Man-A Woman's Best Friend

I know a man that for 20 years has been a faithful friend to his wife, staying by her side through breast cancer, an auto-immune disease making it extremely difficult to walk, sometimes affecting vision and the use of her hands, more breast cancer requiring surgery and chemo, a broken hip; year after year of countless doctor visits and treatments, some very painful. With all that, their lives together have also been wonderful and magical in so many ways-- the love and committed friendship, the wife will tell you, has meant everything. They live far beyond mere survival and enjoy a quality of life unimaginable but for that deep and abiding commitment. It’s been a beautiful thing for me to witness up close.

There are so many examples of men as friends, allies and partners with women in intimate relationships, work relationships, co-operating in extreme adventure of all kinds and quality; from war to space exploration, parenting to politics. Old tropes about a battle between the sexes is not only outdated, it never was true. There has always been a “partnership society,” even in the midst of bigoted pedagogues, oppressive patriarchal regimes and distorted religions that would have it otherwise. I am talking about partnerships that do not place anyone above another on the basis of gender and exhibit a deep honoring of each other’s strengths and gifts.

That said, those regimes and distorted religions have much to do with why partnership societies are far from universal in the 21^st century. The idea that men are superior and women are inferior is still a mental virus afflicting significant portions of populations around the world. The symptoms of the disease; sexual harassment, rape in war, the military, universities and elsewhere, domestic violence, the large scale sex and slavery trades, genital mutilation, female infanticide, wage inequality and others must be treated along with implementing the cure.

Among the many allies and friends of women is a 90-year-old man whose efforts are among the most widespread, thorough and often effective on a global scale. He was the 39^th American President, and the only one that did not start or maintain a war but used what political influence he had to wage peace. He is Jimmy Carter and with his equal partner in life Rosalyn and his team of 175 at the Carter Center established in l983 works tirelessly to eliminate disease, injustice, inequality and violence in dozens of countries.

And while doing so, Jimmy Carter now writes passionately about his chief mission in life—to end violence against and discrimination of women in all forms with a particular emphasis on examining the abuse of religion that becomes a tool for justifying discrimination. A biblical scholar and teacher for life, Jimmy Carter works with other religious scholars who agree that there is no authentic basis for discrimination in religious texts, only out of context and distorted references that speciously support dominance and control, a sense of male entitlement and privilege that has no basis in reality and would not be approved of by the original founders or the source of inspiration for the creation of world religions.

Jimmy Carter's new book A Call To Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power draws attention to the symptoms I mentioned above and provides the impassioned but calm, balanced and fair treatment of the problem with a perspective that all men could benefit from, as men also suffer when their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and communities are diminished or destroyed by this discrimination that affects everyone.

"It's not a so-called woman's issue," Jimmy insists. "All of society is affected by what is both an injustice and a tragedy.

In reading the book I have to admit that with my erstwhile background in rape and domestic violence education and men’s role in family planning and parenting notwithstanding, there are staggering statistics that took me by surprise. Case in point, there are more slaves today than before the US Civil War, most of these women and tens of thousands passing through Carter’s native state of Georgia, USA!

If statistics seem cold and aloof, Carter’s reach for collaborative solutions are anything but. I was inspired and encouraged to learn about how many men at high levels of leadership care and are involved in doing larger scale systems thinking while generating and delivering solutions on the ground in partnership with women. Carter is a member of an international group of men and women called The Elders, many of them former leaders of state. The men in this working group have either recovered from the mental virus that still helps drive isolated, marginalized and disenfranchised young men to a movement like ISIS or they were fortunately exposed as I was at an earlier age to the truth about gender equality by select families, teachers and communities.

So, what then is the cure for the ongoing violence and discrimination? Running with my epidemiological metaphor a bit longer, we need an anti-viral agent. And as with most diseases the cure often comes in the same package as the disease, or the solution is contained within the problem.

The virus we want to spread is the news about boys and men being inherently good—I’ve never known a male baby to go to war or rape someone. We begin as whole human beings, malleable, but whole. One powerful protein in this positive virus is parenting. How we cuddle and talk to boys, the messages they receive about their inherent worth and lovability is not turning them into something they are not to begin with, it’s maintaining and further nurturing their strong sense of self and humanity. We need to root out sometimes invisibly different treatment boys receive in school that fosters bad or anti-social behavior and see to it that any and all kinds of sexist references in media are eliminated. We need to help boys discover and live their passions and talents with teaching and mentoring that supports their passions and sense of purpose.

One of the strongest proteins in this pro-virus are the men who are consciously building strong communities to provide women-respecting role models of what it means to be a man as a partner with women, modeling that at home, work and in public in a variety of ways and scales.

Having worked with former gangbangers creating new lives for themselves, I know that much of the violence they were forced into perpetrating is simply a distorted means to receiving attention, recognition, a sense of belonging and even love. And that they were usually first violated in some way before they violated others. From gangbangers, to campus and military rapists, to tribal warlords and ruthless despots, under these distortions of maleness is the need for human closeness and friendship that remains constant. It is possible for every man to learn how to be a woman’s best friend. Let’s join Jimmy.

Read more here: http://theelders.org/article/jimmy-carter-womens-man

Become aware of and join the larger global movement called 1 Billion Rising Revolution now joining together people and partnerships across all nations

Please click this link: http://www.onebillionrising.org/rise-raise

Men and Worthiness

It felt like a dam had broken, behind which debris had gradually collected slowing the flow to a trickle. Such a relief, such a renewal to finally blast through the seemingly impenetrable mass that had lodged itself in my heart and loins for far too long.

What am I talking about? I am referring to what I call the “dam of shame.” And no doubt most men and boys can relate.

It’s become clear to me over the years that lack of self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, self-love lies at the root of any darkness, any shadow, any violence done to self or others at the hands of men, from the bedroom to the boardroom, from addiction to depression to suicide and homicide. I learned this on my own personal battlefields as a boy and as a man and could see it clearly in those I worked to help liberate from the confines of their isolation, protection and defensiveness in the face of societal and self judgment about one’s worthiness.

What I’d not yet taken full measure of in myself though was the depth at which the silt had deposited behind this dam of shame. And that shame is by quality and degree a different animal that strikes at the very soul of a man and his sense of worthiness…. deeper than guilt, deeper than humiliation and embarrassment.

With the help of social work professor and author Brene Brown whose work with shame is groundbreaking in this generation, I’ve come to understand that shame is a feeling that cuts you off at the knees because it gives you absolutely no where to go. Unlike guilt which is about something you did being bad, shame internalizes the message that YOU are bad and unworthy of love or belonging. Unlike guilt, with shame there is no bad behavior to stop or change. It’s all about you. As Brown says, “Shame corrodes the sense we can do or become better…..You need a platform of self-worth to change.”

What’s shaming for me may not be shaming for you. In my case, earning less money at some point or having less intimate connections than what I expected of myself as a good provider and a good lover gradually slowed the flow of generative and sexual energy. It was that continuous crippling self-judgment drawn straight from the blueprint for a man’s success referred to in my previous post that began the construction of the dam of shame.

The question is, how does one tear it down, releasing the debris and allowing the larger flow of life, lightness, creativity, love and connection to course through one’s life again?

Brene Brown speaks about the concept of “shame resilience.” Two characteristics that come up in definitions of resilience are “toughness,” and “elasticity.” In neuro-science resilience depends partly on communication between the reasoning circuitry in the brain’s cortex and the emotional circuitry of the limbic system.

Deconstructing the shame dam takes some mental toughness, only established by repeated rejections of any idea that I as a man am anything less than lovable and worthy just for who I am. Yes, my actions matter, my deeds count but they do not justify my existence. My existence needs no justification. I am here and I belong or I would not be here. That’s the conversation the cortex needs to have with the limbic system to pull apart and defuse the feeling of shame.

Sometimes the shame dam can only be pulled apart one chunk at a time. Once the first chunk is removed though, it can become easier to pull out more chunks until it feels as though the whole thing can finally come tumbling down.

One way to begin for me was to share with a non-judgmental friend these unwanted messages and dreaded feelings, in this case another man who is well aware of the damage and incapacitation of shame. Someone who cannot only listen but also encourage and cheer me on.

I found it essential to face the beast and name it out loud for starters. Literally say,
I have shame about_______________________. Interestingly the moment I did that, just that alone, the monster immediately downsized.

This was after listening to the two one hour recordings of Brene Brown disclosing about her own shame, how to understand and deal with it. And considerable soul searching on my part.

Then, I finally felt prepared to talk to the person most affected by my shame other than me, my life partner. We had a heart to heart that I know had been a long time coming.

In my case, the results were pretty immediate. Breaking open the dam meant that I could get a bunch of that energy flowing again, into my creativity and into our intimacy.

I felt like I had my mojo back! Cause for celebration.

Another ring of support was my ongoing men’s support group, more great guys that care enough to share and share what’s most important in life.

In years past I recall joining circles of men, sometimes men and women around a fire to perform a “banishment ritual.” In that ritual ceremony one writes down on a piece of paper something that no longer serves them that needs to be released in order to move forward in life. Then each person says out loud or keeps silent what needs to go and tosses the paper into the fire, watching that shedding of the old go up in smoke.

The deliberate intention, heightened emotion and group solidarity involved makes ritual a powerful agent of release and transformation.

I am not going to say it’s easy, it’s not. I do believe and can testify that the benefits of deconstructing and releasing shame are enormous. If you can commit to that kind of "tough," I know you can achieve the ultimate elasticity and gain or regain your most shame resilient self.

Highly recommended up close and personal talk by Brene Brown:

http://www.soundstrue.com/store/men-women-and-worthiness-2911.html

A Man's Success

True or False?

A man’s success is determined by his net worth.

A man’s success is measured by how well he provides for his family materially.

A man’s success is equated with how much power and influence he wields in the world.

A man’s success is based on how much he produces.

A man’s success depends on how smart, formally educated and clever he is.

How many of these did you answer true? How many false?

Beyond arguments of right and wrong for any of these statements, which statements have had the most impact in your life? Which ones most influenced your decisions about how you’ve spent or are spending your lifetime?

I believe that our ideas of what constitutes success literally become the blueprint for how we make our life decisions and lead our lives. The blueprint formed by the statements above is one that becomes programmed early in a boy’s life and for most men becomes the very basis of their lives. I know these statements have had an impact on how I view myself and other men.

Is there really any other way to look at what makes for success in a man’s life?

In the film, Bucket List, with death knocking at their doors, two older guys conspire to do what they had not yet done, the list mostly consisting of physical feats and things, stuff they may have put off while busy following societal scripts for success and being responsible adults.

In contrast, a palliative care nurse in Australia discovered a different kind of bucket list when she counseled dying patients in their last 12 weeks on earth. There was no mention of more sex or skydiving. Instead she asked about and heard common regrets. Among the top regrets for men was, “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

Here are the top five regrets in a nutshell.

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

"This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

If this retrospective laser clarity can appear at the end of a man’s life, why not sooner, why wait until it’s too late to realize real fulfillment? Why not define success for yourself now and live that at whatever age you are?

The most profoundly simple and powerful process I know for that is The Passion Test. It’s given me deep confirmation of what is most important and what brings me the most happiness in my life. It then gives me a baseline from which to begin living that way from where I am, one step at a time. It has given me and tens of thousands of others a way to define success on their own terms in the face of old blueprints, old scripts of what others have told them about success and how their worth is measured.

The question is: Are you ready to trade the “comfort of familiarity”, old stories, patterns and habits referred to by palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware for a life filled with even more happiness and success (on your terms) than you may have imagined?

I welcome you to join me for an hour of that self-discovery. I have my wife and business partner Karin Lubin take me through the process at the end of each year and beginning of the next. And I do the same for her. Having someone ask you questions so you can listen to your own heart’s answers is profound.

And finally this from the new book by 88 year old pop and jazz singer Tony Bennett, Life Is A Gift: The Zen of Tony Bennett

"Shed the idea of competition, and of being the best. Instead, desire to improve only by being yourself."

"If you follow your passion, you'll never work a day in your life."

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Bronnie Ware recorded her patient’s dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood   (a NY Times best-seller that has stayed at the top of Amazon lists for years)

NEW! Your Hidden Riches: Unleashing the Power of Ritual to Create a Life of Meaning and Purpose by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood with Sylva Dvorak, PH.D  Recently released and already a NY Times best-seller Your Hidden Riches reaffirms the value of the principles and process of The Passion Test inside a treasure trove of rituals for making your ideal life come true one ritual at a time.

True Friendships Among Men

I was having a hard time of it. Really struggling to keep my head on straight and emotionally spent. A friend called just to see how I was doing.

He did not share his opinions.

He did not try to give me advice or win me over to seeing things his way.

He did not start talking about all the things my situation reminded him of.

He did not start talking about other people.

He did not do much talking at all.

In that moment, what he did not do defined as much of what I consider authentic friendship as what he did do.

So what then did he do, this friend?

My second sentence from the top is a giveaway.

He just called to see how I was doing--- with no other agenda.

After he asked the question, he listened. Really listened. So well I could tell he was not quietly constructing the next thing he was going to say. He was present for me.

Many men today have a difficult time doing this. I’ve spent years learning it and am committed to getting better at it for the rest of my life. I’ve come to see not doing it can leave me and other men feeling isolated, lonely, friendless and depressed.  Learning and practicing this has provided me with untold benefits, surprises and treasures. You may have heard the expression, “if you want friends, be one.” Well here is a pretty good place to begin. When was the last time you called up a man friend just to see how he was doing….and then listened?

With the kinds of training and conditioning boys and men receive that pits them against each other in the competition and comparison game, the homophobia that only more recently is beginning to ease up in some cultures, and the epidemic problem of depression in both young and older men, men are often challenged to find models of true friendship, and further to create and sustain their own. Many men carry a big load of hurt from absent, neglectful, emotionally distant or abusive fathers or father figures. And from an early age we’ve been separated from other boys and men by ruthless competition. It’s no surprise that many men only feel comfortable being close and vulnerable with women, or more particularly with one woman. That dependency comes with it’s own problems for both men and women.

What do I mean by “true friendship” with other men?

I’ll begin with two elements that the great American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson believed formed the backbone of his closest relationships with men. I believe they form mine as well.

Emerson said that these two elements were equally important.

“One is truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and so equal that I may drop even those undergarments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another….

…The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle—but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed and we so pure that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune.”

There are most certainly as many ways to express friendship as there are actual friendships, and the language with which we express our truth and tenderness can vary in form.

I so appreciate the work of Gary Chapman and his series of books beginning with The Five Love Languages. Gary talks about how people have different preferences for the way they both receive and give love in relationships. The way they prefer to receive and get most filled up is generally the way they deliver it to others, usually not recognizing that their friends or partner may have a different preference. The five languages are:

Acts of Service

Words of Appreciation

Physical Affection

Gifts

Quality Time

My top two love language preferences that are pretty much guaranteed to fill me up are Quality Time and Words of Appreciation.

One of my great passions in life is to spend quality time with friends, which can range from a half hour phone call to a multi-week outdoor adventure. Because it is so difficult for many men to initiate that, I often find myself to be the one to do so and am so thrilled and grateful when others initiate, even if I have to decline an invitation to talk in the moment or get together right away.

The important thing to understand here is that when you learn the love language preferences of your friend, new or old, you are taking another step closer to true friendship by speaking their language instead of just your own. 

For example, if I get that my friend’s preference for receiving love is helping him work on his car, house or boat, (Acts of Service) I offer to help. It’s also a pretty good fit as my preference is to spend Quality Time, which could really be doing most any activity as long as we are hanging out together.

There are many more aspects to the art of friendship and many reasons friendship is so important to me and others. My hope is that every man will in his life have close true friends, not to do what he can do for himself, but to reflect the best in him in order for him to be his best.

Another man I respect shares this about true friendship.

With every true friendship we build more firmly the foundations on which the peace of the whole world rests.  --Ghandi

Like what you’ve read here? Let the author know about your interest in the forthcoming book:

Lone Ranger No More: A Guy’s Guide to Making, Keeping and Letting Go of Friends

By Randy Crutcher

quantumrandy@gmail.com

Is Compassion Worth a Dime?

    

That face keeps coming back to me from the newspaper photo. That tear-streaked, chin puckered, lips turned down at the corner anguished little boy’s face. The one inside a shelter that was supposed to be safe from attack—but was not.

What do we do when that little boy, his parents and others are so far from being safe, even for a day? I try to understand that both sides, though so unevenly matched in firepower, are essentially terrified and feeling unsafe. How can they feel safe?

There are peaceful political solutions that could honor both heritage and freedom. They are out of reach because fear is trumping compassion, and compassion is the glue that holds humanity together. Its absence tears us and our world apart.

Given the seeming enormity of human conflict and problems, where do we gain a foothold in expressing our own compassion?

My good friend Don Eaton in Santa Fe, New Mexico has a non-profit organization called Small Change whose efforts to teach compassion and facilitate compassion in action are distinctive in that Don talks about two kinds of hunger, the hunger of the heart/spirit and the hunger of the body.

Don and his board are committed to the belief that each of us can do something about both kinds of hunger. They address the first with

programs, events and projects that inspire, empower, challenge and educate people to make small changes in thought, word, and action, to grow in compassion for themselves, others, and the earth. They reach people through concerts (including house concerts), retreats, seminars, and lectures. Don writes and records original songs and produces CDs that help inspire and encourage people to be "compassion in action."

At each of these events they hope that what is said, what is sung about, and what is discussed will create in people a desire to make small changes in their own lives to "be compassion" in the world. At each of the events and programs people are asked to make one small change, which is to save their small change (coins) for hunger relief. People are asked to save and donate their small change to Small Change. Every cent saved goes to direct hunger relief. The small change donated to this Hunger Fund is used to supply relief agencies with oral rehydration salt packets (ORS), (each costing about a dime!) to help save the lives of people who would otherwise die from the dehydration that accompanies starvation. An encouraging quote from the website is:

Remember, "No one makes a bigger mistake than the person who does nothing because they can only do a little."

There are many people, organizations, and services that exemplify compassion in action. You may contribute to or be one of them.

How do we create more of us and reach critical mass in the larger world?

As an educator, I know it begins with parents and teachers.

When my wife was an elementary school principal, one way she enjoyed spending time with students was to join them in forming a “Kindness Club.”

Kids would make a list of different “random acts of kindness,” then formulate ways they could have fun carrying them out. And they did! They never seemed to run out of things to do with and for each other.

What about at home, the place we create new generations of compassionate adults?

Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist with the graduate school of education heads the Making Caring Common project, a program teaching kids how to be kind. The group just released a new study in which 80% of the youth studied said their parents were more concerned with their achievement or happiness than whether they cared for others. The interviewees were three times more likely to agree that, “My parents are prouder if I get good grades in my classes than if I’m a caring community member in class and school.”

Weissbourd and his group provide recommendations and five strategies for raising children to become caring, respectful and responsible adults. I paraphrase here.

1. Make caring for others a priority.

Children need to hear from parents that caring for others is a top priority, and learn to balance their needs with the needs of others, honoring commitments made to others. Before quitting a team, band or friendship, parents can ask their children to consider their obligations to the group or friend and encourage them to work things out.

Make sure older children always address others respectfully, even when tired, distracted or angry.

2.  Provide opportunities for children to practice caring and gratitude.

Children need to practice caring for others and expressing gratitude for those who care for them and contribute to others’ lives. Studies show that people who are in the habit of expressing gratitude are more likely to be helpful, generous, compassionate and forgiving—and they’re also more likely to be happy and healthy. Learning to be caring is a practice and requires repetition to become second nature-- whether it’s helping a friend with homework, pitching in around the house, or having a classroom job.

Be careful not to reward every act of service or kindness your child performs, as it should be expected that these are just a part of life. Reward uncommon acts of kindness.

Make gratitude a daily ritual at dinnertime, bedtime or in the car. Express thanks for those who contribute to us and others in large and small ways.

3. Expand their circle of concern

The challenge is to help children learn to care about someone outside of their small circle of family and friends, such as the new kid in class, someone who does not speak their language, someone in a distant country.

Children need to learn to zoom in by listening closely and attending to those in their immediate circle, and to zoom out, by taking in the big picture and considering the many perspectives of the people they interact with daily, including those who are vulnerable. Especially in our more global world children need help in developing concern for people who live in very different cultures and communities than their own.

Use a newspaper or TV story to encourage your child to think about hardships faced by children in another country.

4.  Be a strong role model

Children learn values by watching the actions of adults and through thinking through ethical dilemmas with adults, e.g., “Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn’t like her or him?

Being a role model for compassion and kindness means to practice honesty, fairness and caring ourselves. It does not mean being perfect, it means acknowledging mistakes and flaws that help earn a child’s respect and trust. And we need to respect children’s thinking and listen to their perspectives, demonstrating to them how we want them to engage others.

5.  Guide children in managing destructive feelings.

Often the ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy or other negative feelings.

We need to teach children that all feelings are OK, but some ways of dealing with them are not helpful. Children need our help learning to cope with these feelings in productive ways.

Here’s a simple way to teach your kids to calm down: Ask your child to stop, take a deep breath through the nose and exhale through the mouth, and count to five. Practice when your child is calm. Then, when you see her or him getting upset remind him or her about the steps and do them with your child. After awhile they will start to do it on their own and be in a better place to express feelings in a helpful way.

It occurs to me that there is not one thing recommended for teaching kids compassion that does not apply to me. It’s important for me to take stock from time to time with regard to where I am with all this and be grateful I have the safety and the time to think and write this today. Oh, and yes, I think I can spare a dime.

Small Change organization website: http://small-change.org/sitespinner/index.html

Don Eaton’s song “I Am One Voice”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujQhs78jhoo

Making Caring Common website:

http://sites.gse.harvard.edu/making-caring-common

Feeding and Being Fed- A Three Minute Video

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=847767558574661&set=vb.100000242752233&type=2&theater

Food, Passion, Father and Son

Some of my fondest memories today consist of the time I spent with my father working side by side. Actually, it was not all fun but it gave me a sense of closeness with him, a growing sense of personal mastery with the tasks we completed together and an understanding of what work was and what it meant to be a passionate “working man.”

Last night, on the eve of Father’s Day, I saw the movie “Chef” with Jon Favreau (Elf) playing Carl Casper, a head chef working in a successful restaurant in LA, friends with an ex-spouse but somewhat estranged from their ten year old son.

Carl loves to cook and commands the respect of all the staff who work with him but the owner won’t let him stray too far from the standard menu so his passions are constantly kept in check. Ever been in a situation like that yourself? Carl and a food critic get into a tussle that ends with Carl leaving his long tenure at the restaurant and suddenly finding himself totally broke and on his own.

Carl tries to be the father he feels he never was when living as a family but it takes awhile for his son, brilliantly played by Emjay Anthony to convince Carl that all he wants is to be with his father, learn from him and share in his passion for preparing food, really really good food. And there is something this ten year old already excels at that ends up being a big help in transforming his father’s life….social media.

I don’t want to spoil it for you because I want you to see the movie. It’s treatment of gender relations is surprisingly healthy with two women in Carl’s life only trying to help him live his real passion full out despite old baggage with his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara) and some sexual tension but mostly sweet friendship with the restaurant hostess played by Scarlet Johannson. Neither gives up any of themselves to help Carl believe in himself.

I loved the scenes of male bonding between Carl and his pal from the LA scene (line cook played by John Leguizamo) that more than fortifies the journey Carl and his son travel across country in a food truck and more deeply into each other’s hearts. Not billed as a Father’s Day special, it’s very special and says more about the struggle of many fathers today than most non-fiction I’ve run across. Plus, it has some absolutely gut-splitting moments.

One of the effects of the Great Recession has been dads out of work. One of the side effects has been more dads spending time with their kids, in some cases becoming the primary caregiver at home.

Just this past week the Pew Research Center released a report that 2.2 million U.S. dads stayed at home with their kids in 2010, slipping down to 2 million by 2012 as the jobless rate eased up.

Stay at home dads were defined as those not employed in the prior year and living with children 17 years old or younger.

The largest share of at-home dads, 35 percent, said they were home due to illness or disability. Roughly 23 percent said it was mainly because they couldn’t find a job, and 21 percent said it was specifically to care for home or family.

By contrast, 1.1 million men were at home dads in l989, the earliest year those kinds of data were available. The 21 percent in 2012 who cited caring for home and children as the reason for being out of the workforce was up from 5 percent in l989 to 18 percent in 2007, the start of the recession.

The study states that while unemployment is a factor overall, a convergence of gender roles has made it more acceptable for dads to be caregivers and mom to be responsible for breadwinning, though affluent highly educated dads at home raising children remain a subset.

Despite the phenomenon gaining greater acceptance other Pew research shows 51 percent of the public believes kids are better off when the mother stays at home compared to 8 percent that cited dads.

In the movie Chef, there is worry and concern by mom for the safety and welfare of her child on this road trip. But she also seems to know he is having the time of his life with dad and surrogate uncle.

As in my own experience at age 10 and for Caspar’s son, there are some rites of passage that require a men’s only time, space and place. 

Enjoy the movie Chef, while celebrating and supporting more closeness and nurturing between father and son wherever and whenever it can be found. 

Maybe baby-It's time to talk about population

As a mid-stream baby boomer I’ve watched the world add between 4 and 5 billion more people to its surface since my birth.

Along with awakening to the cumulative impact we have on air, water, soil, forests, oceans, climate and all living things and systems, some also recognize that the more people you have in one place, the more conflict there is over resources of all kinds. Increasing human numbers make conflict inevitable. How conflicts are resolved are not. We’ve chosen both peaceful and violent means….and we still do on a daily basis. The fact remains, more of us are not making things any easier.

Twenty years ago the Dalai Lama said this:

“The population problem is a serious reality. In India, some

people were reluctant to accept birth control because of religious

traditions. So I thought, from the Buddhist viewpoint, there is a

possibility of flexibility on this problem. I thought it might be good to

speak out and eventually create more open space for leaders in other

religious traditions to discuss the issue.”

How much speaking out is there these days? It’s been 50 years since scientist Paul Ehrlich got us to recognize that the “population bomb” is ticking. I find that the discussions about this underlying cause of so much planetary stress are rarely a table topic these days. Have people just become jaded and given up in the face of what seems inevitable, the net addition (after subtracting deaths) of 34 million more people just since the beginning of this year? It does seem daunting. And it could be worse.

Full disclosure is that I was once a Director of Education for a Planned Parenthood affiliate. The non-profit is one of the largest and most effective voluntary family planning education and service delivery organizations in history. It and other efforts have helped people for many decades to decide when to have children and how many, rather than rely on roulette as the primary way of bringing healthy children into the world. And it is one of the ways that people with lower income have gained access to primary health care, in some cases saving lives. In effect, our population would be far greater (and sicker) at this point without policies and funding that provide people choices. And where these services are available, there is less human suffering and more prosperity. 

When I was hired at Planned Parenthood, it was in large part due to the fact that I had established a center for men that provided information and education about reproductive health and responsibility. It was understood that until we more fully address the needs and psychology of men in the realm of reproductive choices, responsibility would continue to largely fall on women's shoulders. Now, a new test for fertility is coming to market that will help men immediately discover whether they are fertile or not. I am curious if this will lead to greater awareness on the part of men, not just those desperate to have their own biological offspring, but an overall recognition of the role men play in bringing more of us into an overpopulated world, one decision, one person, one couple, one family at a time.

Back to the Dalai Llama talking about religious beliefs in India 20 years ago, (a country now straining under an incredible 1.2 billion humans), it still remains that belief systems control behavior. Whether it’s religious conviction, nationalism, a sense of ethnic preservation or other social ideology justifying why we should continue to “be fruitful and multiply,” at root is usually an entitled sense of male dominance and control at worst, male pride at best that too often spirals our numbers beyond carrying capacity all over the world. That, and the notion that technology solves all problems and will solve this one by finding more Earths to populate. It hasn’t and it won’t.

It’s time again to talk about how to keep our numbers in check instead of relying on war, famine, disease and now climate change to do the job. We need to consider those people who have been at this effort for a long time and give them our support in the form of time or money or both.

One of those efforts I have supported over the years is the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. http://www.unfpa.org  All over the world it has delivered services where least available and difficult to access. A few dollars go a long way.

And what about making population a table or bedroom topic again? Very intelligent and educated people need to consider right now their decisions about how many children they have in the larger context the Dalai Lama and other leaders have spoken about. And those less educated need access to information and services as part of a comprehensive health and wellness approach. We need to see this topic reintroduced in the mass media and consistently framed as a fundamental problem that can be addressed in a humane way that elevates human freedoms and liberty instead of being perceived as taking them away.