Masculinity and the Post-Gift-Shop Meltdown

A few weeks ago a close friend, after relating a story about her father's stoicism, advised (or pleaded), "Please tell me you are not going to close off all your emotions, when you get older, okay?" I held my tongue. It was not that I was intent on avoiding emotional expression of any sort. It is more a matter of not knowing what is the right level, amount or timing of emotions to express. At the same time, there was concern that the request may have come too late. To an extent, Marshall McLuhan's adage about fish being the last to discover water may apply to my ability to discern what emotions to express honestly or what the cultural expectations are for men or perhaps distinguish it from what it used to be.  Last night I came across a New York Times article from earlier this year on the challenge of men becoming or remaining emotionally honest.

I could cite my tendency (ability?) to shed a tear when sitting in the dark screen-rapt solitude of a movie theatre or how certain music in my possession can essentially take me out of commission for a couple of hours, but that is not evidence of emotional openness or honesty. My response to those inputs and in other instances my ability to articulate a response to something does not necessarily ensure ongoing emotional honesty as a man. There have been times when I have muted or walled-up my emotions out of a sense of propriety or a sense of preserving a decorum, but it is hard to determine what pressures or pain points I was giving into when closing myself off. Those cautions have made me wonder if a mode of communication has gone unpracticed, however, and left me wondering if I would be prepared to speaking openly and conscious enough of my intuitions when someone dear or important to me needs to hear what I have to say while I'm thinking it would be off-base or inappropriate.

With the question how emotionally honest I am in my thoughts and the New York Times piece opening with the account of a father's insistence that his toddler son tough it out through his vaccinations until the child seems to be transformed for the worse into an emotion-oppressing he, I have to take pause and wonder if I'm doing the same as this father in my own way.  That induction into masculinity, with all of its rigour to mute sensitivities and don a "masculine" facade is something I cannot pull off, was something that I dreaded for so long that I can recall saying around a campfire twenty-two years ago that I dreaded the possibility of being father to a son.  I sensed or hoped that being a father to a daughter may have given me better odds at asserting influence on masculinity.  Playing a protective role and gradually providing the model that a daughter would seek in a future husband seemed to have better odds than trying to steer a lad through that minefield of masculine BS.

I recall holding out the hope that Gabriel would be a more sensitive and reflective lad but laughed at the moment he dashed that notion.  He propped up next to me on the sofa one afternoon as a few-month-old and suddenly launched himself head-first to the floor.  This little guy was going to be getting scrapes and scratches, bruises and boo-boos and lots of them. The chatty, heartbreaking extrovert was going to be leading me into new territory.

Gabriel has had his share of tears, on occasions when a band-aid will ease the day, but there are more occasions when he is not getting something he wants. If he doesn't get something he wants he will cry (popcorn, Lego, more TV...) and he does not take our "no's" very well.  We are not quite inclined to put a stop to those tears, but we do want to make it clear that those occasions are not going to be won be waterworks and sobs. We are conscious of spoiling him and would not want to let his tears earn a harvest of things that he doesn't really need to have.

I realize though that there are too many occasions when I try to control a situation when his emotions are strongest and that my impulse is to find the more expedient route and get him into bed, or get on with the next part of the day without dawdling over whatever mood or curiosity has taken him off course.

Today on holidays, the closing ample through the gift shop did just what it was supposed to do and the emotionally honest thing might have been to shake my fist at the owner-operators of the Enchanted Forest with abandon for their cynical eye for harvesting the pockets of parents with the crap they have for sale. (I digress...) By the time we got out of the gift shop (fist shake again), Gabriel was intent on having popcorn at whatever expense. We told him no. The lesson I learned today was not to simply say no and let him know that he's been good and that we are not punishing him, but simply that the popcorn is not the thing for him on an empty stomach.  The remaining walk to the car was one of great resistance as the lad simmered over and peaked with him slamming the door open into his mother. Dad the Expedient intervened with a grab of the arm and things boiled over.

With the article in mind, I knew this was not the time to tell him the tears were not going to get him anywhere. At this point, the emotions were too countless to sort through: anger, guilt, pain, hunger and a sense of being denied what he thought he deserved.  I pulled myself together after realizing that he was not going to sort through all of those and articulate his understanding of what happened or what his motivations were.  We sat down in the grass for a few minutes and he cried himself out. As he calmed down I tried to help him sort out what he was going through and what he was feeling. For him, the popcorn was still the priority, something that makes me think that we need to work through the challenges of dealing with his guilt and taking responsibilities for what he did out of anger. Perhaps, in good time, a little more practice and the assurance that the truth will not always lead to unwelcome consequences we will help Gabriel ensure the widest possible range of emotions comes out as they are required.

We'll sort it out.

Three-Wheel Metaphor

In my own case, riding a bike began the spring I was seven. A green bike glimmered in the backyard when I returned home from catechism on a Saturday morning, its banana seat and the high Harley-style handlebars of the era the clear features of that vehicle.  That year there were no strider bikes or trailer bikes and this bike offer training wheels either.  I rode and fell, rode and fell and even rode and spared myself a scrape or two by getting my feet off the pedals and to the ground before an elbow or knee met its fate with gravity. Looking back it seems like it was the whole summer but in reality it may have only been a few days and I was getting into trouble for venturing out of the backyard and into the tentative residential traffic of Courtney Road.

Forty-plus years later, Gabriel is starting earlier than I had. He has already had a spin or two on a strider bike (although I'm more proud of his ability to out-run a kid using a strider in the playground this past "winter") but the bike has never really come up on his radar yet and he hasn't pleaded for bike time yet. However, this summer will be the one that we remember for the trailer bike. On Father's Day my wife and I had out mountain bikes fixed after being abandoned to the storage room after one or two spins in 2008 or 9. The plan was to get back out there and introduce Gabriel to riding via a trailer bike that friends were handing down since their daughter had graduated to her own mountain bike.

After picking up the bikes and walking them home, I learned that the trailer had incidentally been offered to someone else. (I can't recall if we were asleep at the switch or if the bikes was offered spontaneously.) A week later, the trailer was back on its way to us and we were quite self-conscious about how it ended up back on its way to our possession. I worried that there was a confession and a request for return. The first rumour that made its way to us was that the child it was intended for did not adapt to the trailer and that it was willingly returned. The actually story was that our friends' daughter reclaimed the bike with a from-the-mouths-of-babes announcement of the original plans for the trailer bike.

All that build-up was beside the point, however. Gabriel has taken to the trailer bike with great enthusiasm and little risk of bruise or scrape thus far. He has enjoyed his rides from the trailer regularly announces from his rumble seat position that it is the greatest thing ever.

The front position, for me at least, has felt more challenging. The addition of about 60 pounds of lad and trailer make the manoevering of the bikes a bit more uncertain. Turns require more thought and calculation to ensure that things go smoothly and I don't spill the lad to the street. Inclines and stops pose their challenges too, and there is the sense of impending lurch that makes me conscious of how close we are to oncoming traffic.

All of this occurring while every move and tweak in the seat behind me is transmitted to me by the aluminum tether that binds us. It is a little nerve wracking to feel that shift in weight behind me and not know what the lad is doing to cause it. I was never sure how well he was balanced behind me. As each wobble came through me, I tried to compensate with my weight and experience to keep things steady. There were times when his curiosity prompted him to look away rather than keep his eyes focused ahead. There were others when he was standing on his pedals or had his elbows on the handlebars instead of his hands. Each of these challenged me to steady myself and assert the calm and balance to get us through and keep us straight and safe.

When he was doing something that made things unsteady -- as he tried to find his balance and shore up his wavering attention span -- as we proceeded forward I gave into the urge to admonish him for the imbalance I was feeling. I wasn't always sure what it was he was doing and there were times when I yelled without know what he was actually up to. By the end of the first ride, I realized that it was best to keep steady and provide the balance and example he needed while he sorted himself out and learned what he needed so that he could strike out on his own without me able to worry about him from my seat with the incomplete view.

That about sums it up, doesn't it?