Ed on Sexualizing Kids

This is a really important issue, and one where it is really easy to find polarizing sides. But in the interest of dialogue and discussion I'm going to share my perspective. I would preface it by saying that it is a conservative view.

I recognize the differences in how generations perceive these changes. Young generations say it isn't any different than when in the 60's women quit wearing bras, or how skirt lengths have shortened in booming economic cycles. Tattoo's used to be taboo, earrings for men were only if you were gay, blah, blah, blah. The evolution of what is acceptable to wear, what is acceptable to say, and what is acceptable to do has continued to widen. Inhibition and social restriction has been reduced substantially in our "I can do whatever I want" age.

Now I'm for free speech, free expression and independence. But that doesn't mean that I will let my children go unrestrained and uneducated about the consequences of taking full advantage of that independence. I don't think kids today (wow, that sounds old) realize the perceptions that others have of them, perceptions that are hard to change, when they choose to wear what they do, act how they act, and say what they say. For every one's sake, lets hope they "grow out of it". But I don't think they will. I don't think they will because they aren't be educated about the consequences of their actions. Eventually maybe they will, but by then it will be too late.

Holly and I have tried to instill in our kids strong self perception, and a solid recognition that others will form opinions about you based on your actions, your words, and how you act. If you dress like a slut, look and talk like a thug, or treat people disrespectfully then others will forge an impression of you as just that. If, on the other hand, you treat others with respect and act in a respectful and gracious fashion, they will also form a first impression of you but one that will be positive. It works both ways!

Holly and I can't change the world or what others teach their kids, but we certainly can have a significant impact on what our kids do, who they hang out with, and what they wear. And it's our responsibility as their parents to educate them regarding the importance of the decisions they make.

And I'm happy to report that "so far, so good". We aren't out of the woods yet since our kids are just entering their teen years, but at least to date we've been very pleased that our kids have made the right choices given the knowledge and guidance of the consequences of their decisions.

Sexualizing Kids

I could easily do three weeks of research and make this another legendary Marco Treatise, but I'll try to keep it short.

But before I start, a short comment on "Enchanted Piranha". The first thing that came to mind for me was some of the t-shirts that I've seen in foreign countries where they do NOT speak English. Someone comes up with the idea that they could sell some clothing if they put English words on them, so you see something nonsensical like "You drink sun dog milk cool has fun". Where did you buy that bike? Korea??

Now on to "sexualization"... Perhaps you've seen this op-ed piece by LZ Granderson. I think it qualifies for the designation as "viral" because I've seen it posted by bunches of people on Facebook (don't know if you've heard of that website Brad) and have also received it via email.

I don't understand why we as a culture are "sexualizing" at such a young age. To be honest, I'm pretty appalled every time I go to the shopping mall, both by what I see for sale and also what I see being worn by girls that are 12 or even 10 years old. I hold up what is supposed to be shorts, and they appear to be about the size of a folded-up napkin. The only limiter to how short they have become is the actual requirement for the crotch to start somewhere. To be fair, it's not just girls. I'm tired of seeing every boy's boxer shorts because either he's wearing his jeans around his knees or he's wearing super low cut jeans. White skin-tight tank tops are not acceptable for wandering around the mall.

Why would you let your teenage daughter leave the house in hoochie shorts and a t-shirt that says "You know I'm hot"? Why would you let your teenage son leave the house with a t-shirt that says "Drunk girls think I'm hot"? Why would you put a t-shirt on a BABY (a baby!) that says "I'm a tits man", "Proof that my Mommy likes to fuck", or "All my Daddy wanted was a blowjob"? When did prom dresses need to become sexy?

I don't have the slightest clue how to fix it, I really don't. But I'm curious to hear what your reactions are as fathers with daughters. I can't imagine the challenges of raising children, and in particular girls, in the world that we live in today.

I don't ask these questions or make these comments as some prude that is appalled at the sight of a bare shoulder or knee in public. But I seriously have to ask the question, where do we draw the line? We've all heard the phrase "Sex sells" for a long time, but I always assumed that applied to adults, not children.

Enchantment Piranha

Sheila and I are getting Sasha her first bike for Easter. It is a beauty: pink, lavender and white with streamers on the handlebars and plenty of little girl swankiness. There is however one oddity...the name. You read it right, Enchantment Piranha. Take a look at this picture, does this bike say Enchantment Piranha to you?

I'll be the lady in the blue t-shirt

Nice work Iowa City paper! If someone ever tries to give me the PLAGUE, I'm going to kindly decline.

After seeing your post, I noticed this picture in our local paper. They have some crack reporters writing captions.

What does an Editor do?

Mom and Dad like to rail on the Oelwein Daily Register, which seems to be rife with errors for the most basic mistakes. Well everyone, its not just small town papers. I want to first start by saying I refuse to read the local paper in Iowa City, the IC Press Citizen. I don't read it because it is so anti-University and their "journalists" are not bound by any obligation to have credible, factual information in their articles. That being said, we still get the paper delivered to our house on the weekends, as it is combined with the Des Moines Register.

I just happened to glance through the ICPC today, which by the way is an "award winning" paper. I took interest in the picture and caption because I used to play basketball all the time with the principal in the picture. As I read the caption, two ridiculous errors were immediately noticed. The principal was presented a "plague" and the statue was made of stamped "cooper".

So my takeaway is that as Editor your job is to press spell check in Microsoft Word. Clearly they aren't reading the content or these errors would have been quickly caught.

This is award winning journalism?

That's a lot of countries!...Travel Bug part 2

So I asked you guys to send me your list of visited countries. I compiled our lists and came up with 39 countries.

That list does however have some room for debate. I listed Puerto Rico although that is a US territory not an independent country. Also listed by Ed were Scotland and Wales, which according to a quick Google search it is debatable whether they are independent countries.

Whether is is 39 or 36, that's still a lot of countries for some small town Iowa boys.

Brad on the Travel Bug

Our collective travel bug has really been a defining force in our family and I think it began at some level with Mom and Dad. How many nights have we entertained ourselves, wives, and kids with stories of our infamous trip out West. If you think about that trip, how many parents would have taken on that vacation with 3 boys? I think that trip was the launching pad for our interest in travel.

My experience is unique to the two of you because I didn’t blaze a travel trail like each of you. I benefited greatly from each of you moving to “exotic” places after school. I remember how crazy my classmates thought it was when I was in junior high and high school and I was going to San Francisco, Spain, and Hawaii. I was only afforded those experiences because you guys were living in those places and Mom and Dad were committed to traveling to see you. How lucky for me was that?!?!

I believe we are lucky to have, or perhaps chose wisely, spouses that embrace the spirit of travel and adventure that is instilled in us. For me, Sheila has always encouraged my sense of adventure. For example, my close friend Nathan lived in The Netherlands for 10 weeks during dental school. He asked me to visit, and I found an amazingly cheap flight, but wasn’t going to go. We were less than 2 years out of college and didn’t have lots of money. Sheila basically said I was crazy for even considering not going, so I did. Nathan and I still talk about that trip, an experience I’ll never forget for sure. Other examples include me leaving her in London so Ed and I could meet Marc in Sarajevo. She is also completely supportive of my plans to leave her and the girls alone in January 2013 for 2 weeks to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. I’m sure you all have similar stories of spousal support, and we wouldn’t have traveled as we have without support and encouragement from Holly, Jennifer, and Sheila.

Despite the examples of traveling without Sheila, we talk often about the girls getting old enough that we can travel as a family. Sasha & Kira have definitely hampered our travel the last couple years. Hearing about Ed’s family adventures has made us so excited for when we’ll get to share travel experiences with our girls. As you can imagine, we’ve got a lot planned…because that’s what we do is plan…which is another topic on travel. I’ll get to that one soon in a separate post.

So I guess in summary: thank you Mom and Dad for opening our eyes at a young age; thank you brothers for giving me lots of awesome places to go; and thank you Sheila for supporting and encouraging my continued sense of adventure!

Marc on the Travel Bug

To be honest, I don't know what causes some people to get the travel bug. You mentioned how small the world has become, and maybe because of cable TV, travel shows, and the internet, people don't feel the need to travel anywhere in person. They just sit in their lounger in the living room and watch Rick Steves walking through the Sistine Chapel and say, "Wow, cool."

For those of us that have been lucky enough to travel, we know that watching it on TV isn't the same as being there. I'm sure that you guys would say that walking across the "Old Bridge" in Mostar isn't quite the same as seeing it on a YouTube video. Laying on the beach on the Costa del Sol in Spain isn't the same as reading about it in a travel book. I guess my point is that unless you've experienced it, you just don't realize the fun of traveling. You also have to do it once or twice to realize that it's not as "exotic impossible" as you might think. I never ever imagined that we would have a boys weekend in Sarajevo, Bosnia, but we figured it out!

I'm amazed at how many of my classmates from OCHS have never been outside the United States, or even outside of the State of Iowa. I'm sure that you know some people like that. When you talk about traveling to Europe, or Africa, or Asia, you can tell that they're not even really "in" the conversation. It's all a bit far out or fantastic to them, like a science fiction book that you can't really seriously consider.

On a side note, I have noticed a HUGE change in the military culture since I joined back in the "Join the Navy, see the world" days. When we put in our "dream sheets" during school in Monterey, everyone that I know wanted to go overseas. The last thing any of us wanted was to stay in the United States for a tour of duty. In my graduating class, of the 15 or 20 Sailors that I knew, only two had orders to stay in the USA, and those were the "unlucky" ones. But things are different now. Not only do you have to drag people kicking and screaming to the overseas billets these days, most of the new military crowd don't even want to go to another station within the USA! They want to be somewhere like San Antonio, Texas, and do an entire military career there. It's just a different military and sometimes it baffles me. Granted, the overseas opportunities are far more limited now, but that should make it even easier to find people to fill those billets.

As I look back at my own travels, traveling and living overseas has creates a unique bond with people. It has created catalogues of memories for me. Today I sat around the lunch table with a few other old Chiefs like myself, and we found ourselves telling stories about the glory days, and almost all of them were from an overseas tour or an overseas deployment. We as brothers have some great memories of traveling or meeting in other parts of the world together. Jennifer and I often talk about our days back in Spain and when we do they seem to have been the best days of our lives.

I don't know if it's a bug at all; maybe some people are just predisposed to wanting to have a broader perspective of the world we live in. At any rate, I'm very thankful for all the opportunities that I've had to travel!

The Travel Bug

Needless to say, I've got it. And I believe I can speak for both my brothers in saying they've got it too. I'm just completing reunion tour of sorts to Europe with the family, the first time we've been back on European soil since we left England in July 2009. And boy did I miss it. After four days in London we ventured to spots where we haven't ever traveled - Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. All were incredible. I'm typing this from Munich, where we fly home from tomorrow.

My point in making this post is my amazement at how BIG and SMALL the world has become. All of us as brothers have traveled the globe unlike any of the prior generations within our family. And when I've traveled we always seem to run into folks from Iowa, Missouri, or from wherever we hail from. That's amazing to me considering I've been literally half way around the world. But I guess the special sites attract those from all over the world.

So how did we, as brothers, come by the Travel bug? Did we all contract it in the same way, or in our own different ways? Did prior generations not value travel the same, just not have the same means as we do, or both? While I recognize there are reasons why they didn't travel as much as we have, is there a reason they didn't find the time or money to travel outside the US or North America? And what was it that led each of us to do so more robustly? There are some obvious answers, but there may also be some surprises in the answers to these questions.

I love traveling and hope I have the means a.k.a. time and money, to continue to do so. And I always want to travel to some place new, with only a few places I've ever been being ones that I would return to as a preference to a new unknown location.

There are some incredible things to be learned from traveling, and that's why we've traveled with our kids when we can. My kids have a global outlook on the world, one that I'm sure will serve them well as they grow up. They have a very broad view of the world and all its people and cultures, and I love that about them.

I'm eager to hear my two brothers chime in on this topic with their views, as their travels have been different than mine, but equally interesting. There have been a few occasions where our collective travels have been fed by each other, traveling to see one another on different continents and in different countries. Bosnia, for example, what an incredible trip.

I'm headed home tomorrow and travel also gives me a renewed appreciation for home. I'm not just talking about KC, I'm talking about the good ole' USA. What a great place! The privileges, the people, the cultures, the mountains, the valleys, the plains ... from sea to shining sea!

Ed on the Don't-Whine-It's-Time Sprint Triathlon

I think this is a really great idea. We could speak with the Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce and see how and if they would be willing to support such an event. Since I'm sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Germany I didn't look at the links, but I think it would be very cool to have the course re-create some of the significance of the Hub City. That also will likely increase the likelihood of sponsors such as Hub City Beer, Leo's, etc. Many of the businesses in Oelwein have roots to the long and rich history of Oelwein.

I'm not sure how much I can contribute to this, but I'm sure Brad can tell me. Again, I fully support the idea and we would be doing a really great thing for our hometown. Can you imagine how proud Mom and Dad would be of such an event, being championed by their three sons? Holy shit, the Oelwein Daily Register better get ready to promote, promote, promote! And one of their sons is a CWO. Marc, can you arrange a fly over by someone other than Frank?

Love this idea, but unsure how to proceed. Brad, would you like me to contact the Mayor and Chamber of Commerce in Oelwein?

Ed on the Waterloo Indians

Great memory to pull from the noggin Brad. I remember those games, those nights, and all the memories you and Marc resurrected. I don't have much to add, other than the fact that I really don't remember who we went to the games with, do either of you? Was it Jane, husband and boys? One further memory I have is getting the complete set of Waterloo Indian baseball cards for like $2 bucks, and Dad thinking that was a total rip off! Why would any kid want baseball cards? What do you do with those things anyway?

And yes, I remember Von Hayes, he was MONEY!