Category Archives: Masculinity

The art of taking it apart

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The collection of discarded and non-working gadgets has been growing so the boys and I gathered some of them together to do some creative deconstruction. We pulled up chairs to the work bench, gathered some screw drivers and other tools, and set about taking apart and exploring the old electronics. Primo took the screws out of a pair of computer speakers that no longer had any connection between the volume they put out and the position of the knob meant to adjust the sound. We cut the wires connecting the power supply to the circuit board and I had the boys tell me how they thought it worked. I’m not much of a flesh and bones techie but that didn’t really matter. We weren’t try to reverse engineer anything, rather we wanted to explore through destruction. We wanted to take apart the items on our table and see if we could put them back together if we needed to. Once we talked about how the speakers worked the boys started pulling off the transistors and capacitors with pliers.

Sometime down the road we will try to build simple machines but I want to get the boys correctly using tools and having fun taking things a part to see how they work. The more we take a part the more we see how similar things are inside and how the differences determine how the electronics work. I don’t know if they’ll catch the engineering bug like their Grandpa Tom Tom but I hope they will have a healthy knowledge of how things work and to fix the things they can. I also hope that they will see the art and creativity in how things are put together and how they come apart.

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Red Robin’s Jim Day

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Jimmy, James, Jimbo, or just plain Jim head on down to your local Red Robin Tuesday December 6th to get your free Sweet Jim Beam® Bacon Swiss Burger just for having the good fortune of a noble name. Just head over to their Facebook Event page and RSVP, bring your I.D. on Tuesday and eat up your free burger, it’s that easy.

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Red Robin and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

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Great reads for the expecting father

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Have you experienced the panic of the pink plus sign on that home pregnancy test you bought six of just to be sure? Feel wholly unprepared for the responsibility of fatherhood but don’t want to seem like a flake by talking about it with someone? Worried about all the million things that aren’t ready and never will be no matter how much time you have? Well have I got a resource for you! Over at the must read site Father Apprentice there is a collection of material from fathers that have been where you are now and mined a few nuggets along the way. In most of the posts the dads are no more than a couple of pages ahead in this fatherhood journey, but they have a lot of treasures to share about the road ahead. What to look out for and avoid, and what to make sure you cherish in all the chaos. So head on over to Father Apprentice and watch the videos, read the pro tips on swaddling, and see that none of us have all the answers, just some things we’ve learned so far.

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Getting clean in a manly way

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After a few toy offers and a smattering of books there was finally an offer for something that I could I try myself and not hand over to the boys for their take. Dove Men+Care sent me some manly cleaning products to try out and write about and while I have enjoyed the manly but understated scent and softer skin, it is really Beautiful that has benefited the most from this trial. With me taking the time to try out the lathering body and face wash I have emerged from the bathroom smelling and feeling much better then I had been previously. I was clean but smelled like her hair wash or worse, like the boys bubblegum scented bubble bath. I’m just not a big bathroom routine type of guy, choosing the two minute shower over the exfoliating body wash. After about a month of using the Dove Men+Care products I’m coming around. I like the feel and look of my skin, the subtle scent of the deodorant that lasts a good day or two, and really like the extra attention I get from Beautiful.

With the Dove Men+Care products I was also sent some tips that I think are good to know wether you are the metro-sexual man with elaborate routines, or the dirty Portland wannabe hipster stay at home dad:

Key insight from Dr. Benabio: With a plethora of new men’s products on the market, it’s important to be informed.

  1. Lather, rinse, simplify! Since some men don’t like using a loofah in the shower, it’s important to simplify the body washing process with a product that lathers easily, like Dove Men+Care Clean Comfort Body and Face Wash. The products are formulated using ultra-light micromoisture technology, a unique gel technology that activates on skin during lather to guard against discomfort.
  2. It’s ok to drop the soap. Guys often rely on a generic bar of soap (or worse, shampoo), to wash their body. These products are too harsh and strip essential oils from skin. Also, the dryness caused by soap is cumulative – the more you use it, the worse it becomes. Dove Men+Care Clean Comfort Body and Face Wash is clinically proven to fight skin dryness with no irritation or tightness.
  3. Don’t forget your feet. Feet are the most ignored body part in the shower, which can lead to Athlete’s Foot or staph. Prevention can be as easy as rubbing hand sanitizer on feet (especially before hitting a shower at your gym), which will kill off infections. (It’s important to rub in sanitizer for at least sixty seconds or until all the alcohol has fully evaporated for it to really work!)
  4. Leg sensitivity. The skin on your legs is particularly prone to eczema, winter dermatitis, and other forms of skin irritation so when you’re in the shower, use products like Dove Men+Care Sensitive Clean Body and Face Wash with a pH neutral formula that guarantees a gentle, comforting clean for men prone to skin irritations.
  5. It’s not the socks! Men often attribute dry skin on their feet to their socks. Since feet skin is sensitive and prone to dryness, it’s important to use a personal wash that thoroughly cleanses skin while fighting dryness, like Dove Men+Care Body and Face Bar, which contains Dove’s signature ¼ moisturizing cream.
  6. Choose a deodorant like you choose a mate. About half of men experience some form of underarm discomfort, which is usually the result of a harsh deodorant. It’s best to switch to deodorants that are non-irritating and/or hypoallergenic – try out a few different brands until you find one that works best with your skin. Dove Men+Care antiperspirants and deodorants, for example, are specifically formulated with non-irritating and hydrating ingredients to help combat dryness. (And never treat with rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to “disinfect” the trouble spots – the problem is almost never an infection, it’s usually a contact irritation.)
  7. Different seasons, different skincare needs. Your skin has alternating requirements, based on the season. Over the summer, it’s important to apply sunscreen to protect skin from the harsh summer sun, while in the winter, dryness becomes the big issue so be sure to moisturize often.
  8. Stealing from your wife (or girlfriend) is wrong. Many guys use their wife/girlfriend’s products because they are readily available, when products designed specifically for men are often less greasy and don’t contain fragrance. Dove Men+Care offers a technologically superior product line to provide solutions to men’s specific skincare needs. The personal wash is for men who prefer a mild, unscented body and face wash, and the deodorant/antiperspirants fight irritation and provide protection and underarm care specific to men’s needs.
  9. Locker room care. After sweating and getting tossed around on the field, sports equipment like football helmets will get dirty, which can lead to folliculitis or staph infections. To avoid infection, equipment should be cleaned with rubbing alcohol, a locker staple. And to minimize the items in your gym bag, it’s helpful to use products that serve multiple purposes, like Dove Men+Care Body and Face Wash, the #1 dermatologist recommended brand.
  10. The absolute essentials. Most men don’t want to spend significant time perfecting their grooming routine; these are the essential products for every guy, in order of importance – antiperspirant/deodorant, shampoo, body wash. You need a moisturizer in the winter, and a sunscreen in the summer. (And all can be found at the local drug store.)

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Dove Men+Care and received promotional products to test and write about.

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Less Testosterone, more manly

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Stay at home dads are already behind the eight ball with some folks who think they are less manly then working dads, but now there is research that shows this is actually true. Well less manly is a bit of a meaningless, undefinable statement but it turns out that once men become fathers there is a drop in testosterone that comes with the little bundle of joy. The drop is more pronounced in men that are the primary caregivers, in other words Stay at home dads. In a New York Times article on this study Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard who was not involved in the study hoped that this type of research would help fathers “realize that we’re meant to be active fathers and participate in the care of our offspring.” The lose of testosterone has a negative connotation in our society because it is thought of as making us wimpy or less desirable in some way but in truth it helps men become more in tune with the needs of their children. The study suggests that men become more committed to their families through hormonal changes and that those changes underscore that mothers are meant to have child care help.

So while this study looks like another blow to the manliness of at home dads, there is really another story to be told. One that most families with a stay at home dad already know, and that is that women aren’t the only ones that biologically adapt to take care of children. Children change our lives, our decision making, and our worries but also change us at a cellular level making us better care givers. What attractiveness is lost with the lowering of testosterone is more than made up for in watching us play and take care of the kids. There is nothing sexier than a man that can change a diaper, make a toddler lunch, and play silly games with his kids.

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The perks of the job are not the job itself

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Starting next week we officially have a kid in public school. Not only that, segundo starts preschool next week as well so two days a week from 9 AM to 11:30 AM I will not be responsible for any kids. That time off will be great but it starts me thinking about my value if I don’t have a kid to look after. I will have plenty to do but now, for this short period of time, it won’t be under the banner of also looking after the boys. I think the real problem I have with this is the expectation that Beautiful will now have for me to get more things done. I can’t say “I just didn’t have any time with the boys today” now that we both know I have at least 5 hours a week. I will have to find a way to work smarter not harder, so I can best utilize the time for myself, while still meeting the expectation of the warden.

I joke about Beautiful and her expectations but really she will admit that she is kind of terrible. She says things to me that no man would ever get away with saying to a stay at home mom. The other day when she came for lunch I was on the computer and she got frustrated, saying that when she sees me on the computer right when she gets home she just assumes thats all I’m doing all day, sitting around ignoring the kids. No this might be true some days but it was not true that day, and the idea that what I am doing in one moment representing my whole day is ludicrous. The idea that a man coming home and seeing his wife sitting on the couch, and then getting frustrated that she just sits on her ass all day starts to boil people’s blood. But this is essentially what my wife does to me every couple of weeks. She does immediately feel bad about it so it’s hard to get too upset.

Even when we have been the one at home and know the frustrations and chaos of the day we still picture hours of free time and a life of ease. Part of that is a short memory and part of that is knowing that its true at times. There are parts of the day when you don’t have anything going on, no toy dispute to mediate or counting game to play. There are times when the boys are playing together or taking a nap and I have hours of free time to do what I want. Well not what I want, I can’t leave and head to the local pub to catch a soccer game being played somewhere around the globe, but I can watch an illegal stream of that game on the couch while catching up on my reader. A good portion of my job is being available and in that availability there is some freedom to explore the space. The problem is those windows open at different times and can never be counted on. It is one of the perks of my job, the way free books while working at Wiley or cruises to Mexico when working at Softshare were perks. The perks are not the job itself so I get frustrated when it’s assumed that I sit around all day.

So I will find productive ways to fill this new found free time, but I will also take advantage of the perks of having two kids in school for a couple hours. I will take the long coffee break after dropping Segundo at preschool and then make sure that I get that compost pile sorted while I have the time. I will not feel bad for taking advantage of the benefits of being a stay at home dad, because I know there is a lot of hard work being done as well.

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After the acceptance, the conversations

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We have Wednesday Playgroups at the playground for the pre-school and now that I am on the board and the incoming Junior Class Rep it is now my job to engage parents in conversation even though some of them still assume I’m there to kidnap their kids. I’m getting better at, the conversation stuff. I find school choice to be a good jumping off point and then I wait to see where they are in the process. Having been through that, changed our minds two or three times, and settled on our imperfect neighborhood school I feel like a some things to add to that conversation. I know that the moms are getting a little more comfortable with me when they are OK with me pushing their kids on the swing. Since Segundo is addicted to swinging like some X-game athlete all hopped up on Mountain Dew and uppers, the other kids want me to underdog them and pretend to punch them in the face as they go by. I can work a 3-5 year old room like Dean Martin at The Sands.

I think I’m OK at the conversations but Beautiful would kill in this environment. She can immediately connect and engage with people on a level I need months, if ever, to get to. When we were at the graduation BBQ in the park I had multiple moms coming up to me to tell me how great my wife is, all of them I’m sure wondering what she was doing with me. I’m learning the dance of conversation from her and fumbling through the steps. I am clunky and awkward at times but the practice is paying off and I can see choreography coming together. The play dates give me plenty of practice time and soon the acceptance of the swings will outnumber the moms creeped out at a dude at the playground in middle of the day.

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Portland Reads: The Other Wes Moore

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As parents we talk about the importance of reading to kids and set up all sorts of metrics of how much, when, and what books but another part of the equation is you reading as well. While it is hugely important that we read to kids, they will do what we do, so it is important that we read as well. With all the blogs and RSS feeds we collect in our Readers we are consuming a ton of words but nothing beats holding that book in your hands on a quiet night while the family gathers together their respective reading material and reads. I know this easy to say as some one who loves books and even likes to read. The love of books comes first and the reading of them second. I was wandering around a bookstore last night and just running my fingers over the jackets and pages of the books on the shelves like they were intricate fabrics that needed to be felt to experienced fully.

The library has a community reading project that starts with the question “What if everybody read the same book?” The idea is that we would talk about issues brought up by the book as well as celebrating the power of books to draw us together. The program is called everybody reads and the book that we are reading in Portland is called The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. The Other Wes Moore is the story of two men from Baltimore with the same name and similar backgrounds that grew up to be very different men. The author is a Rhodes Scholar and Investment banker who became intrigued by a story on the news searching for a man named Wes Moore who was wanted for a jewelry store robbery gone wrong. The other Wes Moore grew up on the same streets with no father and ended up in prison serving a life sentence.

As a huge fan of the TV show The Wire I was drawn to this story of corner boys from West Baltimore that this book told. The scenes were recognizable and familiar but the magnitude seemed some how bigger. The book shows scenes from the two men’s life from eight different years. In the first few chapters they seem to mirror each other, both losing their fathers, both getting into trouble on the streets, and both struggling in school. There is a change where one life keeps getting worse and one changes dramatically but the reasons why are not as clear and easily defined. The main question the Author gets is what exactly was the difference in their lives that lead them down these two different paths and it is not a question easily answered.

I look forward to going to a book discussion here in Portland to talk about the issues brought up by this book and would recommend this book especially to fathers and fans of The Wire. The absent father plays a huge role in both boys lives and that touches on a subject I want to do more to address.

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Communication is more than just listening well

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I was reading this funny post over at The Hubby Diaries where the writer was pointing out just how much her husband tunes her out unless she uses the words food, or sex. I know this is an accurate look at most men in relationships but why is that? I feel like my wife and I have come a long way in learning how to communicate with each other and it has more to do with just listening to her.

My wife is an external processer so when she is trying to work something out she talks about it, a lot. I’m much more of an internal processer, coming to a resolution on something internally before saying anything. When she starts to say what it is that is bothering her, or what she is thinking about I respond right away to those first few things she says and they really aren’t the issue. She needs to start talking to get to the heart of the issue, while I need space to come to it on my own. Learning how to communicate for us meant allowing the other the space they needed without stepping on it, and for me that was talking more, and her talking less.

I had to learn to talk to my wife without trying to resolve everything that she said, or respond to her every word. Communication meant really listening to her as she started to work out her thoughts and asking relevant questions to try and zero in on the crux of the issue. My wife had to learn to not ask as many questions and to give me space to talk without finishing my sentences or peppering me with too many questions. It is a dance, like so many other aspects of relationships and we each have different steps to teach. So much of learning to communicate is learning to be less selfish and more open to other and I think we have a long way to go but we are both really trying.

Too many times this picture of the husband tuning out the wife is the comedic norm. Wether it is the selfish husband who is too selfish to learn the steps, or the nagging wife that uses words like a blunt instrument there is room for growth on both sides. Men need to be better about really listening to their partners and responding. That is communication, not just listening but adding to the conversation.

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