parenting

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He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Son

June 15, 2012 at 7:21 pm , by 

A year and a half.

Earlier this week, someone commented on this picture onFacebook:

“What a little man! Such a cutie!”

Swiftly I responded with, “Hey I’m 5′ 9″ and 156 pounds… I’m not thatlittle…”.

Turns out, the person was talking about my 18 month-old son, not me in a Ryan Seacrest sort of way.

As of a few weeks ago when my wife took him for his check-up, Jack weighed 27 pounds. He was in the 75th percentile for weight and 50th for height.

But I promise you, since then, it feels like he’s a sack of flour heavier.

It makes me wonder if it’s common at a year and a half for your kid to suddenly become “uncarriable.”

Gone are the days when I could physically carry him around the neighborhood for a 25 minute walk. That’s part of the reason we have the wagon, now.

And so much for holding him in the grocery store as my wife shops. Yeah, he definitely rides in the shopping cart.

Despite his vegetarian diet, Jack is one meaty little boy.

 

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The Non-Doofus Dad Awareness Ribbon

June 14, 2012 at 10:38 pm , by 

A year and a half.

I’m gonna say it: I’m suffering from “over-awareness awareness.”

What started out as noble and respectable causes, the use of awareness ribbons on cars and on the Internet has now officially jumped the shark.

Earlier this week I was driving behind a car displaying  a “zombie awareness” ribbon magnet, with an image of a rotten brain oozing out.

And another car promoting Labradoodle Awareness. Um, okay. I’m aware. Now what?

So I figured today, I might as well add to the noise. I hereby introduce to you the “Non-Doofus Dad Awareness” ribbon.

One of the re-occurring themes here on The Dadabase has always been an attempt to stigmatize the practice of making dads and husbands out to be idiots; especially in ads and sitcoms.

Yeah, remember the whole Huggies fiasco not too long ago? Oops.

This week more than one person forwarded me an article from Adweek entitled “The Demise of the Doofus Dad in Ads: A backlash against the bumbling father figure is paving the way for Superdad” by Heather Chaet.

It felt good to read such an on-target article reiterating what I’ve been saying for a long time. Here’s the meat of it:

“The garden-variety parent, regardless of gender, suffers from sleep deprivation, wrangles pickups for play dates and hopelessly dodges pointy little plastic things strewn across the kitchen floor…”.

Chaet goes on to point out in her article that for many parenting couples under the age of 30, Mommy is now making more money than Daddy:

“But as the family dynamic has changed, with more women becoming educated and entering the workforce and men sharing more of the load at home, the doofus dad—an increasingly extinct figure in the culture—nonetheless has remained a fixture in some ad campaigns.”

Like many Generation Y dads, I don’t make as much money as my wife; not to mention she has a Master’s Degree and I don’t.

So if I can’t be the main bread winner or the most educated, I at least want to know I can get one thing right these days: being a good dad.

Therefore, it’s never funny or cute for anyone (whether in my private life or on a TV commercial) to portray me as anything less than competent as a husband and father.

No, I don’t have to be drawn up like I’m Superdad. But just as I wouldn’t want my wife to be portrayed in a condescending manner in pop culture as a mom, I don’t want to be an outdated stereotype either.

It’s not just being represented as a Doofus Dad that annoys me. I also loathe being lumped into the categories of Dead-Beat Dad, Absentee Dad, or at best, Would-Rather-Watch-Sports-Than-Spend-Time-With-My-Kid Dad.

Two years ago, fellow Nashville blogger Jon Acuff brought to my attention a sadly familiar tradition in churches with his blog post, “The Wild Difference Between A Mother’s Day Sermon And A Father’s Day Sermon.” And I quote:

“One feels like a Lifetime movie, the other an episode of ‘Scared Straight,’ where high school students are forced to listen to convicts yell at them about their lives.”

So this is why I have created the Non-Doofus Dad Awareness Ribbon. Because I am proud to be a good dad. Iam not a doofus.

Sure, I’ve got my dorky side, but I’m a darn good dad; just like every dad out there reading this today.

Hey, it’s pretty much a given that if you read Parents magazine and The Dadabase, you’re automatically one of the good dads; representing the majority, not the stereotyped minority.

So like a kid on the playground trying to get his frenemy in trouble for cussing, I will make better effort to “out” the companies and organizations still doing those stupid dad-bashing ads.

At the risk of being considered a doofus, I am proudly displaying my Non-Doofus Dad Awareness Ribbon on myPinterest and Facebook.

You’re welcome to join me; all you fellow dads who are equally annoyed by these insulting concepts of husbands forgetting their wife’s birthday and being all grossed out over changing a dirty diaper.

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Daddy’s Roughhousing: Good Physically and Psychologically

June 12, 2012 at 7:57 pm , by 

A year and a half.

This morning while driving to work, I heard on the radio about an article on abcnews.com called “Roughhousing With Dad Crucial For Development, Say Researchers.”

My first reaction was “Oh, cool! I can write about that tonight. It proves the importance of dads playing rough with their kids.”

Fifteen seconds later it hit me: “But wait… duh!Doesn’t every dad already know that? Is that really even news?”

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“The researchers believe that the most important aspect of this play is that it gives children a sense of achievement when they ‘defeat’ a more powerful adult, building their self-confidence and concentration. However, fathers who resist their children, can also teach them the life lesson that, in life, you don’t always win. The act of a stronger adult holding back that strength also helps to build trust between father and child.”

I’m sorry to sound too 1993 with my use of the word “duh!” but I could have told you that.

In fact, I already did in my October 2011 Dadabase article entitled, “Bullying Prevention Month: Teaching My Infant Self-Defense” where I explained it this way:

“I play the big scary monster who hides behind the couch and charges towards him to give him a big ‘daddy hug.’ It’s a way for him to test his strength against mine, as he knows I’m no real danger to him. I’m simply his training coach.”

It’s always funny to me when we have to pay experts to confirm what the rest of us normal folks have known all along. No one had to tell me that each evening when my son invites me to wrestle with him on the blow-up mattress randomly (and unnecessarily) placed in the middle of our living room floor, he’s not simply wanting to burn off energy.

He is wanting to be re-enforced the truth that he has someone strong enough to protect him.

Sure, I scare him when I chase him down the hall pretending to be a ferocious lion: He laughs as he screams from the thrill.

When he feels my scratchy face against his, he is reminded that I provide power and strength for him.

I think C.S. Lewis shed some light on the subject in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

My wife’s job is to tenderize our meathead of a son. My job is to toughen him up. He likes getting the best of both worlds.

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My Toddler Son Is Turning Into A Real Boy

June 11, 2012 at 11:24 pm , by 

A year and a half.

It’s like I’m Geppetto and my son is Pinocchio. No, my son isn’t a wooden puppet; he’s an 18 month-old toddler. But he wants to be a real boy.

Yeah, he knows that technically he’s still considered a baby. But the way he aims to please his adult parents, the way he’s eager to mimic every random thing we do, the way he laughs when we laugh though he has no idea why it’s supposed to be funny…

He wants to be a real boy.

As I look through the dozens of photos I take of him each weekend, I can’t help but notice in certain ones, he looks so much older than he actually is.

But I say it’s no coincidence that those occasional “big boy pictures” serve as an appropriate representation of the percentage of him that is not simply a toddler, but a little boy.

Because that real boy is starting to show.

For the past couple of months I have heard my wife tell our son, “Make the face, Jack. Make the face.”

Evidently one day out of nowhere he started making his signature “surprised face” whenever I wasn’t in the room. Then when I finally did catch him doing it, I was never lucky enough to capture it on camera.

Until this past weekend.

These two rare pictures you see today are of “the face.”

Even though Jack never makes the face when he is actually surprised, he likes to do this new magic trick to entertain his parents; if for no other reason.

Even now, as I look at these pictures, it’s so obvious to me that this does not look like my toddler son from even just a month ago.

There must be something about crossing that 18 month mark that shows up in a child’s physical characteristics.

On Sunday we were at a friend’s birthday party and someone commented, “Wow, look at Jack’s hair. He has ‘little boy hair’ now!”

And I instantly knew what she meant.

I feel like, psychically, he’s grown up more in the past few weeks than any other time in his life so far. I know in reality that’s not the case, since they grow much quicker after they are first born. (Right?)

So enjoy these rare pictures of Jack truly looking like a real boy while moments like these are still rare. Because soon, he really will be a little boy full-time; not just part-time.

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Dad Approved: Free Printable Father’s Day Coupons!

June 11, 2012 at 8:20 pm , by