"You're not even close to baseline"
[Baseline Tests, Bladerunner 2049]
A number of coworkers and I went out for a supper a few months ago, during which I was engaged in a conversation with a woman about toxic masculinity. She has teenage sons, and posited a situation along the lines of the following:
'If I'm lying on top of my bed, reading a book, it's not unusual for one of my boys to come in and lie down next to me and cuddle up beside me. And I know that it's something that in our generation, boys would have been told it's not appropriate, but if my boys have and display an affection for their mother, why would I ever want to discourage that?'
It was like a splinter in my mind, the sort I love to inject into others. It was the sort of thing one mulls over and that lingers and inspires the kind of introspective thought that finds realization and change.
Last week, riding along in the car together, Liza-Ann raised a question about Dan with regards to some sort of benchmark for acceptable male behaviour at his age, to which I said I didn't really have an answer, that I had no opinion and would have to think about it.
I'm sure it is just as much a shock to any of my readers as it was to her, the notion of me not having an opinion about something.
But, as I explained then to LA, that little mind-splinter, combined with many other related little mind-splinters and a lot of retrospection over the last few years, have finally led me to the conclusion that I'm... "not even close to baseline".
A parent's benchmarks largely reside in what they experienced in their youth, the lessons of their parents and the society that raised them. But my benchmarks and instincts, I've decided, are largely not to be trusted. Society is changing for the better, and many of the lessons of yesteryear cannot and should not apply.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to turn my childhood into some sort of revisionist history where I get to play the victim. It was what it was and I got through it. Sure. But I've come to realize it was not without a lot of discomfort and even trauma that I swept under the rug in the name of growing up and moving on. I've always told myself it was all fine. I've reminded myself I had it better than many others around me in many ways. I had a great family and a home free of abuse, which is something a lot of the kids in my neighbourhood probably couldn't claim. So I endured, and along the way convinced myself that it was basically the same everywhere for everyone. This was life, you see. It was what it was.
So as a man self-aware enough to notice how my gut instinct to many situations is so clearly informed by the toxic masculinity of the culture in which I was so strongly steeped, I have come to realize how extreme certain elements of my childhood were. Don't worry, I'm not out there calling anyone "pussy" or punching someone in the face over the slightest offense. I just know I still possess the instinct.
As a parent, speaking with other parents about their childhood and reflecting on my own, I have come to realize how useless my baseline has become in comparison to the current social evolution.
When Dan reached about 13, I marveled over the fact that he'd never been in a fist fight. I have to remind myself not only that's a good thing, but also, the fact that I'd been in several by then was neither a good thing nor normal, and that the instinctive pride I feel bringing that up is actually... pretty fucked up.
It may have been normal for my particular school and neighbourhood in that particular era. But it's not normal. Or if it was normal, it certainly shouldn't be. It's shit. Getting jumped by three guys is not an experience every childhood should contain.
Granted, not everything gets discarded. I had great parents, and most of the lessons that came from them, in the home, still apply. I carry their spirits within me, and it informs much of the parenting I do.
But as a parent, three years ago my child rocked my world and our little family began a journey into the unknown. In doing so, Dan gave me the gift of opening my mind to a whole different world of possibilities, and spawned in me an introspective growth that hasn't stopped. The world is not what I thought it was. Another veil was lifted, and since then, more veils. Gibran taught me that true words are seldom beautiful and beautiful words seldom true. Eastern philosophy has taught me that the lotus grows in the mud. The discoveries these journeys inward uncover will not always be pleasant ones, but I still wouldn't trade this path forward for anything.
Team Contuckyard for the win, ever forward, and may I never be complete.
'If I'm lying on top of my bed, reading a book, it's not unusual for one of my boys to come in and lie down next to me and cuddle up beside me. And I know that it's something that in our generation, boys would have been told it's not appropriate, but if my boys have and display an affection for their mother, why would I ever want to discourage that?'
It was like a splinter in my mind, the sort I love to inject into others. It was the sort of thing one mulls over and that lingers and inspires the kind of introspective thought that finds realization and change.
Last week, riding along in the car together, Liza-Ann raised a question about Dan with regards to some sort of benchmark for acceptable male behaviour at his age, to which I said I didn't really have an answer, that I had no opinion and would have to think about it.
I'm sure it is just as much a shock to any of my readers as it was to her, the notion of me not having an opinion about something.
But, as I explained then to LA, that little mind-splinter, combined with many other related little mind-splinters and a lot of retrospection over the last few years, have finally led me to the conclusion that I'm... "not even close to baseline".
A parent's benchmarks largely reside in what they experienced in their youth, the lessons of their parents and the society that raised them. But my benchmarks and instincts, I've decided, are largely not to be trusted. Society is changing for the better, and many of the lessons of yesteryear cannot and should not apply.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to turn my childhood into some sort of revisionist history where I get to play the victim. It was what it was and I got through it. Sure. But I've come to realize it was not without a lot of discomfort and even trauma that I swept under the rug in the name of growing up and moving on. I've always told myself it was all fine. I've reminded myself I had it better than many others around me in many ways. I had a great family and a home free of abuse, which is something a lot of the kids in my neighbourhood probably couldn't claim. So I endured, and along the way convinced myself that it was basically the same everywhere for everyone. This was life, you see. It was what it was.
So as a man self-aware enough to notice how my gut instinct to many situations is so clearly informed by the toxic masculinity of the culture in which I was so strongly steeped, I have come to realize how extreme certain elements of my childhood were. Don't worry, I'm not out there calling anyone "pussy" or punching someone in the face over the slightest offense. I just know I still possess the instinct.
As a parent, speaking with other parents about their childhood and reflecting on my own, I have come to realize how useless my baseline has become in comparison to the current social evolution.
When Dan reached about 13, I marveled over the fact that he'd never been in a fist fight. I have to remind myself not only that's a good thing, but also, the fact that I'd been in several by then was neither a good thing nor normal, and that the instinctive pride I feel bringing that up is actually... pretty fucked up.
It may have been normal for my particular school and neighbourhood in that particular era. But it's not normal. Or if it was normal, it certainly shouldn't be. It's shit. Getting jumped by three guys is not an experience every childhood should contain.
Granted, not everything gets discarded. I had great parents, and most of the lessons that came from them, in the home, still apply. I carry their spirits within me, and it informs much of the parenting I do.
But as a parent, three years ago my child rocked my world and our little family began a journey into the unknown. In doing so, Dan gave me the gift of opening my mind to a whole different world of possibilities, and spawned in me an introspective growth that hasn't stopped. The world is not what I thought it was. Another veil was lifted, and since then, more veils. Gibran taught me that true words are seldom beautiful and beautiful words seldom true. Eastern philosophy has taught me that the lotus grows in the mud. The discoveries these journeys inward uncover will not always be pleasant ones, but I still wouldn't trade this path forward for anything.
Team Contuckyard for the win, ever forward, and may I never be complete.
"I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old,
and frankly speaking, between you and me,
I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.”
["High Fidelity", Nick Hornby]
["High Fidelity", Nick Hornby]
