Men and children …
our thoughts

In old days there were angels who came and took men by
the hand and led them away from the city of destruction.
We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction; a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child’s.

—George Eliot, Silas Marner

I’ve been looking forward to writing this chapter to the point of excitement. I am one of the lucky ones, with the three children from my first marriage. All three are now out of their teens and all three are the happiest and most well-adjusted kids on earth. Each one has a special gift that is a true combination of me and my former-‘still beautiful and wonderful’-wife Jenny.

So what is it about kids that make men go to water? Well, as the above quote by George Eliot describes, they give us hope and a way forward, when all seems doomed or lost. We have kids so we have a future. Whatever happens, the world will continue for two reasons and two reasons alone — you women will continue to bear children and children will continue to grow into adults to continue the trend of continuing evolution.

Men love children just as much as women love children, but sometimes our emotions are not forthcoming visually, the same way as you will generally see a mother kissing her boys. The mother’s kiss is accepted by all. It’s universally accepted that we, as men, can give our daughters a kiss in public but we tend not to kiss our boys as much.

Women will generally show more emotion toward their children because that is the nature of women. I still show my emotions with my kids and when I kiss my 26 and 23-year-old boys when I see them, no one now blinks an eyelid.

Some years ago when my eldest son Cameron was 18 and playing his Saturday afternoon soccer, I arrived just five minutes prior to the match to watch him play. On seeing me he came over, hugged and kissed me and proceeded to run back to his mates. The ruckus that followed from his mates surprised me as they jokingly taunted Cameron about loving his daddy and whatever else was pouring from their moron heads. However, what really surprised me was Cameron’s reaction to the taunts from his mates and his open affection for me. He literally abused his entire team and stood up for what he saw as being quite normal for a father and son relationship. Whilst it was all in jest from his mates, Cameron never saw it as complete jest and gave them all an earful.

It became even more of a monumental statement by him that I have heard not just first-hand from Cameron, but have also heard it from his mates, who, have stated categorically they wished they had the relationship with their fathers the same way Cameron has with me. Even adult kids want cuddles from their fathers, and now apparently even grown men.

So where did this all begin? What do men, (and blokes), think about kids of all ages? What do we think about our own kids as opposed to our friend’s kids or any kids?

We are made aware of stories that even the most hardened of prisoners in jails around the world will have it in for paedophiles or other prisoners who have murdered, abused or injured children. If that be the case, then children, in theory, are probably our most treasured possession. How could a prisoner who may be in jail for murder, rape or another despicable act, have such a caring for children? Is innocence and purity the secret to curing so many of our mentally sick people?

It starts when we are young. We always had a sibling or another child we were always older than and, were forever asked or at least put in a position by our parents to look after these younger ones. Effectively, for albeit a brief moment, our job was to nurture these kids younger than us and ensure no harm came to them when we were put in charge, even though all we were doing was playing around in a backyard or bedroom.

This being the case, women are not the only ones taught to nurture from a young age, men were also taught or, at the very least, introduced to a form of it.

But what happens when we have children of our own?

Well, for starters, after the birth, we feel quite useless. Yes, we are helping in every way we can, but the reality is we feel quite useless. We aren’t the ones who can breastfeed so therefore we really aren’t needed apart from clean up duties. Of course this doesn’t last forever. After about six months we can become useful and it’s now time for us to start our bonding process as we wrestle some control from mum and make ourselves important. This is when kids start becoming the apple of our eyes. Little girls are just little diamonds we drool over and play gently with, whilst with little boys we try and have mini wrestling matches. It’s more fun as they pass the six-month life initiation period and it seems to just get better as they develop through the years … until they reach 18 and then all you do is worry about them for a few years.

Kids will turn your man soft and that’s a good thing. He will go to sporting matches, cheer them at anything they do and will give your man focus on what life is really all about. It just makes him smile.

So if you want to assist in ‘using’ your tin lids to keep your husband, let him have some control over them. Let him feel important around them. Praise your man in front of them.

However, is the way we adore our own kids the same way as to how we feel about our friend’s kids. Well, yes to a large degree. We adore our friend’s kids as well but we don’t adore just any kid. It’s not to say we don’t like every kid, it’s just that we don’t know them all. As for friend’s kids … we like them … well most of them anyway. These friend’s kids are part of our inner community and our inner community is an important part of us. So we treasure our friend’s kids and, whilst we don’t treat them as our own, they are a very important part of our lives. Friend’s kids are also generally our children’s friends as well so it’s these kids that are also helping to mould what we are trying to mould.

We are aware children are born good, innocent and pure. So what if they turn out rotten? We know it’s nearly always a result of the parents and I do say ‘nearly’. Certainly in most instances it’s not because the parents are rotten, it’s just that a mistake may have been made, and everyone makes mistakes. So if you help to teach your husband to teach your kids to be great people throughout their lives, then effectively you are reducing the work load for yourself to teach your kids everything there is to learn, which is a great example of two being better than one.

It seems easy but as we all know it’s far from it. There are so many external factors to turn our children into what they are when they enter the middle chapter of their lives in adulthood.

Society in itself seems to continue to rear its ugly head at every turn. People’s lives are destroyed daily for no reason. We need to fix our own little corners up before we fix anything else. Our children are our little corners. Once we give them the right path to follow they will in turn impart this to their children when the time comes, and so the circle of good will continue and, hopefully this will evolve the generations of the future into becoming something better as each generation goes forward.

It goes further, for as we gift our children with a good path they also impart this to their peers and, hopefully it spreads from there to all corners — a Fibonacci string on its ultimate quest.

In Australia, as in other first-world countries, we have to count our lucky stars. Few get to experience hunger, true poverty and abuse, but it does exist and it’s not right.

Our kids hold values from the moment they are born. They shouldn’t have to have these values diminished as they grow older. They should be learning, adapting and aspiring to far better values than we have the capability of teaching. Our teaching should be to make them think even higher again.

It’s time for change. It’s time to mend and heal ourselves. It’s time to love, and nurture, and help, and teach, and care, and guide, and mend, and foresee how we can assist our children to be better than us. They will take the world forward. They will either take the world forward into a better world, or, without our guidance, take the world backward to a time we would all rather forget. Never take a defeatist attitude; it will only serve to reduce the worth of our children. Fight for them. Fight for them to be good.

Teach your man that he has responsibilities, equal responsibilities, to ensure that kids are put together in the right way — a jigsaw puzzle would hardly be a jigsaw puzzle if a piece were missing from it. It’s the same with our children, they must have all the pieces in their proper places.

See the world through their eyes when you talk to them. Their world is different to the world I grew up in, and the world you grew up in, and it will be different again as we head into an unknown future.

It’s the same with your man ladies. Test your man before you buy. It’s your choice as to whether you want a house of love or a house of pain. Choosing the wrong man is akin to placing your hand in Pandora’s Box only to never get it back.

Find a man with values and you will probably find a bloke.

The soul is healed by being with children.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot