Monthly Archives: March 2011

Habitrails to You

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

I don’t like rodents as a rule. Anything related to a rat gives me the willies and I have been known to run like a scared deer from anything that even looks like it could mistake me for a chunk of cheese.

This is why I did not want a hamster in my home. Just because it’s only a cousin to the type of creatures that inspired horror films like Willard didn’t mean I wanted its scurrying feet and twitching nose under my roof.

So I persistently said no to my middle son, Jacob, despite his annual requests for a hamster. I agreed to the countless goldfish that came home from carnivals. I said yes to the two hermit crabs. I had no problem with the Sea Monkeys. All these animals required low maintenance and posed no imminent threat of busting out of their bowls to gnaw on my ear in the middle of the night.

Yet, this year, my son came home one evening with a huge smile and a tiny gift.

“You – bought – a hamster,” I said haltingly to my son and his grandmother, who had no inkling of my aversion to said rodent.

“Daddy, he’s really cute! Look — ” he replied as he opened the box.

Reluctantly, I peered into the carton, half expecting to see the thing bare its famous two sets of incisors at me with murder in its beady eyes.

What I found was a puff of honey-colored fur that my son could not stop cooing over. And by the time Jacob and his grandparents had set up the Habitrail so that little Bijou could run enthusiastically on her red wheel, I felt mildly accepting of our new family member.

Over the next three months, I overcame my fears about hamsters because of Bijou. I giggled with the kids as she ran through the house in the plastic ball. I took to feeding her treats and even held her occasionally.

Most of all, I appreciated the way Jacob prized her as his very own. He talked to her regularly, read a book on hamsters, and helped nurture her in a way that was more personal than his experience with our still beloved dog. She was every bit the emotional and scientific learning experience a pet should be for a child.

Then, Bijou stopped running on her wheel. We didn’t really notice the difference for a couple of days, but when we did, we got concerned. So, we put her in the rolling ball and, because she rotated around the house happily, thought we had figured out she just preferred exercising in open spaces rather than in a cage.

Days later, Wendy spotted diarrhea in Bijou’s bedding and our own stomachs dropped. We studied up on what might be wrong and found the likely culprit in wet tail, an illness that had a lot of possible causes yet only one cure, antibiotics.

Despite knowing a veterinarian visit would cost exponentially more than the $7 critter (yes, we agonized about the medical expense), we called various clinics that night. No one would see her as she was considered an exotic animal and other options were closed or prohibitively far. We also commiserated with our friend Randy, who had seen her son’s own hamster take a bad turn due to glaucoma. The next day, Wendy visited a number of pet stores looking for medicine, but no one had the antidote.

By nightfall, Bijou quietly passed on to that great pet heaven where our family’s two cats, seven fish, two hermit crabs, and five billion Sea Monkeys resided.

We had a funeral in the side yard where we buried our Golden Hamster next to a rose bush.

“May you help these flowers grow the way you grew in our hearts,” Jacob eulogized.

 There’s a part of me that feels absurd going over the events of a furry rodent’s demise. Yet, despite her small size, Bijou had taught my nine year old a lot about caring for something other than himself, about loss, and that life goes on.

Some time after, Jacob felt a bit more normalized about the absence of his tiny friend, so he chose a new hamster. Bolstered by the knowledge of how to care for the creature and watch for serious health problems, he was willing to try again. While I had proven to myself that I could accept a rodent into my house without regular nightmares, Jacob had shown a capacity for resilience. Not bad for $7.

Posted in Child Development, Columns by Family Man, Pets | Leave a comment

Kids on Love

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

I can spend a lot of my days calibrating my parenting machinery in the belief that I can become a more effective father, yet it all comes down to the fact that I feel love for my kids and they know that I love them (yes, I made them swear under oath that this is true). While I appreciate the complexity of life and the pursuit of good child care in particular, parenting can be summed up in lessons of love that we teach by modeling it with our partners and other fellow humans and explaining its nuances to our children.

Still, kids don’t just learn love from us. They get schooled about it by the world around them, from their friends to the media. As they grow, they view matters of the heart differently as they become more or less open, imaginative, and guarded (usually a combination of these things).

For this Valentine month, I interviewed a small sample of boys and girls, ranging from two years old to 12, and including my own emotionally philosophizing kids. While we talked, it became apparent that they were most interested in talking about romance, which is of course the foundation for all the love that follows in a family. As such, the three questions that made the cut here are ones that ask the kids to describe what love is and what a person does with it.

What is love?

Anika (3): Family.

Eve (5): Love means when you love somebody. That means you care about somebody and share.

Arielle (5): When you love somebody and you feel they love you, and your heart loves somebody.

Ari (6): Love is being together.

Ashton (7): Love is when you’re kind.

Hannah (8): Love is caring. Not being mad at everything. Love is kissing and hugging and doing nice things.

Jacob (9): Your heart gets taken by the person you are in love with. My friends and family. A force from the universe that creates people’s hearts to be taken by someone else.

Zander (9): Friendship, family, and a few other things.

Benjamin (12): I don’t want to answer this.

Jasmine (12): Love is when you’re with the one special person, you can’t see anyone else in the room. Love is the warm feeling you get in your heart.

Sarah Rose (12): It’s when you really care about someone.

What happens to you when you fall in love?

Eve (5): You feel like someone is falling in love with you. That feels like somebody is hugging.  And somebody is caring and caring. They put their hearts together to be nice to each other.

Arielle (5): They kiss and get married. They love each other. They can’t stop kissing.

Ashton (7): You marry.

Hannah (8): I don’t know, I’ve never fallen in love.

Zander (9): Some people get married. 

Jacob (9): Some people smooch.

Benjamin (12): This is a really odd question.

Jasmine (12): You want to spend every waking moment with the love of your life.

Sarah Rose (12): You get happier and you treat people nicer.

What do people in love do?

Anika (3): When you love someone, you want little kids and little girls.

Eve (5): They hug and they kiss. They marry when they’re boyfriend and girlfriend.

Arielle (5): They kiss.

Ari (6): They do everything together. Ask me more stuff about love!

Ashton (7): Kiss.

Hannah (8): They kiss and hug and give gifts. They go on dates.

Jacob (9): They play with each other. They are passionate with each other. They don’t show it because they’re too embarrassed to show it because they don’t think the other person will love them back.

Zander (9): They go around with each other. Friends that play together.

Benjamin (12): It’s a really stupid question.

Jasmine (12): Wanting to hold their partner close and love them more than anyone else does.

Sarah Rose (12): They hug and kiss, go see movies and eat popcorn together. And they bake cakes together.

If we go by my limited research, love is about baking cakes, hoping to be loved back, being friends, getting married, and being so happy you’re nicer to everyone else. Frankly, I can’t imagine that a survey of adults would come up with more insightful responses.

Here’s to love and all that we have to teach our children — and all they have to teach us — about it.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Humor, Love and Courtship | Leave a comment

Being There

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

Lately, I’ve been teetering on a breaking point. Just last night, in the tiny bit of personal time I had to make notes for this column, there were relentless interruptions by kids who can’t sit next to each other without committing assault and battery, emails from work alerting me to additional classes I have to substitute for, and a dog with incontinence who needs to go out for the third time in an hour.

So when my wife asks me to switch with her this morning in taking the younger children to school, it’s just another crack in a week full of schedule-busters, including the toilet that won’t flush, the oven that won’t work, the lunches I forgot to pack the night before, the homework my eldest left at home that needs to be delivered to school, and the extra soccer practices for playoff games (am I the only parent who secretly roots for my kids’ teams to suck so the season ends on time?).

As I force-feed boys and backpacks into the car, a voice inside me whispers, “Run. Run very far away.”

I quiet the demon and take care of business. Five minutes into the ride, Ari (6) and Jacob (9) are actually following the car rules: no sudden or loud noises that might cause Daddy to drop his cell phone, orange juice, or notepad; and no hitting each other that would force Daddy to raise his voice and attract the attention of traffic cops who might frown upon the aforementioned phone, juice, and notepad.

Things continue to go well as we hit the final mile to school, a curvy jaunt through a tree-lined neighborhood, over numerous but gentle speed humps, and up a serpentine canyon road – the perfect stretch to realign Jacob’s inner ears.

“I’m not feeling well,” he says.

“Look out the front window so you can see the road,” I recommend, maintaining composure.

“I can’t,” Jacob moans. “I’m gonna throw up.”

“Not on me, not on me!” Ari cries out, cringing toward his door.

Hurriedly, I procure my beverage bottle. “Vomit in here. Don’t do it on the — ”

Too late. It’s all over the seat.

That earlier whisper pushes me closer to the edge.

“I gave you the bottle in time!” I yell.

“Eww! It’s sliding toward me!” Ari whines.

Grossed out, I pull up to the drop-off as a volunteer mom opens the car door. She looks at a green-around-the-gills Jacob and questions, “Is he going to school like that?”

“Yes,” I say firmly as I push the kids outside with the cars behind me honking insistently.

“Love you,” I shout as I drive off.

Within seconds, I suffer a barrage of guilt for having lost my composure, for not saying more comforting words, for not having parked the car and made sure Jacob would be OK. But the devil on my shoulder argues that I’m gonna have to clean the vomit, pick up those kids later, cook for them, get them to do their homework, plan their summer camp schedule, help with their college applications, pick out their wedding invitations — I really could speed far away from everything! Just leave the whole daddy package in the dust.

Then, the freeway congestion opens up and so does my mind. I won’t race off to an unfettered existence because, when all is said and done, what matters most in parenting is staying on the road well traveled. It’s rolling through everything from the car throws up to the MRIs for adolescent back ailments without taking the offramp.

In this new year, I resolve to take greater stock in the fortitude that keeps me coming back for more of this often grueling parenting endeavor. I truly feel that it’s no great shame to imagine life without the constant responsibilities children place upon us and it’s essential that we at least take breaks (date night, ball games with buddies, grown-up vacations) from the rigmarole for our sanity. But there’s great pride to be had in just showing up as a mom or dad, however imperfect we may be. Parenthood is more than a marathon; it’s a lifelong road trip that can bring subtle but powerful rewards if we allow ourselves to appreciate the power of just being there.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Work-Family Balance | Leave a comment

A Winter of Wonder

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

“Actually, there is no Santa Claus.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“It’s really just your parents putting presents under a tree.”

With this simple exchange, all my efforts to preserve a sense of wonder for my children seemed to disappear like a certain red-suited man into the night sky.

No, my son was not the one who had his bubble burst. My son was the self-designated debunker of myths.

“Jacob really didn’t do that, did he?” I said to my wife when she reported the crime against imagination.

“Freddy’s father won’t let him play with Jacob ever again,” Wendy revealed.

We both sat there feeling vaguely sick. We had never even hinted that there might not be a Santa Claus. In fact we had raised all of our sons to believe in everything from the spirit of Elijah coming to our Passover celebration to the Tooth Fairy’s punctual visits with the loss of each baby chomper.

Wendy and I always wanted our sons’ world soaring with flights of fancy that could open their minds. From the time they were born, we sprinkled their dreams with countless fantastical books about dragons that made easy pets and Greek gods who could summon the elements at will. We even made up our own stories which put our boys at the center of magical tales involving red pirates, black robots, and a lonely imaginary friend called “Gigglemonster.”

Not a month after the Santa Claus incident, Jacob the Literalist struck again — at the aforementioned Tooth Fairy.

“Ari, that’s not really fairy dust on the floor,” he explained to our five-year-old about the baby powder we employed to make it look like the real “Captain Incisor” had dropped by.

“Mommy and Daddy left you the money under your pillow,” he continued in his assault on our littlest one’s rightful illusions. “By the way, they should have left you more than two dollars.”

Nice. Not only was our kid stealing years of blissful ignorance from his younger brother, he was nitpicking our generosity. And he was taking away our God-given right to conjure and manipulate figments of imagination. Heck, for years, my dad was able to act like a magician who could say “poof” and the traffic light would turn green (I was about driving age before I figured out how he did it). As a Dad, I wanted to have that power, too.

So what do we do with a child, now nine years old going on 50, who shoots down pretend creatures as if they were a line of rubber ducks in an arcade shooting gallery?

The deeper truth is that Jacob is wrestling with the world, trying to make sense of it, to control it. He wants to be the one with the most information. He worries he will forget to bring his homework on time and frets about his parents coming late to pick him up from soccer practice.

It all stems from Jacob’s hyper-observational tendencies that pick up on the anxiety my wife and I have about meeting deadlines, earning enough money, and making sure everyone has on the right clothes for the day.

We certainly don’t invite our kids into our adult cyclone and our other two carry on with few cares in the world. However, Jacob seems to think he has to act middle aged. This is why he is the first one to do his chores and offer to return his modest allowance to help pay bills.

To alleviate his concerns, we have assured him that we’ve got everything under control. Food, shelter, and clothing are guaranteed, even if exotic vacations and Daddy’s hoped-for 350 Z are not. We want Jacob to be a little kid, to believe in magical creatures and dreams that come true.

So we continue to read to Jacob, tell him stories, show him whimsical paintings, and screen inventive movies. And, thankfully, he loves it all – which doesn’t mean he’ll be converted all the way back into a wide-eyed innocent. It’s OK, though, because it’s our job as his parents to balance the really true with the really amazing.

While magic seems particularly absent in a world of economic fear and mortal danger, this holiday time is more important than ever to boost our children’s sense of wonder, to shower them with all the stories of flying reindeer and miracles of light and whatever your cultural, religious, or family traditions offer. This is not to pull the wool over their eyes. This is to fill them with the power of possibility.

Posted in Child Development, Columns by Family Man, Humor | Leave a comment

Thank You For Being a Friend

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

When I was 12, my father took me to a college basketball game where we met up with a colleague of his named Herbie and his son.

“This is my boy Eric,” Herbie announced. “Give him a kiss hello.”

Could a father say anything more uncomfortable to two adolescent boys? Still, Eric and I laughed and managed to refocus our attention on the more macho pursuit of commenting on the ball game. Eric was as much a wise-cracker as his dad and that night was the beginning of a fast friendship.

This August, like we have for the past eight summers, Eric and I saw each other at a family camp run by the very college whose basketball team we cheered for 30 years ago. As is our tradition, we greeted each other with a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Why did you guys kiss?” my nine-year-old, Jacob, asked.

“Because I love this guy,” I said. “Eric and I were BFFs before there was a term ‘BFF.’ Now we’re DFFs – Dad Friends Forever.”

In the last year, my friendship with Eric has strengthened. While we were constant companions all the way through college, divergent career pursuits and widening geographical distance made our bonding time scarcer during our 30s. But, spurred by the annual connection our families share at camp, we’ve returned to “man dates” of going to basketball games and dinners.

In my 40s, making time for my buddies is more important than ever. And it’s not just because my wife has urged me to follow the scenario of the film I Love You, Man. It’s that, after the long years of struggling to mature into the man I want to be, I must now function as the man I am. The male friends I choose to hang out with make it easier because they’re no longer so concerned about competing with each other to see who can get the hotter chick, drain the most jump shots, or get the more prestigious job. We are all humbled by the challenges of life and are looking for ways to support each other. Perhaps we’re taking a page out of our wives’ social manuals to maintain more communication, but we’re man enough to admit it works. 

In the past, one of the reasons I fell out of touch with my buddies was because I wanted to spend as many non-working hours with my kids as possible. I thought that I would be stealing time from them to go out for grown-up “playdates.” Even when the kids fell asleep, I remained unmotivated to go back out for coffee with a friend once in a while because, frankly, I was dead tired. With my sons getting older, having homework and other preoccupations of their own – such as maintaining good friendships —  I find more opportunities for guy time.

I’ve even made room for new buddies, though building relationships from the ground up takes significant investment for guys in their 40s on up. So it’s really cool to get out for black-and-tan beers with my pal Jonathan, who is one of those people whose wisdom and humility help me navigate the sometimes stormy waters of modern malehood. Also, one of his sons is a bit older than Benjamin, which makes him a great mentor about what lies ahead on the road of fatherhood.

Yes, some of the stuff we men discuss actually goes beyond baseball and action movies. Talking with my dudes has been a true benefit to my sanity on the seemingly never-ending road of responsibility. I value my daily communication with my wife about parenting and other life management issues, but I need to rap with other guys about the masculine pressures of being a role model, of balancing leisure time vs. making more cash, and wondering whether we’ve fulfilled the goals we set out for ourselves.

This is why I’m picking up the phone more often, using email, and mastering Facebook to be in better touch with friends like Jeff, who lives across the country. It’s difficult to connect, given a three-hour time difference, but I value his quick wit and the similarities we have as husbands to energetic working wives, fathers to three sons, and practitioners in the writing and education fields. 

This Thanksgiving, along with being grateful for all the blessings of family and health, I want to give thanks to my friends. Because of you guys, I can forgo the facetiousness when I say, I love you, man.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Friendship | Leave a comment

And the Beat Goes On

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

I’m battling a bad back, bone spurs in my heel, and a creaky knee. By looking at me, you’d never know I was the John Travolta of middle school. Really, I even took a disco class in 6th grade and got to “Night Fever” with Tracey Singer (hello, Tracey, wherever you are).

My dancing roots go back to those childhood Saturdays I spent watching TV, copying the guys on American Bandstand and learning to jump around the furniture like Gene Kelly in The Pirate.

I didn’t exactly broadcast my preoccupation to elementary-school buddies. When I did dance in public, at camp shows or religious school events, I got called names that rhymed with wussy and hag. You know, the usual “enlightened” young male reactions. With macho preservation in mind, I stuck to more socially acceptable activities of playing hardcore dodge ball and recounting episodes of Kung Fu.

As disco rose in time for adolescence, I found freedom in courting girls with spins and half-splits. I thought about taking formal lessons, but I once again became too insecure about the unmanliness of it. That and the fact my dancing skills plateaued and were best left for household performances like Tom Cruise’s Risky Business underwear scene.

Nothing can bring back the joy of my youthful hoofing experiences. Nothing, except watching my sons take pride in their own happy feet.

From the time our kids were little, my wife and I would put on music, particularly this multicultural CD called Dance Around the World, and bop about the house with the boys. They would leap onto the coffee table to wiggle with abandon and giggle at my dancing foolishness.

When Benjamin was in first grade, he and his friend Nicky took dance classes at school. It was those two little guys and eight girls — nice odds, though Benjamin was oblivious to that at the time. He loved the experience and dressed all hip-hop for his big performance, which featured his surprisingly coordinated footwork in two-person and larger ensemble dances.

After the show, the pretty teacher walked up to me and said, “Where did Benjamin get his groove?”

I tried to act cool and answered, “I used to have rhythm.”

But Benjamin fell into his own self-consciousness as he got older and stopped dancing. He even made fun of his younger brother, Jacob, who grooved like a combination of Usher and Baryshnikov during our house parties.

“You dance like a girl,” Benjamin said.

“No, he doesn’t, and you danced just like that not long ago,” I responded.

“Other people are going to make fun of him,” Benjamin replied.

“That’s their problem,” I said. “And it shouldn’t be yours.”

Despite the brotherly ridicule, Jacob joined a pop-dance class early last year. He learned everything from breakdancing to High School Musical-style numbers. As I watched Jacob count to himself to stay on the beat and dramatically slide across the floor during his class performance, I was flush with pride — and falling into the very trap for which I scolded Benjamin. I worried that Jacob looked a little feminine and would have to endure the mocking of other kids.

While I worked on rising above my concerns, I got help from an unexpected source.

“Mom, Dad, can I join the pop-dance class?” Benjamin said just before second semester last year.

“I thought you said dancing was girlie,” I answered.

“Well, it’s a lot of hip-hop, so it’s OK,” he offered. “And my friends are doing it, too.”

So, the wheel turned, and dancing became boy-approved in my house. For the year-end show, Jacob — dressed like an ‘80s rapper in a torn t-shirt and bandana — was an acrobatic marvel. Attired in his usual clothes, Benjamin was more subdued as he moved with his posse of friends.

This year, the boogie continues as Jacob takes pop-dance again, and Benjamin (now in middle school) joins pals at a studio to keep it going. My five year old, Ari, is influenced by them and loves to rock out to Kanye West, even in his car seat.

In a complicated world in which dance is given few outlets, especially with gender pressures, I’m happy to see my sons let the beat run its natural course. Kids know what to do with music. We adults need to help clear the social and physical space for them to strut their stuff.

Just so long as we don’t try to school them with our old Travolta moves. Trust me, I’m still limping from the last time I tried.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Humor | Leave a comment

Predatory Birds and Killer Bees

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

I thought I’d be good at explaining the birds and the bees to my children. My own parents left the heavy lifting to a read-aloud of the book Where Do I Come From? when I was 11. So I planned to customize the lessons for each kid’s personality, giving the right information without overdoing it.

Based on the first three talks, I’ve been a disaster.

“Benjamin knows what the ‘s’ word is,” my wife told me four years ago on one fateful evening.

“You mean the bad word for ‘poopie’?” I said.

“No, I think they’ve been giggling about ‘sex’ at school,” she responded. “You have to talk to him now.”

“Why me?” I groaned. “He’s eight years old. Isn’t this too soon?”

“If you don’t do it, his friends will, and he’ll get the wrong information,” she reasoned.

So, I sat Benjamin at the kitchen table with every intention of being a wise teacher.

“Do you know what sex is?” I opened.

Benjamin fought a smile and shook his head.

“You know that boys have penises and girls…have…vag…”

Then I whinnied like a ticklish horse. Benjamin laughed so hard, he fell off his chair.

It took me a while to regain my composure, but I managed to frame sex as something that happens when people love each other and want to have a baby. I saved the more complicated details for years later.

For his part, Benjamin emitted a few “eewww’s” that assured me he was far from sexual activity. However, he did have one question.

 “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because we heard you were using the ‘s’ word,” I said.

“You mean the bad word for ‘poopie’?” he giggled.

Later, I told my wife I would never trust her interpretation of anything ever again.

Flash forward to the 2009-2010 parenting season, which has been punctuated by two sex talks.

The first one involved talking to Benjamin (11 at the time) about his changing body and view of the opposite gender. Once again, Benjamin was tight-lipped. So, wouldn’t you know, I pulled out a copy of Where Do I Come From? and read it to him. I’ve never seen the kid so engrossed in illustrations in my life.

Overall, it was a good introduction for the shorter talks we’ve since had regarding girls and the emotions that accompany adolescence.

Then, there was the dialogue I had with Jacob (8) after dinner one night.

“Daddy, I know what sex is, it’s when a man puts his penis in a woman’s vagina and she gets pregnant and that’s where the baby comes out, out of her vagina.”

Yes, it was all one sentence.

“Wendy!” I yelled across the house. “Can you handle this one?”

When she came in, Jacob hit her with the information.

“Mommy, I know what sex is, it’s when a man puts his penis in a woman’s vagina and she gets pregnant and that’s where the baby comes out, out of her vagina.”

Wendy took one look at me and said, “He’s a boy. You’re a boy. Talk to him.”

And she scrammed.

Jacob beamed at me from the couch. I sat down with him.

“Do you have any questions?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t.

“Does it have to happen in a bed, or can you do it standing up, or on a table?” he rattled off.

I wondered if it was wrong to offer him ice cream just to retract the question.

“Most people do it in a bed,” I said, praying he wouldn’t ask how his mother and I conceived him.

“When I want to do it, do I just bump into the girl and say ‘sorry,’ then she’s pregnant?” he said.

“It takes a little longer,” I muttered.

“Does it hurt?” he wondered.

“It’s nice, usually…where did all of these thoughts come from?” I countered.

“I heard some of it from Franklin, but also from Rain,” he admitted. “Rain said if that’s what happens, she just wants to adopt.”

The comment was good for a laugh, but I cautioned him that it’s best to have conversations about sex with Mommy or Daddy since we have the most facts.

“Can we talk some more about naked stuff,” he continued.

“Not tonight,” I said with a grin. “But make sure you ask Mommy all about it tomorrow.”

That was fair. It takes two to make a baby, so there might as well be two making a mess of explaining how it happens.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Humor, Love and Courtship, Sex Ed | Leave a comment

Subtext

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

In my youngest son’s preschool, the teachers furnish the cubbies with slips of paper that say, “Ask me about…” followed by a tidbit regarding each child’s activities.

One day at pick-up, I asked Ari about building a fort with his buddies.

“How did you know I did that?” Ari inquired guardedly.

“I read it on the paper from your teachers,” I replied.

At this, my son broke into tears, “I don’t want to share all my secrets!”

Because I prize the uninhibited daily accounts I usually get from Ari and my loquacious middle child, Jacob (8), this was a serious blow I blame on the influence of my eldest boy. Benjamin (11) keeps secrets better than a Cold War spy. During countless car rides and dinners, he’s had the same response whenever we’ve asked him what he did for his day: “Nothing.”

In the early years, we wised up and got the scoop from his instructors, other parents, and his friends.

“Benjamin had to sit on the rug in front of Ms. Renetzky,” one girl told us about him in kindergarten.

Luckily, he’s been a largely low-maintenance child, who laughs readily, still cuddles a little while watching TV with the family, and shares his iPod downloads with us. Frankly, we like him a lot.

But as he climbs the ladder of adolescence, that penchant for saying little is driving my wife and me bonkers. Making matters more complicated are the hints from other parents about Benjamin’s burgeoning interest in girls and leaks from teachers about his lapses in diligence.

We’ve tried to crack his Keanu Reeves affect with face-to-face conversation. I’ve had several talks about the birds and the bees without so much as a flutter of feedback. To no avail, I’ve tried humor and bellowing to learn what he does while he’s at school or hanging out with buddies.

This is why we’ve begun to rely on the very mechanism that makes Benjamin tick – technology. We eventually gave in to a cell phone under the condition that we had full access to monitor it. And while we’ve had our trials of making sure he’s safe from wayward adults and overly mature contemporaries, we’ve become fans of this device because it’s given us a remarkably effective means of communicating with our thoroughly modern son.

Here’s a sample of the texts we’ve discovered our son has sent and what we’ve done in response:

“Don’t tell anyone, but Jimmy likes you a little.” This led to a discussion about everything from what “like” means to an 11 year old to what you should do if you and your best friend “like” the same young lady. It also forced me to learn that kids no longer call someone “cute” because it means they “like” another person a bit more than I heretofore thought “like” meant.

“My parents took my phone away. That’s fine because I can still use the computer.” We took the computer away too. The crucial benefit of my child’s attachment to his technology is that I can take it all away to teach him some lesson about being kinder to his family members and doing his chores.

“I just forgot to tell you about the D in math.” Actually, this was a response from our son that came to us when we texted him from the back-to-school night presentation. We had discovered we should have seen the five-week report card that afternoon. Using a text from the very site of his ill-fated arithmetic results made it hard for him to conjure any answer but the truth.

Not all the texting is negative. It’s good for our son to know he has yet to completely outfox us. We’re swift and savvy enough to learn the texting lingo and ins-and-outs of its usage to make sure he acts his best. Even if he gets a few texts by us, he knows we’re watching, so it makes him think twice about what he writes.

Secondly, getting more adept with our thumbs has allowed my wife and me to send our son reminders about his schedule and to pull more information out of him than we thought possible. It also gives us conversation starters to get specific details on his relationships, interests, and plans.

He actually thinks we’re not so square because we can communicate this way, which is a nice byproduct for a dad who still questions the attractiveness of wearing pants without a belt.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Humor, Tweens | 1 Comment

Playing House

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

Almost two years ago, my son got married. It was a private affair. Just Ari, his beloved Maddie, and a few friends. After the simple ceremony, the couple and their guests sat down to a meal of fish sticks and carrots. No limousine picked up the newlyweds. Instead of going on a honeymoon, the couple — their shirts stained with grape juice, their cheeks smudged with washable paints — went home with their respective carpools.

It wasn’t until that night, after Maddie’s mom Sharon called my wife to share the news, that I learned about the marriage. Preparing to read a bedtime story to Ari (three-and-a-half years old at the time), I inquired about the wedding.

“Did something special happen at school today?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, Maddie and I got married,” he said matter of factly.

I choked back a chuckle. Ari and Maddie had been “dating” for close to two years. The months before their betrothal was filled with napping side by side and impassioned jealousies regarding how often they played blocks with other suitors.

“Why did you choose her?” I wondered.

“Because I love her and she loves me,” he said. “Now please read the book.”

Ari leaned on me, stuck his thumb in his mouth and his blanket under his arm. This tow-headed preschooler thought of himself as a married man. Who was I to judge?

I often find myself wondering how I got here myself. When did I go from being five years old, playing house with Kathy Kincaid from across the street, to a man in his 40s with a wife, three sons, a home, a job, and the other accessories of a grown-up life?

On the rare occasion when I’m alone with nothing to do and everyone else asleep, I sit on the couch and ponder all of this. I survey the strewn sweatshirts, game pieces, and orphaned socks my boys frequently forget to put away. I stare at the photographs on the walls and shelves capturing the memories of amusement parks and vacations. Then I go to the rooms of my sons just to listen to them breathe.

I reach my own bedroom to see my wife barely visible under the covers. Her piles of graded papers and correspondence from the committees she’s involved in spread over the nightstand.

“We forgot to sign the field-trip form for Jacob,” she mumbles throatily before drifting off again.

I sign the form and climb beneath the blankets. I stare at this woman. Her hair is disheveled; a slight frown knits her eyebrows. This is the person I married with whom I have built a life full of all the people and experiences I once only dreamed about.

There are plenty of times when I have shortness of breath, weighed down by myriad responsibilities. Occasionally, I succumb to the fantasy flashes of writing great novels in a solitary mountain cabin or of a playboy lifestyle of being surrounded by exotic women and powerful men admiring of my status.

Then there are the real moments when I know I am damn lucky to have Wendy. She’s smart, sexy, strong, and incredibly tolerant of my downfalls. But what always strikes me about our marriage is our mutual interest in working our butts off to make the partnership grow. We have plenty of leaks and holes in our marital fortress, yet we continue to patch them up while adding new rooms to labor and play in.

Our sons learn a lot about the nuts and bolts of marriage because we hide little from them. This may have helped Ari when he found out Maddie had moved to another school. He cried, but took heart in Wendy’s promise to help him phone and e-mail the woman he calls “my wife.”

Two years into the relationship, Ari maintains his unique affection for Maddie. Before his fifth birthday party, I caught him ransacking his dresser drawers.

“I have to find the right clothes to wear for Maddie,” he explained, worried since he had not seen her in a couple of months.

When Sharon brought her daughter to the door, Ari smiled broadly and guided Maddie into the party to show her around.

“She spent an hour picking out the right dress because she wanted to look good for her husband,” Sharon said.

And so it was. Two little people acting like a committed, eternally excited married couple. May they be as blessed as their parents.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Humor, Love and Courtship, Marriage | Leave a comment

Dirty

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

As we pack for a day on the soccer fields, my wife looks at my clothes and shakes her head.

“You know those shorts will not be khaki colored when you get home,” she says.

“I have to match them with my assistant coach’s jersey,” I respond, half-hurt she’s not fully admiring me in my uniform.

“You’re such a geek,” she confirms.

So we pile into the minivan with the ice chest, soccer balls, and three sons all gleaming in their various team colors.

At the field, nary a blade of grass can be seen. The city has been miserly conserving water so what remains are playing surfaces resembling the vestiges of a scorched earth campaign by a rival park organization. Worse yet, the wind picks up and blows mini dirt twisters.

“A boulder just landed in my eye,” Ari (5) wails in the middle of his match.

“It’s just a speck of dust,” I yell back, hoping the tiny tornadoes don’t throw a Dorothy or Toto at my kids.

Later, as we trudge over the barren prairie toward the next game, we see our friend, Dave, who coaches his daughters’ group of 10 year olds.

“The other day my girls didn’t want to run on the field because it had just rained,” he explained. “So I picked up some mud, wiped it on my face, and said, ‘See, it doesn’t hurt!’”

We all laugh knowingly, then continue our grimy experience. After three games amid the thick grit and occasional mud puddle, my shorts are indeed milk-chocolate brown and my kids are streaked like farmers in an onion patch.

And I like it.

At a time in which Americans have gone clean crazy, scrubbing ourselves sterile with anti-bacterial soaps and sanitizers, it’s a joy to get dirty. When my family gets home on a soccer day, we do shower and drop the grubby uniforms in the wash. But putting in a good day of throwing our bodies into the elements feels great.

I’m not advocating for a lack of hand washing or sneezing into our sleeves. I want to help keep my kids and the general population free from swine flu and other airborne illnesses. Yet I do think that in looking at the world as a war zone of germs, we’re taking a lot of fun out of childhood. We’re losing too much by going overboard with sanitation.

These days, many of us fear our kids will transform into Charlie Brown’s buddy Pigpen should we allow them to dig in the soil for bugs, fool around with paints, or (as infants) fiddle with their food. Over the years, I’ve been prone to blood-pressure surges upon seeing disorder and have discouraged my children’s normal, but not harmful, tendencies toward messiness. Because of this, my kids have been shy to make mud floors in shoe boxes for school dioramas or get bicycle grease on their hands despite a desire to learn how their vehicle works.

In his first two years of life, my middle son, Jacob, liked to put everything from the ground in his mouth. He ingested rocks and pebbles from the park, sand from the beach, and spare change from the sidewalk. Aside from the fear that he would choke on the objects, my OCD tendencies caused me to imagine Pokemon-like germ characters mounting bacterial attacks on his immune system. We tried everything to keep him from mouthing things and even learned about a condition called pica (or pika) which causes people to crave dirt to alleviate iron deficiency. He didn’t have pica. What he had was a natural curiosity in the world and a habit of using his mouth as one of his tools.

Six years later, Jacob thankfully shows no permanent damage from his early childhood earth consumption. In fact, there’s even a whole legion of researchers who have found that kids need exposure to germs to strengthen their immunity to various illnesses. They even suggest that (yuck) having tiny worms in our digestive tracts are good for our long-term health. This is why these scientists recommend keeping dogs and cats around for casual but fairly safe contact with dirt.

I will likely continue to struggle with my tendency for cleanliness but plan to let my kids get filthy. I will draw the line at Benjamin (11) and Jacob continuing to use their shirts as napkins, but I vow to revel in Ari coming home from preschool looking like he wrestled an overgrown paintbrush in a sandbox. This year, I’m keeping a dirty mind.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Health, Humor | Leave a comment