the tindog coffeehouse

Yesterday, I did the unthinkable. I volunteered to coach my daughter’s soccer team. Which I may have to do by myself with no assistant. And I’m still on crutches with a fractured tibia. And I’ve never coached anything in my life.

I’m an idiot.

In all fairness, though, practice starts in less than a week, and Megan’s team still had no coach. And without a parent stepping up to coach, there’s no team. I couldn’t let that happen. And besides, I got pretty nostalgic thinking about coaching her since my dad coached my soccer team when I was little. (We were the Kongs, as in King Kong. Yeah, we were some bad ass 6-year-olds.)

So here goes, um, something. Good or bad, it’s bound to epic.

Previously:
August, you suck too
Goodbye, July

Confession: I get teary-eyed every time I hear the Jars of Clay song “Boys (Lesson One)”, a series of instructions for life from a father to his sons.

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Lesson one – do not hide
Lesson two – there are right ways to fight
And if you have questions
We can talk through the night

So you know who you are
And you know what you want
I’ve been where you’re going
And it’s not that far
It’s too far to walk
But you don’t have to run
You’ll get there in time

Lesson three – you’re not alone
Not since I saw you start breathing on your own
You can leave, you can run, this
Will still be your home

So you know who you are
And you know what you want
I’ve been where you’re going
And it’s not that far
It’s too far to walk
But you don’t have to run
You’ll get there in time
Get there in time

In time, to wonder where the days have gone
In time, to be old enough to
Wish that you were young
When good things are unraveling
Bad things come undone
You weather love and lose your innocence

There will be liars and
Thieves who take from you
Not to undermine the consequence
But you are not what you do
And when you need it most
I have a hundred reasons why I love you

If you weather love and lose your innocence
Just remember – lesson one

Happy Father’s Day!

Previously:
Defining ‘manhood’

Like a lot kids, I grew up without a father around. My parents divorced when I was six, and my dad moved out of town for work a couple of years later. I still kept in touch with him as I grew up, but it was hard not having him in my day-to-day life. I’ve struggled most of my life to figure out what it takes to be a man, what it means to be a husband and a father. And I think it’s fair to say that at some point in his life, every man wrestles with those same questions, wondering whether he’s good enough or strong enough or smart enough or whatever. The problem is, we don’t really have a good way to determine that.

We have this general notion of “manliness” as being tough, rugged, battle-hardened, and unemotional, and there may be some historical basis for that. As the Art of Manliness points out, such traits were the result of living in a harsh environment with scarce resources:

In a tribe or a society that faced issues of scarcity, where the danger of being attacked by wild animals or human enemies constantly threatened, men were needed to step up and take on the role of hunters, warriors, and protectors. Because of men’s greater physical strength and assertiveness, the lot for these jobs fell naturally to them. But while men may have some natural proclivities to embrace these roles, putting one’s self in harm’s way does not come naturally to either sex. Thus cultures needed a way to prod men into embracing roles which were undesirable but essential to the survival of the tribe.

In such a scenario, “manhood” isn’t so much about proving your worth but about simple survival, and therefore the evidence of a person’s manhood is pretty obvious. But we don’t live in such a society now. Very few of us know what real scarcity is, and while we may venture out every morning to go earn a paycheck, that’s hardly the equivalent of hunting for that day’s meal. Plus, many women do the same jobs as men and often earn at least as much or more than their husbands.

Further complicating matters is the fact that divorce and single-parenthood are so common. About 40% of the children born in the United States are born out of wedlock, and half of all children in the U.S. will live in single-parent households at some point before they turn 18.

The result is that traditional gender roles tend to get muddled. Boys raised without a father or older male mentor have no idea what being a man really means. They don’t know how to be husbands or fathers or leaders within the community. And without that guidance, they can struggle their whole lives with a sense of insecurity, never really sure of whether they’ll ever be able to measure up completely.

As Donald Miller writes in To Own A Dragon:

I spent a lot of time believing I wasn’t a man because I didn’t like football analogies, or because I didn’t want to put a cheesy bumper sticker on my car, or, well, because I didn’t have a father. In a way, the guys who are promoting this approach to manhood are pretty innocent. I realize they are just trying to keep guys from yelling at their wives. But when those tactics hit my insecurities, they created a twinge. To tell a guy who grew up without a father that he is not a man unless… and he will automatically assume he isn’t one.

So if we’re not having to hunt for scarce resources for survival and we don’t always have adult male mentors to guide us, how then can we really define modern-day “manhood”? How is a man to know if he is really a man? Miller concludes that “manhood” can, in its simplest terms, be defined in purely anatomical terms; if you’re a male, then you’re a man.

But I think it’s more complicated than that. Miller is absolutely correct that manhood isn’t necessarily defined by a propensity for sports or cars or action movies, but there has to be some way to differentiate manhood from boyhood, to let us know when we’ve passed that threshold from child to adult. And I think The Art of Manliness has probably the best definition I’ve ever seen (emphasis mine):

There are two ways to define manhood. One way is to say that manhood is the opposite of womanhood. The other is to say that manhood is the opposite of childhood.

The former seems to be quite popular, but it often leads to a superficial kind of manliness. Men who ascribe to this philosophy end up cultivating a manliness concerned with outward characteristics. They worry about whether x,y, or z is manly and whether the things they enjoy and do are effeminate because many women also enjoy them.

I subscribe to the latter philosophy. Manhood is the opposite of childhood and concerns one’s inner values. A child is self-centered, fearful, and dependent. A man is bold, courageous, respectful, independent and of service to others. Thus a man becomes a man when he matures and leaves behind childish things.

The apostle Paul essentially said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 13:

For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

Manhood, then, is not just anatomical, and I think it goes beyond mere emotional maturity. It is a choice, a conscious decision to take responsibility for who we are, for our actions, and for our attitudes. Sometimes that transition may involve a specific rite of passage, but more often I think it’s a tedious process, a lifelong series of rites played out daily, weekly, and monthly.

And as I’ve learned, the hardest part of that process is just realizing that it exists.

Previously:
Manly skills
Economist: Marriage is ‘necessary for good economic development’
Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion

On Wednesday I volunteered at my daughters’ elementary school. It wasn’t the first time I had done so, but for some reason I think I was more aware of what I was seeing, a lot of it good and a lot of it really frustrating.

First off, the third, fourth, and fifth grades are in the process of preparing for the TAKS test scheduled for the end of the month. They’ve already spent weeks taking various practice tests and benchmarking tests, and Wednesday my daughter’s third-grade class spent most of their time going back through a recent practice test and correcting their answers. And this pattern will continue for another two weeks. Because the TAKS scores are the very lifeblood of public schools in the state, every school district in Texas obsesses over the test to the point that it seems like they’re more interested in the test scores than in the actual quality of education that those scores are meant to reflect.

Then came lunch. I guess after having recently watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution show (in which the chef sets out to make West Virginia’s public school menus healthier), I was more attuned to what I saw in the cafeteria. If a student chooses to buy their lunch, they’re given a choice between several entrees plus a couple of side dishes and a fruit dessert. They’re required to have at least three items, including entree, so many kids take a vegetable and fruit but then don’t eat it. Instead, they purchase extra chips, ice cream, or slushees and eat those as their lunch.

As for the food options, the entrees often consist of chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and pizza, while the “vegetable” sides often include french fries or tater tots. Wednesday’s menu included entree choices of a chicken quesadilla, chicken nuggets, barbecue chicken, or baked potato, and the sides included baked beans, broccoli, and macaroni salad. Most kids, of course, went straight for the nuggets, and I didn’t see anyone brave enough to try the macaroni salad. (Also, by the time I went through the line with the third-graders, the school had already run out of broccoli, so that wasn’t even an option, even if the kids would’ve eaten it.)

I understand, of course, that school districts have very limited budgets, and as anyone who has tried to eat healthy knows, healthier food costs more than unhealthy crap. But there’s certainly room for improvement. If nothing else, it sends a very mixed message to kids: posters all over the cafeteria promote making healthier choices while they serve donuts and waffle sticks for breakfast and Funyuns for lunch.

The biggest frustration, though, was with the kids themselves. Or should I say their parents. It’s pretty easy to read elementary-aged kids. After spending a few minutes with them, you can pretty much tell what kind of home life they have: whether they get generous portions of affection and discipline from their parents, whether their parents are invested in their education, what kind of morals their being taught at home, and how physically and emotionally healthy their home life is. I saw a lot of really young, really overweight kids. Kids with major disciplinary issues. Kids struggling to keep up academically and failing miserably. I’d look at one student’s work and see an effort on par with their grade level and then look at the student next to them and see illegible chicken scratch.

The problem is that time after time, parents are refusing to do the job of parenting. They don’t discipline their kids, they don’t help them with their homework, they don’t sit down at the dinner table each night (over a moderately healthy meal) and talk to them, ask them about their day, invest their time in them. Instead, they put them on a bus to school, expecting the schools to be the parent. The health problems, discipline problems, academic problems — ultimately those are the parents’ responsibility, not the school’s.

Not everything I saw was bad, though. I saw a school full of teachers that still have a real passion for teaching. Numerous parents dropping their kids off with hugs and kisses, some of whom returned later to have lunch with them. And myself, just one of an army of dads who take off work to volunteer at the school throughout the year, not because we have to but because we genuinely care. And of course the countless smiles of kids who felt loved, safe, and appreciated.

It’s easy to pick on the things that are wrong with the public schools, but at the same time it’s completely unreasonable to expect them to be perfect. Undoubtedly, there are things that need to be fixed, but at least based on what I saw, the good far outweighs the bad. I believe that most schools really are doing their best, however they can only do so much. At the end of the day, the rest is up to us as parents.

Previously:
The Texas State Board of Education name game
Academic freedom amendment isn’t necessary
Should evolution be debated in public schools?

Continuing with this week’s theme of teaching atheism to kids, how ’bout some new tunes from They Might Be Giants? The ’80s-era nerd band has released a new CD and DVD aimed at children called Here Comes Science, which includes a song called “Science Is Real” that equates angels with unicorns (video on the CD’s Amazon page here):

I like those stories
About angels, unicorns, and elves
Now, I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
Science is real

And to think I wasted my youth on songs like “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. Instead, I could’ve been learning about simple and abstract knowledge through the power of scientific fact!

From Wired:

“Although it wasn’t designed to create controversy, it’s still a big relief to me that the opening track, ‘Science Is Real,’ didn’t raise any red flags with the label,” the 49-year-old Flansburgh told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. “The song freely acknowledges the Big Bang and evolution, and casually conflates angels with unicorns and elves, which might bug some anti-science, pro-angel folk.”

I guess I fall into the category of “pro-angel folk” although I’m certainly not anti-science. But yes, I would say the song bugs me. I’m all for science, don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for teaching kids about the elements, solar system, and other topics covered on the CD. But as a Christian, I don’t agree with parents teaching kids that angels (and by extension, God) don’t exist or that humans evolved from apes.

Besides, isn’t that what the public schools are for?

Previously:
Kids camp for atheists
Should evolution be debated in public schools?
Bill would protect the grades of students who disagree with evolution

I’m not sure quite what to make of this story in the Dallas Morning News about a Collin County camp for children of atheists, agnostics, and “free thinkers”:

In many ways, the one-day event looked more like science camp than a gathering of children who had grown up without a god.

The campers, ages 5 to 15, played with llamas and kangaroos, examined fossils and staged their own UFO sightings.

Their counselors refrained from bringing up religion directly, though they encouraged the kids to embrace scientific skepticism.

Many of the parents had more modest goals, hoping their children would have some fun – and maybe make a few friends from among North Texas’ small but growing community of nonbelievers.

I don’t know what’s more tragic, that a camp like this exists or the part about the “growing community of nonbelievers”.

It’s one thing, I guess, when an adult says they’re an atheist. But seeing them pass down their rejection of God to their children is especially heartbreaking. Then again, I suppose they would say the same about me and how I raise my kids. The consequences, though, are much different in their case.

(And yes, if you’re keeping score at home, this makes two consecutive atheism-related posts. Who knows, maybe I’ll try for the hat-trick tomorrow.)

My kids love games. One of their favorites is something they simply refer to as the “circle game.”

The circle game is a large, round tin box filled with marbles, chess and checkers pieces, pick-up sticks, dice, and Parcheesi pieces, with boards for each game printed on the inside and outside of the box. I know the girls got it as a gift at some point, but for the life of me, I can’t remember from whom.

Whenever we sit down to play, I usually suggest Chinese checkers, or if it’s just the two of us, regular checkers. But almost always, the “game” ends up being some convoluted make-it-up-as-they-go-along product of the girls’ imaginations. Roll a die and pick up that number of marbles. Once you have so many marbles, you get a green pick-up stick. If you get a yellow pick-up stick, you have to put it back and get a red checker instead. Put all the marbles in one pile and all the checkers in another pile, then dump everything back in the can and stir it up with your stick. (OK, so now we’re making soup?)

I used to groan at the random nonsense of it all, but then I realized that I wasn’t teaching them as much as they were teaching me.

When I look at this box of game pieces, I see Chinese checkers, chess, Parcheesi — specific games with set rules and guidelines. When they look at it, they see a collection of raw ingredients that can be used in an infinite number of ways.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowly lost the ability to imagine, to see the various possibilities. I’ve been conditioned to go to work, do my job, pay the bills, check off the to-do list, and never, ever deviate.

Not them. At least not yet.

To Megan, a scrap piece of paper is a canvas on which to create her latest masterpiece. To Erin, a plastic harmonica case is the perfect container for her partially sucked-on peppermint stick. Megan happily sleeps with her baby blanket, even though she outgrew it years ago. And Erin pours out compassion on her dollar-store teddy bear who is abnormally flat.

They each walk to the beat of their own drummer, and in each in their own way. And I hope that never changes.

I guess I need to learn how to stop taking life so seriously, to let go of the things I don’t have any control over and appreciate the things I have. The job, the bills, all the responsibilities that go along with being an adult, those things are still important. But that doesn’t mean I have to stress out over everything either. After all, it’s just a game, right?

According to Maria Sophia Aguirre, an economics professor at Washington DC’s Catholic University of America, families with married parents are not only more beneficial to the overall health and development of the children, they are necessary for good economic development.

Aguirre noted, “the breakdown of the family is a symptom of a sick and weak society.”

Problems of all sorts increase in irregular families: Women are more likely to be abused, kids are more likely to use drugs, and women and children of broken families have a higher probability of living in poverty. …

Giving a review of nations ranging from Canada to Chile, the economist concluded that families are simply better for the economy.

“The breakdown of the family damages the economy and society since human, moral and social capital is reduced and social costs increase,” she explained.

Divorce is unfortunately a painful reality, and in many cases it can’t be avoided. But at the same time, we’re living in a culture that places less and less value on marriage.

• The divorce rate in the United States is somewhere between 40 and 50%, one of the highest percentages in the world.
• The U.S. has the highest percentage of single-parent families among all developed nations (34% as of 1998).
• 41% of unmarried partner households in the U.S. have children under 18 living in them, and 33% of all births are to unmarried women.

But as Aguirre points out, simply having dinner together as a family has significant benefits, even for single-parent households:

Academic performance went up 38%. Kids were 142% less likely to smoke, 93% less likely to drink, 191% less likely to use marijuana and 169% less likely to have more than half of their friends be drug users.

I can personally attest to this. Like many kids, I grew up in a single-parent household and spent a lot of my childhood alone. While I never smoked or used drugs, I can say for sure that I struggled academically and socially a lot more than I would’ve with both parents around.

The bottom line should be pretty clear: A nation has its best chance for survival and prosperity when its children grow up to be responsible and capable adults, and children have their best chance at becoming responsible and capable adults when they grow up with loving parents who invest their time in them.

Previously:
Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion

We were watching TV the other night, and a Barack Obama commercial came on. Then out of the blue, I hear a small, angelic voice announce, “That’s who I voted for!”

Huh?

Turns out the girls’ elementary school held a mock election, and Megan and Erin both voted for Obama over McCain.

Interesting.

I asked them why they voted for Obama. Megan didn’t know. Erin (the angelic one who made the announcement) said it was because she liked him. I guess that’s about the most political analysis you’re going to get out of a five-year-old.

The school hasn’t announced the winner of the mock election yet, but Obama did win Nickelodeon’s online Kids Pick the President poll (51% to 49%). (The poll has been run every election year since 1988 and has correctly predicted the winner in 4 out of 5 races.)

Erin’s proclamation reminded me of when I was in first grade way back during the 1980 election. I don’t remember voting, but I do remember hearing an announcement over the intercom that Ronald Reagan had won. I was so happy, but I honestly don’t know why. Maybe it was something I had picked up from my parents or TV. Maybe I just knew how great a president he would be.

Since we certainly haven’t endorsed Obama, I don’t think the girls would’ve picked him because of us. My guess is, it has more to do with aesthetics. Obama is a tall, slender 47-year-old while McCain, at 72, is battle-scarred and about 7 or 8 inches shorter than his opponent. And since 1900, the taller candidate has won two-thirds of the time.

So the good news is, the girls’ votes don’t necessarily indicate a life-long affinity for Democrats. But the bad news is, they probably correctly picked the winner of the real election.

Exactly what are they teaching in school these days?

Megan brought home her 2nd-grade spelling homework last night, and one of the words was “mace”. She had to practice writing it and then write a sentence that included the word.

Me: “Does that say ‘mace?’”
Her: “Yeah.”
Me: “Are you sure?”
Her: “Yeah.”
Me: “Did your teacher tell you what it meant?”
Her: “No. What does it mean?”
Me: “Uh, well… It’s a weapon, like a club. You hit people with it.”
Her: Confused look.

The sentence she came up with? “I got hit by a mace.”

And they say video games are violent!

(And yes, we did verify with her teacher that it was not a typo. And no, the teacher didn’t pick the word.)

Economics, at its heart, is the study of how people make choices when dealing with scarce resources, and no where is that more evident than at Chuck E. Cheese.

We promised Megan that we would take her to the pizza playground when she learned to ride her bike. She picked it up quickly on Monday night, so last night we held up our end of the deal.

We divided the tokens equally between her and Erin and let them pick which games they wanted to play. But we tried to explain that if you play the games which pay out in tickets, you’ll be able to be able to buy stuff at the counter later. They eventually came around and they ended up with a total of about 100 tickets.

With each girl having 50 tickets to spend, the choices of course were very limited. Megan chose a rubber snake (20 tickets), a plastic frog (10 tickets), and a flower-shaped yo-yo (20 tickets). Erin chose a pack of candy (40 tickets) and a barrette (10 tickets).

At the end, even though each girl was able to choose their own prizes, neither was completely happy. Erin was mad because Megan got three things and she only got two, and Megan was unhappy that Erin got candy and she didn’t.

And those, my friends, are what we call opportunity costs.

There was a lengthy debate a few days ago on USA Today’s PopCandy blog about the all-time worst sitcoms. Most of the shows mentioned (Mr. Belvedere, Small Wonder, My Two Dads, etc.) were shows from the ’80s and early ’90s. Very few readers mentioned shows from the ’60s or ’70s, likely because those were before their time.

As a child of the ’80s, I grew up on shows like Happy Days, Scooby-Doo, The Dukes of Hazzard, and WKRP in Cincinnati, as well as classics such as The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, and The Munsters. (Yes, I watched entirely too much TV growing up.) I played with GI Joe and Star Wars toys but never made it very far in Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. I rode my Big Wheel up and down the block without adult supervision and caught horny toads in the vacant lot next door.

Now that I’m a father, I’ve come to the realization that my daughters won’t share many of these same memories. They have no idea who the Fonz is or what New Coke tastes like. They’ve never ridden in the wayback of a station wagon, recorded anything to a cassette tape, or changed channels with a pair of pliers because the knob broke off, and they don’t care.

So what things will they be nostalgic for when they’re parents? Hanna Montana? High School Musical? Shrek? Will they talk about the first time they broke 200 on Wii Bowling or laugh about how slow the Internet was? Will they tell their kids about growing up when people still used gas in their cars and it was only $4 a gallon?

And I wonder: Did my dad ever feel this way because I don’t know the words to the Davy Crockett theme, can’t recite any of the Smothers Brothers routines, and don’t have any interest in baseball trading cards?