By Martin Lowe

Do you know your kid?

IMG_0082I never got to know my mother as an adult. I spent the first twelve years of my life with her, but that’s not the same. That’s the time of your life where that relationship is all about mother and son. She takes care of you, and your worship her for it. You don’t get to know her as a person…what makes her tick…what makes her laugh etc…And really, twelve years is nothing.

I’ve recently realized what a loss that is. What parts of her are a part of me? What aspects of her made it through to me? Who would she be like today? What did she think of motherhood? What would she think of me? What kind of relationship would I have with her today? And how different would I be based on the knowledge I would have had with the above questions answered? Would it have affected my parenting style?

Those are a lot of questions I will never have answers for. I do know that one of her biggest fears was that my brother and I would forget about her. I’ll never forget her, but as stated above I do forget (or have never truly known) what she was like as a human being. Is that what she meant? Was that was she was scared of? If so, I’m afraid so that her fears came true. And that makes me incredibly sad.

To that end I’ve tried spending a lot of quality time with my son. I’ve tried to get to know him as he’s quickly developing his own personality. He’s turning 6 next week, which will mean that I will have reached the halfway mark to the amount of time my mother had with me. And that I had with her. The past 6 years have flown by, and I can only surmise that the next 6 will be even faster. But I already know this: it will not be nearly enough time for me to get to know him, or for him to get to know me.

So what am I getting at? I’m getting to this. Try to spend as much quality time with your kid(s) as you can. Get down on your knees and have conversations at eye-level with them. It doesn’t matter what’s it about. Talk to them. Get to know them. I know we’re all busy with work and extra-curricular activities; we all need to make a living, and feel like we’re contributing in one way or another. But one never knows when one will depart this world…yourself or your children. It can happen in the blink of an eye. And if there’s anyone you should get to know as closely as possible, shouldn’t it be your kid? Or in reverse, your parent?

Because I tell you, I sure would like to know what made my mother laugh right about now.

About the author: Martin can found at Carter Hales Design Lab during the day, The Stage New West on weekends and on Twitter at all times.

A thank you note to my 5 year old son

Thank you…

…for making me laugh.

…for showing me how resilient someone should be.

…for pushing the limits of my patience.

…for still being light enough to ride on my shoulders.

…for giving me the opportunity to meet other awesome parents.

…for “encouraging” me to be in the best shape of my life.

…for being the cause of my involvement with The Stage New West.

…for enjoying movies.

…for challenging me to be a better parent, a better human being.

…for being kind.

…for showing me that someone can really talk non-stop during a long drive.

…for humbling me with your bravery.

…for making me appreciate Netflix

…for reminding me of what childhood is about.

…for making me cry.

…for not loving Yo Gabba Gabba.

…for having my mother’s eyes.

…for checking how long a man can go without sleep.

…for testing how well I can hold my anger in check…or not.

…for still wanting to hug me

…for introducing me to your workfriends.

…for rekindling the magic.

…for being you.

About the author: Martin can found at Carter Hales Design Lab during the day, The Stage New West on weekends and on Twitter at all times.

Judging a book by it’s cover

My kid got bitten in the face by a dog a few days ago. He’ll be fine, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the incident itself, or how scared I was when it happened, or how brave he has been since then. Though he’s been incredibly brave and I obviously have things to learn from him regarding resiliency.

No. What I’m going to write about is the biggest fear he’s had since the incident: that other kids will laugh at him because he looks funny. That was his biggest concern on the way back from the hospital. He was so concerned that he was hiding his face from his teachers and friends for a couple of days. And then, unfortunately, on his first day back at camp another kid did point and laugh.

My question is this: when does this start? When does the obsession with the way someone looks begin? Now I have to admit that once I knew he was going to be okay, I was worried he would be physically scarred for life, but my boy is 5….that is not something he should be aware of. He even used the word scar on the night of the incident.

It’s bad enough that the way one looks and the way one’s body looks is one of our society’s biggest issue. There is way too much pressure on men and women these days to look a certain way and if you don’t you won’t be popular or successful. We’ve all spent too much time thinking about the way we look…I know I have. But when one is five years old, shouldn’t one be more concerned about pirates, fairies, trucks and dolls.

Do they get exposed to this way of thinking from TV? Movies? Peers in school and the playground? Parents? The answer is probably a combination of all of the above. But ultimately I believe it comes from our society as it seems pretty ingrained in it at this point. Just look at the beautiful people we’re surrounded by on TV, in movies, on billboards etc…How can we expect our kids not to get affected by all that exposure?

I’d like to believe we could change this way of thinking, but I’m not sure that’s possible.  I think we’re all guilty of judging people based on their looks…whether based on the colour of their skin, a scar of some kind, or the fact that somehow they’re considered ugly. But maybe as parents we need to spend more time talking about what’s really important in people. Actually, it’s not a maybe. I believe once we accept the awesome responsibility of being a parent that we need to communicate to our offsprings that people are about more than what they look like. They’re about how they think, how they feel, and how they love.

It’s not going to change society, but every little step counts, right?

About the author: Martin can found at Carter Hales Design Lab during the day, The Stage New West on weekends and on Twitter at all times.