Even learning the uniformity of the cursive alphabet, handwriting is a uniquely individual enterprise. It can be honed, but handwriting is still not quite anonymous. It’s personalized.

Many cling to teaching handwriting as part of a cultural heritage. Some regard penmanship as an art form. Others tout the importance of fine motor skill development as well as it’s connection to brain development. The detractors focus on the imperative of teaching the most necessary skills for the moment, and handwriting seems like a cultural remnant–irrelevant to the tasks of the future.

It seems to me that the arguments for and against teaching cursive are essentially from a tired script. Many debates in education seem to be either/or in nature. Teaching cursive is slow, and there are so many other things to test. But if teaching cursive can help develop both left and right hemispheres of the brain and their connectivity, then maybe we need to look at other ways to teach and practice writing script. We don’t need to teach cursive just because it was our script. Handwriting may never be used the way it was prior to this moment in history. However, like science, math, history, language, physical education and art, it is a way of seeing and doing that creates connections, and making connections is essential to creativity. Perhaps rethinking our script about teaching script as a remnant of the past, to a practice of creativity, makes handwriting the future.

Let’s Dance!

If our kids don’t replicate our suggestions, have they learned? Have we taught? As parents and educators, we attempt to nourish, protect, guide, acculturate, civilize, enrich and encourage. As Andrew Solomon writes in his masterful work Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search For Identity, “ There is no such thing as reproduction.” Parents produce offspring. The idea is that the product of the parents is a new organism. Even when the children resemble the adults, they always grow away from us. Andrew Solomon’s book is devoted to children who don’t resemble their parents, but the lessons are true for all. Teaching and parenting is not a matter of replication.

In many ways education (whether parent or teacher) is dance. We choreograph, composing a sequence of steps and moves. We design a form and motions. Educators/choreographers direct movement. Our kids are dancers. As learners, they (and we) employ codified movements in various contexts. Dance is a form of social interaction, emotional expression, and performance. Most importantly it is movement. If we consider  educating as guiding our kids’ (and our) movement  in the domains of social interaction, emotional expression and performance, rather than as a sculpture (or worse, a reproduction of a sculpture), then we can experience individual human rhythms and energies, and appreciate their distinctions and likenesses through their gestures.  We can move along with them.

Education is movement!  Let’s Dance!

Super Duper

Yesterday was a Super Duper Wednesday.  It was not a good day; certainly not in the news world. It was a day full of news and un-news and more bad news, and then punctuated news. By now we are all too familiar with the news media too eager to report, despite serious mistakes (and possibly serious ramifications from those mistakes). It does seem, however, that there is forensic evidence of a pressure cooker used for the bomb(s) that killed and maimed brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, at the Boston Marathon on Monday. A pressure cooker. It’s almost too obvious. The literal and figurative remains of a pressure cooker were what we were left with yesterday. By the time I went to bed, though, I felt duped.

On a day when media outlets rushed to report that a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was arrested, and then that report was retracted, the “pressure cooker” that is the news media revealed its limits. Then there was the discovery of a  potentially poisonous letter sent to President Obama, just after one was discovered sent to a senator (maybe more than one senator). At least those letters were initialed by the sender, so as to avoid any confusion. By the end of the day, when most of the news revolved around the aftermath of the horror in Boston, and attempts to get attention for poisoning senators and the President, a bi-partisan bill that would expand background checks to purchase a gun was defeated. President Obama responded,” The American people are trying to figure out, how can something have 90 percent support and yet not happen?”  I think many of us felt Super Duped.

We live in Super times. Supermodels and Supermajorities; Super Bowls and Super Bugs; Super Moms and Superheroes; (Superman); Superhighways and Superconductors; Super Glue and Super Funds; Supersonic and Supernova; Superstars and Superpowers; Superego and Superficial and Supernatural…….

So much seems to be heightened–super heightened– and we often find ourselves in our own pressure cookers. Then we have Super Duper days.

Horrorism

As of 6:00 pm on this Tax Day (and Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts), Monday,April 15, 2013, two explosions occurred near the finish line at The Boston Marathon, killing two and injuring scores. These are the early reports. Certainly there are more questions than answers at this moment, but already we are hunkering down, and fearful of more danger in the coming hours, days, and weeks.  News commentators have proclaimed that the terrorists have scored a win, as authorities have already admonished citizens to stay home. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of The White House has been closed to pedestrians this evening.

The Boston Marathon, one of the great annual events, is usually a joyful experience for spectators and runners alike. While the individuals compete against each other, there is also a sense of community–of spectators cheering on the runners and offering water to all. It’s about personal best and fellowship. It’s one of the least divisive sporting events. Until a bomb goes off.

The Boston Marathon is both a local event and a global one. It is viewed around the world as those competing hail from all over. Today’s blast is not only an act of terror, instilling fear through violence, but it is horrifying. Bostonians and those visiting this great city have been terrorized. The rest of us watching from afar may also feel fear (terror) that there are more imminent attacks, and that they may not be limited to Boston. But what we all should feel is horror.

Violence may be endemic to the human condition, but we have transformed many of humanity’s ills and diminished the prevalence of violence from time to time. As we consider laws to reduce gun violence, there are simultaneous calls to arm teachers in schools to protect students. Many see the answer to violence as being better armed. This was the proposition behind the Cold War. More nuclear arms would prevent war. So how do we reconcile the need for safety with the need to go about our lives, and to prevent horrifying accidents?

Of course, this was no accident. This was terror–whether it was homegrown or international. Chaos and fear ensued, and disrupted a magnificent day. And there were many horrific injuries as well as a couple of deaths. We need to not only be safe from harm, but teach our children that violence is not a solution. We now have a generation who have grown up since 9/11 who are more exposed to violence from our two wars, multimedia, popular culture, and more demands for guns as an expression of freedom, rather than freedom from guns and violence.

We won’t be able to control or eliminate all acts of violence, random or planned, but we can teach our children that violence is horror, not freedom.