My wife got us in to a preview of Despicable Me, which Universal Studios will release nationwide on July 9. The trailer of the warring villains — Gru is voiced by Steve Carell and Vector is Jason Segel — was long on gimmicks but short on evidence of a story. The film itself is mostly sight gags and a barrage of clever lines until Gru meets three orphan children who significantly influence Gru’s plan to steal the moon. From then on, Despicable Me shows how Gru (Carell lends marvelous nuance to the character) evolves from an annoyed caretaker to an attentive father. This film belongs in acategory with The Incredibles for depicting parenting better than almost any live-action movie. With such a solid story and great voice performances, the 3D seemed superfluous. Touching and very, very funny.
A few weeks ago, my sixth-grader son needed to read a biography for a class paper. I searched my bookshelves and brought him out a selection I thought he might like, secretly hoping he would select one that meant a lot to me in particular. Sure enough, he chose They Call Me Coach, the autobiography John Wooden wrote with the help of Jack Tobin. My son took the book to school to start reading it, and when he came back he told me it had been inscribed by Wooden to me. I had totally forgotten where I had purchased it — at John Wooden Basketball Camp in 1974. It was at that camp that I met Coach, who went around to personally greet his many campers. It was at that camp that I learned about big things such as the Pyramid of Success (a philosophy of life as well as basketball) and seemingly little stuff, including how to double-knot my shoes so the laces never untie.
On June 4, John Wooden died of natural causes, just a few months shy of his 99th birthday. He leaves behind a record of 10 NCAA men’s basketball championships, but — and this is what is universally mentioned in the obituraries — a legacy of teaching others how to (as he was fond of saying) ”make each day your masterpiece.” Growing up attending UCLA games he coached, going to camps he ran, reading his books, and attending the college at which he worked and still held sway decades after his retirement, I have not only learned from this educational master but also been informed about how to teach my own children. He even has a book called Inch and Miles (again found at his official Web sit under the Bookstore tab), which puts his teachings into a picture book for kids.
As a middle schooler, I lived for a while near Coach. I had a carpool that picked me up on a corner that he often power-walked past. On days I wasn’t so shy, I would say hello as he went by and he always smiled and greeted me back. That was the way Coach was, a combination of awesome greatness with approachable folksiness.
Role models are harder and harder to find in the public world of celebrity. Thankfully, Coach will forever teach through his writings, videos, and lasting influence.
Brain research, let alone centuries of history serve as testament to the many differences between men and women. However, the “battle” that has been waged can and should end. Yes, we make inroads with humor and well-studied tolerance, but we still fall into the traps of insecurity that allow us to often ignore each other’s need to be understood. We even fight over who needs more help, males or females.
So, we have work to do, especially as parents, if we want our boys and girls to be respectful and loving of each other.
One man who I believe is doing amazing work in the area of gender studies is Michael Gurian (author of, among other titles, The Wonder of Boys and The Wonder of Girls). In a recent newsletter from his Gurian Institute, he wrote:
“Clearly, both our sons and our daughters need our help. Why can’t we give them both that help, at once? A number of readers asked that question this week. I don’t know if I have the answer, but have an answer: Men and women entered a volatile divorce fifty years ago. Our civilization’s approach to gender still trembles with the pain and rage of that divorce. For some people, saying the word “men” without saying the word “women” means oppression of women. For other people, one gender (generally girls and women) get such special treatment, boys are left to fend for themselves, a condition that leads to their early death, and to a lack of physical safety for our civilization.
”I am a boys’ advocate and the father of two daughters. I am a girls’ advocate and a man who remembers being a lost boy in our American culture. I build theory and practice now as a professional in hopes of caring equally for both genders. I know this truth: gender equity is not ensured by governments, schools, and others funding girls’ and women’s programming at much higher rates than boys’ and men’s; simultaneously, gender equity is not ensured by businesses and others protecting male hierarchical systems more than they fund girls’ and women’s initiatives.
“Both genders need us to end our divorce rage. They need us to stop holding our boys and girls hostage to competition for resources. They need us to focus on the specific areas of distress in which each of our wounded children live. If we don’t grow together in this way, huge numbers of our boys and girls will not find purpose, resources, healthy relationships, and workplace success. And many boys and girls will not survive to have or care for children of their own.”
In the world of TV, things happen fast, so read the following and, if you know someone in Los Angeles who can call the number below today, you could be a tube star before you can say, “Gee, these strained carrots look good on my button-down shirt.” By the way, the show correspondent mentioned below is likely to be the beautiful mom and TV personality, Brooke Burke.
Tim Palazzola of the the daytime medical show, The Doctors, is helping produce a segment on family health; they are looking for Stay At Home Dads to participate.
Specifically, they are looking for a Stay At Home Dad that has more than one kid (ages 1 - 14) that is some what new to being at home during the day and has questions/ concerns about managing the household while his wife is at work. They have a special medical correspondent that we would like to send to that dad’s house to help him get things in order. The feeling of the piece is very positive, triumphant, and fun.
They are looking to start work this week, so any interest is appreciated. Call 323.956.8627 for more information. Good luck, dads!
Man, it’s going to be tough for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to stay consistent, but I continue to be thrilled to have these two as parenting models. The Chicago Tribune reports that, among the family habits the Obamas follow are reading regularly to their daughters and having a date night for each other. They may be raised on a pedestal by some, but there is a lot of down-to-earth living going on there that makes us realize they have many of the same challenges we do.
New research reveals that certain dinosaurs were the primary caregivers for their young. In the NPR story on the study, “Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum says the new research shows that even bird behavior has links that go back over 100 million years. ‘What I really love about it is that these are representatives of the most ferocious and terrifying lineage of animals that ever was, right? Including close relatives of T. Rex and company,’ says Prum. ‘So it’s really ironic to me that these macho, bipedal meat-eaters were good dads.’ I love this kind of news. Can we get some T-shirts with a T. Rex wearing a Baby Bjorn?
On November 4, 2008, I watched Barack Obama give one of the most humble and moving political speeches I have ever seen. As he spoke, I said to my son, “Listen to this man speak. The way he says his words and the meaning he gives to them. That is a role model.”
Two days later, my son delivered his own election speech, to try to become president of his school. Although he lost the race, he had practiced his words carefully, adopting some of Obama’s cadence and calm passion.
This nation of ours has diverse opinions on our President-Elect, not all of them positive. However, I am brimming with pride at the choice of this man — our first African American president. His selection shows we are a country willing to listen to new voices and to hope for better days ahead as led by this dedicated man.
I am also absolutely tickled that we have a new first family that reflects my generation of parents and my children’s generation of kids. I look forward to seeing how he balances work and family for himself, how his wife embodies a working woman with two school-age kids, and how his daughters reflect their own issues of growing up, albeit in the fishbowl of the White House.
I will watch with a critical eye as Obama endeavors to unite a nation and improve our quality of life. But I am also inspired to help him as much as I can by being an active member of the fatherhood party he now leads.
How’s this for father-child bonding? A troupe of dads out of Temecula, California, were looking for another way to hang out with their daughters. So, they started taking tap-dancing lessons with their kids. Now the group, under the direction of Jimmy Peters, will be performing tonight, July 29, on NBC’s America’s Got Talent (9/8c). You can see video and learn more about them at www.myspace.com/tappingdads . Good luck to Rodney Amstutz (who sent me an e-mail about the dads) and the rest of the tappers in the competition and beyond!
I’m a big fan of the show Medium in large part because, for all the paranormal intrusion on the Dubois family, the dad is a fairly normal guy with realistic relationships with his wife and kids. OK, I also have a longstanding crush on Patricia Arquette (and her sister Rosanna, for that matter , but I digress). But the character of Joe Dubois (admirably played by the underrated Jake Weber) makes dads look good, even in his imperfections.
While I’d like to think I’m a little like Joe Dubois, I’m probably somewhere between the deeply concerned character Bill Bixby played on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father and the mistake-prone Herman Munster.
One of the keys to being a meaningful dad is understanding that the little moments are deeply important. On those days I feel most frazzled by non-kid responsibilities (you know, work and such), I sometimes kick myself for not being more available to my children. I do not always have the presence of mind to slow down and take 5 to 15 minutes to play blocks or check homework or tickle a tummy, but when I do that it has a lot of impact for my child and me.
Take a gander at these two www.fatherhood.gov videos for a slice of the “small moments” that we, as dads, can have with our children: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A2Ap3DyvLg and www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fhnrtlckm0. The PSAs have been created by the Ad Council with the National Resonsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse and volunteer ad agency Campbell-Ewald to repond to such facts as, “More than 79% of Americans feel ‘ the most significant family or socil problem facing America is the physical absence of the father from the home.”
As dad readers of this blog and Web site, your online comments frequently show that you are part of the solution, not the problem. You are role models for your kids and also for other guys out there who still need to understand the mutual benefits of being an actively involved father.
