Worst Storylines Contest

Great competition over at Guide to Literary Agents! The competition is exactly what the title says…

Go check out some of the entries for a larf @ http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/The+Third+Worst+Storyline+Ever+Contest.aspx.

Mine are as follows:

1. Retired meditation instructor Willy Falvorian discovers there’s more in his navel than lint when his umbilical cord begins to grow back and claims to be the Messiah.

2. When a pack of dingos refuse to eat her baby, psychotic woman Helen Grinkel turns the tables by eating one of their pups, sparking a dingo-human war which in turn destroys the entire Australian EcoTourism market.

Get Ready to Rumble!

Here’s something I find fascinating. In every gathering of Dads I’ve run over the last three years, at least one guy in the room has said something like this:

“My wife/partner tells me off for wrestling with the kids. She says I’m teaching them to be violent…”

“My wife/partner won’t let me wrestle with the kids…”

“My wife/partner makes me feel guilty for wrestling with the kids, so I try not to do it anymore…”

And then each time the fella finishes his comment much the same way:

“…but I feel like it’s ok. So is it?”

My answer:

“Yes. It is.”

I could finish this there. But. Every answer has to be qualified. And then when you’re writing (or speaking), you feel like adding more of your opinion as well. So here it is…

It’s a very very healthy thing for a Dad to play-wrestle with his kids. (Notice I added play there?) We’re not talking about molestation. We’re not talking about Dads beating up on their children or pushing them around. We’re talking about play.

Kids NEED to be physically touched by both parents. And at various ages and for various reasons, it becomes uncool to kiss or cuddle with daddy. So then what’s a dad to do? And what’s a kid to do? Shake hands? Nahhhh, you grab each other around the shoulder and start rumbling.

One of the other things this achieves, particularly with boys, is that it’s a way of teaching them boundaries, of when they’ve crossed the line and getting too rough. For boys to pit their strength against a bigger stronger male is a valuable way of learning to empathize and control-self.

Alright. So you’re saying (or your missus is reading this and saying) “Who are you Pete? What do you know about it? Why should I believe you? What makes you the expert?”

Okay, if you don’t trust me, go read these articles below. Then google dads wrestling with children. Or you could meet my sons and see the real life effects of a decade of Dads and Sons play-wrestling. Yes, I’ve gotten a couple of fat lips and a fair few bruises (and they’ve gotten virtually none!), but my 13 year old still gives me a hug. They’re both empathetic human beings (except with each other!). And they both play rough games with their mates without it ever escalating… Anyway, go read these other articles.

And feel free to share your stories and objections and here-heres in the comments area.

• http://www.pacthawaii.org/images/hcdimages/HelpingDADSgetmoreinvolved.pdf (look at #3)
• http://www.dadmag.com/archive/060100mrsdad.php
• http://innerself.com/html/parenting/general/creating-a-happy-home.html (look at #20)

Slightly Related Posts:

• Covering All Bases parenting program
• Dads Influence Their Daughters’ Interest In Math
• Fear of Fun? Or Fear of Failure?
• Lord of the Love Languages

Comings and Goings

Been a busy year. Bet you know the feeling?

Amongst the busyness I’ve been:

• Trying my hand at short story writing, with 3 ‘rejections’ from magazines to my credit and one ‘maybe, we’ll have our editor take a look at it’
• Negotiating, negotiating, negotiating – with community groups and business to find the right service(s) for working dads to support them in their parenting / work-life balance. (We’re getting there – one company has signed me up to run 2 lunchtime seminars for Dads in the organisation).
• Playing taxi driver to two boys who play soccer, tennis and train in bass guitar and tap dancing. (Ok, the lady wife does the tap dancing taxi driving).
• Training out of school youth to get them jobs … and a vision for life.
• Jotting the odd article for other ‘zines: see Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man over at Family Capers.
• completing a Voice Over course … you never know, they may be MY dulcet tones you’re hearing on that documentary or commercial.

In amongst all this, the occasional event has taken me by suprise and reinforced my commitment to just being a solid father: knifing in a school, a primary (elemntary) school girl holding a knife to another’s throat, kids wrapping cars full of their friends around trees and telephone poles… and even the young people who turn up to my Wednesday/Thursday classes, who are good human beings who’ve been dealt a bad hand…

I’m doing my best to tune out from the busyness often. To tune in to my wife and kids. To watch youngest son while he’s showing me his latest tap dancing manoevre. To remember to ask oldest son on Thursday morning about something he told me would happen at school on Wednesday. To say “Sure I’ll come on the Melbourne City Romp with you” to oldest son and sacrifice a day to be with him.

I don’t think I’m getting an A for Attentive Parenting this semester, but hopefully the mark will be better than a D. Then again, who am I to even judge myself … as if parenting were a set of competencies you have to tick off to succeed at. We’re all making it up as we go along; parenting’s a moving target and with all the distractions of modern life, it’s a blue-eyed miracle (to quote Stephen King) that we ever hit anything.

So. How you doin’?