When my wife told me what she wanted to do for fun this Mother’s Day, it was like a getting a double bonus on your favorite game–she wanted to see the new Avengers movie.  We have all heard about the record breaking box office money the show has been making and the number of people across the country that are standing in lines to see the movie, but little did I know that this was not just the result of a good media blitz and a good PR campaign.  The movie is worth every penny and I am sure the pennies mounted up after they paid the costs associated with the all star cast and the great CGI and special effects people that made this movie worth paying for, not once but twice, and also when it comes out on DVD, it will break more sales records.

I was glad we didn’t wait for this one to come out on video or on cable, because even with my surround sound system and a larger television on its last leg, I would have missed the theater experience that made my chest vibrate and my two young boys crawl on my lap with a bit of anxiety.  The movie is mostly for older audiences and the kids thought that it was totally awesome but there were a few lines that kids probably didn’t need to hear and there were a few situations I wondered might cause some adult therapy later, but for the most part we were heroes for letting the younger ones see the movie with us.

The movie was billed as a blockbuster and it has taken years to get to this point as they set up the movie with prequel type movies with each superhero getting their own separate movie.  All but Hawkeye and Natasha have had their own series of movies that introduced them to us and made them a part of our world.  Natasha and Clint should get their own movie just to play out the sexual innuendo and tension between them.  They had great chemistry in the movie.

It’s worth it and the fact that we took our kids to the movie and it passed our test should make it okay to take your kids.  We are a stronger filter than some families but I think this is one that will be a keeper.  This is going to be a movie that we will not see end anytime soon.  As we see Batman continue and add story lines and characters, this is one that has unlimited amount of offshoots, stories and characters to be introduced.  My hope is that they can continue to keep the characters for a while and that egos and box office contracts do not keep them from producing the stories and future films. I can assure you celebrities, this is good for your career and will help pay the mortgage for years to come.

I had an overwhelming amount of IM’s and messages and emails from those that equate the “Genuine” brand to that of Captain America.  Yes, I enjoyed every minute of Steve Rogers and the scenes involving him and his personality.  I always want people to associate that coolness with Cap and of course my own blog and Twitter account.  I did get to hear something that made me take note when during the final battle scene when Captain America turns to Hawkeye and says:

Steve Rogers: You think you can hold them off?
Clint Barton: Captain, it would be my genuine pleasure.

Captain Genuine salutes you! Thanks to the folks from Marvel for that shout out.  Of course, I am always available for cameos in any of the follow up movies!  I would love to be a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. and do my part to fight the forces of evil! I would even be soldier #6 that gets cut to pieces by an alien laser or some other fate. Go see the movie and next time you see me, I’ll give you the secret handshake. Go be a part of the team!

Unless you’ve been completely offline today you’ve surely heard and/or seen the controversial cover on Time Magazine. There’s been plenty of talk about how old the child in this picture is – he’s 3 – and whether or not women should be breastfeeding a child this age. It seems all the controversy online today (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has been around the topic of breastfeeding. Of course, this is an important topic and one that will be debated for years to come. I am very much in support of breastfeeding. Having said that, this post is actually going to talk about something much more important. It’s going to cover a topic that I’m not hearing anyone talk about and yet is, in many ways, killing millions of women and men alike.

Shame.

The cover of this photo states, “Are You Mom Enough?” Has our society become so used to being shamed, put down, questioned that we don’t even see shame when it’s staring us in the face? We wonder why so many of us have self-esteem issues and yet we don’t see some of the causes. One of the most common questions I hear women asking is (in one variation or another) “Am I enough?”. Whether it’s in the form of weight, beauty, intelligence, career, financial, caregiving…and the list goes on and on.

The bottom line is that every women who is blessed to have a baby is ENOUGH from the moment she gives birth to that beautiful child. No woman can ever be MORE THAN or LESS THAN enough of a Mom.

There is no judgement in truth.

“More than” and “Less than” statements are judgements and there’s only one truth. All Moms are enough all the time!

Why must our society/media put into question something as basic as this? Why must they keep our Moms doubting themselves? As if there isn’t enough things to call into question about our performance and even our inherent nature. The sad truth is that this is so common. What’s even more sad is that so many Women and Men alike don’t even recognize that this is abuse and it’s called, Shame.

Someone(s) at Time Magazine has a warped sense of what’s “Real”. Don’t let them fool you into thinking you ever have to meet some condition as a women and a mother in order to be enough. This is a complete fallacy and says much more about the owners and content creators at Time Magazine than it ever does about our Mothers.

On this Mother’s Day I want you to remember one thing Moms. You were, are, and will always be enough.

*This was reposted from my personal blog on www.DadStreet.com

The first reaction I had when I saw the Time magazine cover was that the folks at Time were poking the bear, or the “mamma bear” in other words.  The Mother’s Day edition is how I looked at it.  they are trying to get page views and trying to increase magazine sales.  The best way to do the above is to be controversial.  If you think that breast feeding is not controversial, just take a stand on it.  Get off the fence and say breast feeding is bad or that Mom’s should breast feed until the child is in middle school.  You will have plenty opposition to whichever side of the fence you choose.  I saw comments of “Lactivists” and other terms that made it clear that this is an issue for the ages as it relates to controversy.

Dads would never have this type of coverage because for one, we are not controversial.  We don’t get enraged at statements made against us or that might be against what we want to be known for in the world of parenting.  The reason I am piping up and making a statement today has to do with a post by Jen Singer at Mommasaid.  This is a great look and more specifically, I love the statement that she puts in the post:

We praise fathers for “helping” at home, as though they are part-time assistants, and trash moms for taking “me time.” When dads work, they are providers. When moms work, they are selfish. (Why is there no phrase “working dads”?) When dads endure a temper tantrum at the supermarket, they’re heroes for the effort. When moms do it, they’re bad mothers for not controlling their kids in public.

Jen we are shouting the same message but from a different pulpit.  We Dads would love to be seen as a parent and not just as Mom’s assistant.  We are not seen as a parent and that irks me.  I even amplify that message when I mentioned to someone the other day that was trying to be like one of those “Supermoms”.  We are constantly compared to the real parent, Mommy.  Moms are trying to be treated more like Dad and we Dads want to be moms, but in the eyes of society neither of us will be granted that equality.

The Tax Man is coming.  It sounds like a cross between “Something Wicked This Way Comes” and The Grim Reaper.  Obviously, I am not one of the 1% that is not paying my fair share or at least it seems that way or else my description might be different. It would be more of a nuisance than a nightmare.  Even here at Dads Talking we are not immune from the “paying unto Caesar that which is Caeser’s”.  It is that time of year when procrastinator’s everywhere are wondering when on Monday the post office closes, and it is a great time to explain to your children the idea of what taxes are and what it means to have to pay for your taxes.

My son this week lost a tooth and received $3.00 in real American Dollars for the feat.  No, this is not a lesson in inflation, that is another post for another time.  I wanted to take an opportunity to explain taxes and why Daddy was cranky and why I was cleaning up those piles of paper in the office. I started down the path and soon found my audience was less than thrilled at the lesson, until we got to his three $1 bills.  I told him that Daddy pays about 1/3 or one in every three dollars he makes in payments to him or his company to the government. It may actually be worse but I am bad at math.

He had complete understanding of that feeling when I took one of his dollars and put it in my pocket.   “Now you just paid your taxes on the money the tooth fairy left you.  You’re good.” He pondered that for a moment and asked, “So when do I get it back?” I then went into another explanation of what the money paid for and what is it used for and how much some people pay and what others pay.  His politics started to show when he said that he understood yet wanted to find out when he could get the dollar back. It was not taken well when I said it was as good as gone forever.

I decided not to take the lesson to its full extent but he began to understand why Daddy was cranky and why he was not in the best mood.  We don’t often think of the $1 that is taken from us for the three that are paid but it puts things in perspective for our kids.  As I groom the child to be the next President, I am hoping we can abolish these foolish ideas of giving away our money because we have always don’t it that way.   My son sat up that night looking out the window, not this time for the “boogey man”, but for that crazy tax man. He lurks around our house every year during Spring.

From all four of us Dads here at Dads Talking, we would wish you and your family much happiness and fellowship this holiday.  We also wish you the best with your families!  Now which one of us is going to clean up this mess?

I’m going to leave off where Jim got started speaking about the recent Mega Millions $640 Million Lottery. I wasn’t much involved in the Lottery Bonanza that recently occurred over the last week or so. However, I did sit back and watch what unveiled and it got me thinking.

First, I thought I’d share some interesting facts I learned over the last couple of days.

1. Americans spent more than $1.5 BILLION (Yes, with a “B”) on Lottery Tickets.

2. You had more chances of becoming the NEXT (yeah not just any but the next) President of the United States than winning.

3. Some people spent more than THREE HOURS standing in line to get a ticket.

I watched online as many of my friends and family asked, “What would you do with the money?”. Of course, I’ve asked myself this very question over the years. It’s fun to fantasize and think about what life could look like not having financial worries. It’s exciting to go out and play and to dream. I do not protest anyone thinking about winning a large amount of money or even playing the Lottery (within reason).

Where my thinking has turned is to the amount of energy many of us spend on “dreaming” and not on “living”. We’ll spend money we don’t have to play a game that’s nearly impossible to win and spend countless hours day dreaming about life as a millionaire. What happens when the lottery is over and we found out we didn’t win? Nothing, we go back to our lives until the next big Mega Millions comes around and we go at it again. Instead of putting our energy into playing the Lottery, what would happen if we put it into something else? What if instead of putting energy into “winning” money we put it into “making” money. I don’t have the statistics in front of me but I can only imagine your odds of starting a successful small business are much greater than winning the Mega Millions. I can also only imagine that if we spent 15 minutes a day thinking/planning how we could earn more money rather than the countless hours we spend dreaming of winning we’d actually have the money. Think about it…people that make good money whether they own their own business or work for someone else put time into making it happen. Dreaming is very important but dreaming without action is a vicious cycle of grief.

So here’s a little challenge…Take 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week to think about what you can do to live your passion and earn better money. You already know how you’d live your life because we’ve had the Lottery dream. Instead of placing our future in a raffle we’ll never win take those 10 minutes a day and make that dream come true. Sure, go out and buy a ticket every now and then but just do so knowing you’re already going to have that life you live regardless of whether you win or not. After all, no Lottery ticket will ever confirm what’s true. You’re a Winner!

There is quite a bit of discussion going on in the world right now with the thought of winning the lottery.  Not just any lottery but a lottery estimated at about $540M. Even in U.S. Dollars, that is a lot of money.

I can remember when I was a kid, the though of being a millionaire was unfathomable.  Nobody was a millionaire except for the very elite of the world.  In today’s world of Internet celebs, sports stars, and Hollywood starlet’s, a million dollars might get you through the end of the week or it might pay last month’s mortgage.  Yeah I am that old.  $500 Million on the other hand is still a large pot of gold to many, unless of course your name is Jordan, Zuckerberg or Gates.  With that said, I mentioned to my kids that we had purchased a lottery few lottery tickets and asked them what they would do if they had the winning ticket.

The responses were a little off the wall.  I really know now that the kids value some things over others and that they really have everything they really want now, except for that two flavored gum or that life size Lego sculpture of the Millennium Falcon (actually that was my idea).  The most popular answer these days is that they want a big flat screen they saw at Costco.  You know that one that is about 70 inches and plays all the favorite animated movies when they go into Costco?

I can remember when I was a kid, I wanted to buy the Wonka Factory, or perhaps buy or build the bat cave that Batman had on his show (yes, again, I am that old).  It spurred thoughts of buying things that were so out of this world for me that my friends and I actually sat around for days at a time and thought about what we would do if we were rich.  It is not as different for me now but my priorities have change a little.  Now I think of paying off the mortgage, making sure I had all the bills taken care of and that my family was healthy and happy and then I would do something charitable.  I am sure your thoughts have changed but let’s take a moment and see what is important to your kids.  Go ahead ask them and see what they say.  I would love to hear about it too.  Post your comment below about what they want.  If you don’t ask them, what would your answer be?  I just gave you the winning ticket, what would you spend your money on?

A can still remember the controversial advertisement featuring Charles Barkley and his endorsement of Nike. The still infamous statement of “I am not a role model” invokes debate about the true meaning of a what a role model is and is not.  I can assure you that being a Dad of four myself, I am charged with the idea that I am a role model. I discussed this idea or at least touch upon it in my last post when I asked, “Are You Connecting With Your Child?“  Being a role model to me is also connecting on a subliminal plane with your child.  The things you do as a Dad, the child may ultimately do when that child becomes an adult and a parent. Dictionary.com gives the definition to mean:

You may be asking yourself, “Okay, now hold on just a minute Jim, Kirk Cameron? Seriously?” Perhaps he is not the same type of celebrity as the likes of “Bieber Fever!”, but nonetheless, he is a celebrity that others could look up to as an example or someone you might want your kids to emulate.  I have done a number of blog posts about “Genuine Celebrity Dads” on my own blog and Dads that I think are those that we should look to as doing their best as celebrities and as Fathers. In my opinion, Kirk Cameron is one of those Dads.

How many times have you heard or even used the phrase, “…In touch with my/his/your feminine side.”?

This is commonly a phrase a guy will here under the following conditions:

•  He shows any sign of emotion (sadness, sensitivity, vulnerability, fear, etc.)
• He dresses in an outfit that actually matches (ie; color coordinated)
• He admits to another man being attractive/good looking
• He gives an opinion about fashion/design

Of course, there are many other situations in which this phrase might be used but these are some good common ones. For many years I heard this phrase and even used it to describe other men without giving it a second thought.

Today, this phrase has a little bit of a charge for me and not in a good way. Let me first start by saying that using this phrase with any man is to not only a dishonor to who his is as a man but is sexist and oppressive. Since when were men not supposed to have feelings? Since when were men supposed to be born without feeling sad, vulnerable, or sensitive? Since when were men not supposed to enjoy dressing nicely? Since when were men not supposed to appreciate how attractive someone else is without sex being brought up?

Whenever someone uses the phrase “…in touch with his feminine side.” you have to ask these questions. The truth is that men are human beings and human beings experience all of these things, some more than others. To identify with an inherent part of a man as being something other than man is to deny manhood all together. I love how I can’t be emotional without pointing out that it’s my feminine side. I can’t even be emotional and be a man. I have to be emotional and be a man with a feminine side. This is not only completely false and insulting to manhood but it’s also insulting to women. It supports the underlying theme that women are weaker than men which just isn’t true. You wouldn’t see a man doing something strong, courageous, and confidently and hear someone say, “Oh he must be in touch with his feminine side”. No, you only hear that phrase being used in times when a man is creative or emotional or “soft”.

This topic is really a subtopic to a much greater issue which is how as men we’re forced into so many ridiculous false roles that actually deny our manliness. Yes, you can be a good dresser, have some feelings, and care about others and still be a man.

So Men….Do you realize and appreciate that you don’t have to conform to living in this box society has put us in? Or are you the Ted Bundy of men who enjoy living in that same ol’ box? Either way is fine so long as you realize there’s nothing you can do…absolutely nothing you can do to become any more or less of a man. You’re a man simply because you were born as such. That’s it.

When I was a child all I wanted with my Father was to connect with him on some level.  We all see the way a son tries to emulate everything the Dad does by walking and talking like him and resting his hand on a hip or putting his chin in his hand while listening to someone.  The son is copycatting the Dad.  They are trying to connect on the same level as the Father.

I find myself now trying to find some common ground with my son.  Now that the show is on the other foot, I can now see that my son is trying his hardest to connect with me in some fashion.  I know he is not particularly interested in the latest social media trend or how a business can increase its market share or how the latest in technology is being used to sell widgets, but I see him attempting to get into that conversation. He is trying his best to connect.

My Dad loved hunting and fishing and the outdoors.  Frankly as a kid growing up, I really did not love or hate the idea of going hunting, but it was not really on my list of top 5 things I really wanted.  I loved sports and loved playing baseball and football and anything of that nature.  My Dad was not a jock and was not really very interested in that life like I was not so interested in his.  I know he hardly ever missed a game and I found myself in a rainstorm at 10,000 feet worried about being hit by lightning while in a tent deer hunting with my Dad.  We made it through the motions for the most part but that was truly all it was. I’m still afraid of lightning as a result.

My son is very much about the video game world.  He is dragging me kicking and screaming into that realm.  I have learned a few things about the latest releases of new games, and I have done homework on the difference between, Play Station, Wii and XBox.  The video game world ranks right up there with folding laundry in my book–nobody wants to do it but it has to get done.

I wonder if all parents have this issue or if it is just some relationships don’t always mesh or come together like a nice fitting puzzle. I know that my brothers have different interests than I do and that my Dad worked his way through their world as well.  I’m seeing that each of my three sons are all better than the other at something and that I will be playing sports with one, playing video games with another and reading and making artsy-fartsy things with another. I’m sure I’m not the only one that struggles to connect with each child on the level I feel I should, but as I sit here and think, I know as a Dad its my duty to try my best.  Now I am off to figure out how I can kick my son’s butt in Madden 12…at least it combines sports and video games.  Thank goodness my daughter is a sports fan.  It’s easy to connect with her.