Since I became a father, my priorities have shifted. Where once I was politically neutral or slightly to the left of center, I now find that my every thought and nearly every action is a product of parenthood.

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I love America.

My politics are progressive.

That wasn’t always the case. I’ve found that since I became a father, my priorities have shifted. Where once I was politically neutral or slightly to the left of center, I now find my every thought and nearly every action is a product of parenthood.

I am progressive because I am a father. I want my sons to grow up in a better world. I want to do all I can to help make that happen. That’s why I write. It’s what I do instead of running for office or phone banking or raising thousands of dollars for my preferred progressive candidates.

I want my sons to know I care about their future. I want them to know I love them.

When it comes to politics that means I lean toward compassion. I see very little on the right that passes for compassion, unfortunately.

For all its ugly past (and present), for all its uncertainty and inequality, I love America.

Now, based on some things I’ve read on social media, seen on TV and heard on the radio, that statement might come as a bit of a surprise to those of you on the political right.

“What?” you exclaim. “He doesn’t even have a photo of an American flag on his Twitter page! How can he say he loves America if he doesn’t have American flags and bald eagles on his Twitter and Facebook pages?” (Not to mention skulls; what’s the deal with all the skulls, anyway?).

You hear a lot of chants of “USA! USA! USA!” at conservative political rallies. Sometimes, those chants arise at odd moments, like when protesters who have exercised their First Amendment rights are marched out by police or hired security. What does that even mean? The protesters are, somehow, less American?

It seems to me some conservatives believe they have a monopoly on patriotism.

They do not.

I love American flags, bald eagles and USA chants.

I am a progressive-minded patriot.

I submit that in many cases, the popular version of “patriotism” espoused by some on the right is a bundle of nationalist talking points built on a combination of otherwise disparate interests: gatekeepers of big business, like the Koch brothers; blatant racists, like David Duke; zealots from the evangelical right, like Pat Robertson.

They are defenders of the hierarchy, united against the tectonic but inevitable demographic shift of electoral power into the hands of people who are not white men.

They are afraid.

I am not afraid.

I love America.

Free to debate; free to think

I love that NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick can take a knee during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner in protest of the systemic racism that has cost so many black Americans their lives and robbed so many others of their right to feel secure.

I love that I can support Kaepernick and loathe the systemic racism in our country while also applauding the mission of the police to protect and serve our society.

I love that I can own and openly express seemingly contradictory opinions like these. Americans are nothing if not contradictory.

I love that one of the many great things about America is inherent optimism, a belief that the problems that plague our culture have solutions and that we can find them together.

I love America.

I love that I can walk into our local grocery store on a Sunday afternoon and fill a cart with things like Pop-Tarts, three kinds of sliced bread, fresh fruit and veggies and canned corn.

I love that I can share that grocery store with people who will never think like I do – people who will eagerly cast a vote for a presidential candidate I find deplorable – and we just smile and nod as we pass one another on the soup aisle.

I love civility in the face of bitter disagreement. That’s American, too.

I love that we are free to debate, that I am free to think as I like, write what I like, say what I like.

I love that when I see a huge Confederate battle flag high atop a giant pole near the highway on my commute to and from work I am free to question the motives of those who choose to fly that flag. I also love that they are free to do it, even though I believe it is brutally insensitive to those who consider that flag a symbol of division and worse.

I’ve been places; I love them all

I love so much about this country. I have wandered many of its grand cities, and become immersed in the local cultures of big places like Seattle, New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, Los Angeles, Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, Boston and on and on.

I have eaten their food and breathed their air.

I have lived in small, quiet places: Sebring, Kinston, Gainesville. I love them, too.

I’ve been places.

I walked in awe alone on a winter day across the Northern Virginia battleground of Manassas. I stood by myself in Monument Park at old Yankee Stadium and communed with the ghosts of Gehrig, Ruth and DiMaggio. I walked the sixth floor at the old Texas School Book Depository and peered out the window into Dealey Plaza below. I stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and held my breath for what seemed like hours. I stumbled along every inch of the Las Vegas strip and watched many a glorious sunset over Cape Cod Bay. I wept at Ground Zero in New York, and I shuffled my feet to sweet jazz and blues at Preservation Hall in New Orleans.

I have seen all of these things and places and so many more, and I love them all.

Nothing more powerful than compassion

I believe in quiet strength and practical solutions. I believe that sacrifice, the kind made by good cops, educators, parents and U.S. service men and women, should be acknowledged gratefully.

I believe there is nothing more powerful on Earth than compassion.

I believe there is good in the world, and I believe that it is reflected by the best of America.

I love that.

And despite the ills of our nation, despite the inequality and misunderstandings, despite the awful things we see and hear and read in the news and on social media, I am optimistic.

I believe that collective compassion and – yes – intelligence will see us through. I believe the problems can be solved. I believe we will leave a better country, a better world, for our kids.

I believe we all are stronger together.

I am a father who loves his sons. I love that their future is full of promise.

I am an American.

I am a patriot.

My politics are progressive.

And I love America.

Photo: Do I Know You? via photopin (license)

There they go. My children. Off to face the world. Off to make their way without me along to guide them.

OK, it’s just school. They’ll be fine. In fact, they’ll thrive. I know this from experience.

Our kids – most kids – are far more resilient than we think. They strike a brilliant balance between resilience and flexibility. They bend into and sway with the winds of fortune, testing the limits of their self-sufficiency.

The best we can do as parents is to furnish them with the emotional and intellectual tools they need to harness the future as well as they can and let them grow as they will.

Which brings me to our family’s exciting news: I got a new job!

Work-at-home dad no more

For the past two years, my “office” was the little space I needed to set up my laptop and place my coffee mug within easy reach. My summer days were spent administering Camp Dad. The school-year days were punctuated and enriched by a mid-afternoon stroll through the neighborhood to meet my sons as they bounded off the big yellow bus.

I’ll miss those school bus hugs most of all.

I was a work-at-home dad, and I loved every minute. It was the great privilege of my life to be an at-home caretaker for my sons for two golden years.

Work-family balance was no longer an issue for me. My wife and I did not need to worry about the expense of a reliable, convenient after-school program.

As a work-at-home dad, I coached baseball and hung out at tennis class. I helped them with their homework in the afternoon and cooked supper every night.

I chaperoned field trips and visited my sons occasionally at school to share lunch or to read out loud in class.

I was there.

(It’s important at this juncture to acknowledge that I know how lucky I was to have those two years at home. And I could not have done it if not for the most generous, strongest and patient partner anyone could have. For her grace and support, I am eternally grateful – and I tell her that as often as I can.)

So, I’m back at the office. It’s where my family needs me to be now.

Back among the 46 percent

We know this drill. This is how it was for the 4½ years I worked in an agency office before I began my work-at-home parenting idyll. My wife and I were among the 46 percent of American families with kids 18-and-under and two full-time worker parents.

By contrast, only 6 percent of American families with kids at home feature a dad working part-time or unemployed and a mother working full-time. Our time among that 6 percent was great while it lasted.

We are back in the 46 percent, in part, because of money. Medical bills and other expenses have grown over the past two years while our retirement accounts have remained static. My wife is brilliant at her job and paid accordingly, and I was able to scrape together a few freelance bucks the past couple of years.

Still, the reality for us is we need two full-time incomes to ensure financial stability now and in the future. It’s not just about money, though.

I would not have given up the benefits of being a work-at-home dad for just any old office job. I looked for several months for a full-time position that would allow me to use my skill as a writer and pay me enough to make it worthwhile. When I found the perfect fit, my wife and I both agreed it was time.

And so, it’s back to the morning commute. Back to an office routine. Back to sharing space with co-workers instead of our cat. Back to following the corporate career path.

There go my sons, back out on the wheel of school, after-school care, home. Rinse, repeat.

They’ll be fine. In fact, they’ll thrive. They did before, and now they are older, better-prepared to ride the wind.

I, on the other hand, feel their absence like a phantom limb. I hope the adjustment period moves swiftly. I think it will.

Meanwhile, I embrace the memories and center my emotions on the rational. They’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.

We’ll all be just fine.

There they go.

Two boys, cousins, played with their iPods and built grand, digital worlds together. Minecraft worlds, full of the wonderful, the frivolous, the clever and the dangerous.

A thought from the outside world, the real world – not so wonderful, not so clever – intruded upon their creative process. I heard my nephew ask my 8-year-old son: “Who do your mom and dad want for the new president?”

Our son gave the correct answer. He knew because we have made no secret of where we stand.

This will be the first presidential campaign our sons remember. Welcome to American politics, boys.

I’m bummed that the most surreal, vitriolic presidential campaign of my lifetime is providing their political indoctrination. Yet, this campaign has morphed into a rare opportunity.

This is a chance for us, as parents, to demonstrate to our kids what it means to stand up to the racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, ignorance and general mean-spiritedness that defines the Trump campaign.

Our kids see and hear things. They see and hear the angry man on TV shouting and calling other people names. They hear me answer back at the TV, exasperated, tired of the lies and hyperbole.

They don’t understand.

They are baffled by how rude the angry man acts on stage. The words he says don’t fit the narrative of their world, where their friends are boys and girls whose skin is brown or white or black, kids from Jordan and India and Fort Myers and New York and London and none of that matters, anyway.

The thing is, while that angry man on TV hisses, people on TV listen to him – and they cheer, madly.

How can they cheer? My sons don’t understand that, either. But I know that the cheers register with them, and that worries me.

‘The dream shall never die’

I know it registers with our kids because people cheering wildly at a political speech is the enduring image from the first presidential campaign I remember. I was 11 when Ted Kennedy lost to President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 Democratic primary.

I was old enough to be moved by Kennedy’s famous speech at the convention, which included this memorable passage:

“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose care have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures. The hope still lives. And the dream shall never die.”

I wonder how much that speech, heard at an age when I was on the verge of becoming aware that society extended beyond my own little world, shaped my predilection for progressive politics. I wonder what it meant to me to observe a crowd of people enthusiastically embrace the soaring rhetoric of the man from Massachusetts.

I wonder what it will mean for my sons that they have seen equally enthusiastic people embrace the ignorant ranting that passes for political discourse with the Trump crowd. I hope it doesn’t lead them to accept ignorance, xenophobia, bigotry, sexism and hatred as standard planks in a national campaign platform.

I hope they don’t think that atrocious worldview is OK, that it’s just “how things are” in America.

I hope, instead, that my sons will always reject hate speech, that what they see and hear now will lead them always to stand up for the unfortunate, to do and say what’s right, to conquer fear with courage, to meet ignorance with enlightenment.

Meanwhile, I hope they have fun creating worlds on Minecraft.

I hope they one day remember their mother and I being appalled and troubled by the willingness of millions of our fellow Americans to accept or overlook the divisive and bigoted attitude Trump used to snatch the Republican nomination.

I hope our sons hear it all, see it all, and that they one day help craft a world where this year’s presidential campaign is remembered as the last time bigotry almost won in America, but was defeated by grace and empathy.

Fatherhood is getting better for America’s 70 million dads … but it still kinda sucks for many of them, according to a new report released yesterday.

The first State of America’s Fathers report, released this morning by Promundo-U.S. gender justice initiative and the MenCare global fatherhood campaign, provides mixed news on how far dads have come. It focused heavily on what needs to improve for the United States to be a truly “child-friendly and parent-supportive country” that benefits moms and kids as well as dads.

“Fathers are more present in the lives of their children than in the past,” Promundo-U.S. CEO and President Gary Barker wrote in the report’s preface. “And they are doing more of the caregiving.”

However, he continues, “[we] have a long way to go.”

“We do not adequately prepare our sons to see themselves as caregivers and as full and respectful partners in sexual and reproductive health. We do not sufficiently support our families, through parent training and other means, to ensure that our children’s lives are free of violence. We have not created a workplace culture that recognizes that being a caring parent and leading a productive work life are not and must not be treated as mutually exclusive,” Barker wrote.

** Read the full State of America’s Fathers report **

I am one of the 70 million America’s fathers, and I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job. You probably feel the same way about yourself.

My kids haven’t fallen into a gorilla enclosure at the zoo or shaved the cat when our backs were turned. Yours probably haven’t either.

Things could be easier for us, though.

It would be nice to spend more time with our kids. It would be great if daycare and after-school care didn’t cost more than college.

If you’re a single dad or a non-U.S. citizen living here, it might feel like it’s tough to catch a break.

If you’re a stay-at-home dad, there’s a decent chance you feel isolated, tired and maybe a little overwhelmed every now and then. Or every day.

Listen, America’s fathers, this report shows you’re not alone.

The daily obstacles you face toward being the father you want to be – that you believe with all your heart that you need to be – are real, according to this wide-ranging and data-filled report, a follow-up to 2015’s State of the World’s Fathers report by MenCare.

Among the issues America’s fathers face:

• The United States is the only member of the 34-country Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that does not guarantee paid parental leave.
• America’s fathers spend 65 percent more time with their children during the work day than they did 30 years ago, but 60 percent reported struggles with work-family balance in 2008.
• Women spend an average of 66 minutes per day providing physical care to children in households with kids age 6 or younger. America’s fathers spend less than half of that amount.
• Men remain under-represented in caregiving and education professions (teacher, nurse, social worker), even as women have dramatically increased their presence in traditionally male-dominated jobs (physician, attorney, civil engineer).

The State of America’s Fathers report did more than point out problems. It also offered solutions such as:

• Teach all of our children, from early on, about the value of – and their opportunity to be – both caregivers and professionals.
• Improve services and education related to sexuality, caregiving, violence and parenting for youth and adults.
• Pass national paid, equal, and non-transferable leave for mothers and fathers.
• Push for supportive workplaces.
• Encourage men to enter health, caregiving and teaching professions.
• End the unnecessary battle of the sexes over parents’ custody of children in cases of divorce and separation. This includes enacting legislation to promote shared custody in the interest of gender equality and children’s well-being.
• Support the poorest fathers and families with a living wage, a reformed justice system, and additional services that encourage and support their caregiving.

Naturally, it won’t be that simple or quick to fix.

The State of America’s Fathers report reinforces what many American fathers and mothers already know from living through it. It’s tough out there, and we’ve largely been left on our own to navigate the challenges.

“It’s sort of this very private figure-it-out-yourself kind of attitude,” Davidson College sociology professor Gayle Kaufman, one of four subject-matter experts who reviewed and vetted the America’s fathers report, said in an interview with City Dads Group. “And that really isn’t always supportive or critical of the structures that are in place.”

Kaufman, author of the book Superdads: How Fathers Balance Work and Family in the 21^st Century, expressed hope for the direction of American fatherhood, despite the obvious and complex challenges that still remain. So did Scott Behson, a professor of management at Fairleigh-Dickinson University and another consultant on the America’s fathers report.

“I’m optimistic about the fact that we’re studying this, documenting it, identifying areas for improvement,” Behson, author of the Working Dad’s Survival Guide, said in an interview with City Dads Group.  “And I have no doubt that if this report were replicated five years from now, we’d see significant advances in many of the areas.”

The Tampa Tribune, a newspaper that long reflected and enhanced the lives of hundreds of thousands of Central Floridians, landed in driveways for the final time May 3, victim of a competitor buyout. That day also happened to be World Press Freedom Day.

In the wake of that depressing news, I asked myself a question I never expected to ask when I became a parent in 2005: What will our children do without newspapers?

For 300 years, newspapers informed and connected members of the community. Reporters and editors held civic leaders accountable. They shared stories that made home, home. However, kids growing up in the past decade live in a world where the public service provided by such dedicated, smart, committed journalists no longer seems valued.

The reasons for the newspaper industry’s demise – the emergence of the Internet as a source of “information” and cheap advertising, the greed and shortsightedness of those who held the purse strings – do not interest me much anymore. I am more concerned – as a journalist and as a father of two elementary-age children – about how the end of newspapers affects our culture.

I fear photojournalist Will Steacy, who documented the recent end of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said it best:

“When we lose reporters, editors, newsbeats and sections of papers, we lose coverage, information and a connection to our cities and our society, and, in the end, we lose ourselves.”

A quick story about my relationship with newspapers.

In the mid-1990s, when my career was just starting, I lived and worked in a place called Sebring, Fla. I was a young man on my own in a small, unfamiliar town. I was ambitious and optimistic. My future held Super Bowls and major-league baseball. I would one day travel the world and see and do amazing things.

Back then, though, I lived in a palmetto bug-infested, one-room efficiency on shallow Lake Jackson.

Sunday in Sebring was laundry day. It became a cherished ritual. I would stuff my dirty rags into a big duffel bag and head to the laundromat. On the way, I would swing by the 7-Eleven for coffee and to make change for the washer and the dryer. I would grab four extra quarters to drop into the box outside for a Sunday New York Times.

As my laundry spun and soaked and dried, I would while away the morning immersed in my favorite sections, my old friends the Week in Review, the Book Review, the NY Times Magazine, and Arts & Entertainment. I felt smarter after I read them, more refined – even though I was anything but. I was more informed, though, and I was more connected.

This was before the Internet took off, before Buzzfeed and Reddit and ESPN and Fox News established their dominance of the media world, before the fierce demands of immediacy began to trump thoughtful consideration and accuracy.

The 24-hour news cycle, however, won in the end. I, and thousands of other fellow journalists, lost. As did their readers.

With newspapers no longer a force for contemplative connectivity in our society, what are our children missing? How will their adulthood be different from ours, which was shaped in so many ways by the power of the press?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the deterioration of the political discourse in the United States has coincided with the demise of newspapers and the related winnowing of the watchdog media class. People consume their “news” in echo chamber silos that leave no room for opposing opinions to intrude, let alone hard, unbiased news.

Social media feeds and cable news channels only serve to reinforce fiercely held beliefs, often at the expense of truth.

Newspaper reporters and editors were, and still are, far from perfect arbiters of the local and national discourse. But back when TV and Internet news aggregators took their cues from trained, experienced journalists, the country felt smarter, more refined – even if it was anything but.

Still, I remain cautiously optimistic. We enjoy a different kind of connectivity now, a different kind of community. The Internet and social media helped shred newspapers, but they also have enabled a generation of creators and thought leaders to share knowledge at an unprecedented scale.

Something good could come of that. For the sake of our children, I hope so.

Many smart people talked about how to recognize and remedy the barriers confronting our daughters at a recent day-long Washington, D.C., conference on gender stereotypes in media and toys. These people, brought together by the White House Council on Women and Girls, furnished ideas about how to equip girls with the knowledge and tools they’ll need from childhood and into adulthood.

But first, they talked about boys.

This was no accident. Traditional gender stereotypes perpetuated in movies, on TV and in the design and marketing of toys and games do not only affect girls. They also affect boys.

This is a human issue. Parents need to be aware of the problems inherent with gender stereotypes and learn how to help their sons understand them, too.

The conversation is, or should be, about taking an honest look at how society’s outdated definitions of “normal” gender behavior and gender roles potentially limit boys as well as girls. We need to think about and talk about why that’s important.

Attending as a representative for Dads4Change, I was particularly struck by statements from three different panelists at the event which carried a noble title – “Breaking Down Gender Stereotypes in Media and Toys: Helping Our Children Explore, Learn and Dream Without Limits.”

Dr. Michael Reichert, executive director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania, called for a re-invention of boyhood.

“The truth about boyhood is that it was never designed to serve boys, but rather to serve the needs of society,” he said. “It has never had boys’ needs and natures as its primary concern.”

Reichert said parents and society in general need to recast the way we think about socializing boys, that “traditional boyhood” simply isn’t going to work anymore. Instead of encouraging emotional isolation and competitive masculinity, we should “nurture them to match their needs and their nature so they get to be full human beings.”

Educator Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes (a 2002 book that served as an inspiration for the movie Mean Girls) and Masterminds & Wingmen (2014), emphasized the complex inner lives of boys as contrasted with the societal expectation of emotional stoicism.

“Boys are capable of wanting to blow things up, set things on fire, make loud noises, jump off of things, and even make fart jokes – and all fart jokes are funny – and that same boy is capable of deep love, deep feelings, deep confusion and desperately needing meaning in his life,” she said. “Adults are not honest with each other and with ourselves about what we do that labels and boxes boys in.”

Writer and social media professional Charlie Capen, co-founder of the popular entertainment website How to be a Dad, focused on how parents can encourage their kids to pursue their own paths – regardless of society’s gender expectations.

“If your son wants to try ballet,” Capen said, “don’t fight it – follow it.”

Why is this important? Why should we be concerned about the effect of gender stereotypes on the social development of boys?

Because until the cycle is broken, until we recognize and acknowledge how gender stereotypes slot boys into a certain emotional, social and economic path, nothing will change for anyone.

As the father of two young sons, here’s what I’m going to try to do:

When I talk to my sons about potential careers, I will make a point of including in the discussion professions traditionally filled by women. Just as there is no reason a girl shouldn’t aspire to a fulfilling career in science or information technology, there is no reason my sons can’t become nurses or elementary school teachers.

When I talk to my sons about sports, I won’t limit it to the men who play baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer. I’ll tell them about Serena Williams and Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Janet Evans and Mia Hamm and Martina Navratilova.

When I talk to them about life, I’ll let them lead the conversation. I want to know what they want. I want to know how they see the world, and their place in it. I want them to know that I care.

The most important thing I’ll do – or attempt to do – is to model behavior that rejects gender stereotypes and the inherent barriers. This will take some work on my part, but I feel better prepared for it now.

The conversation continues.

Boy/bear photo: Pixabay.com

When was the last time you had a meaningful, constructive conversation with a physician about your health? When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with ANYONE about your health?

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I want to live a long, healthy, happy life. Don’t you?

I want to stick around as long as I can for my family. I’m guessing you do, too.

So, hey, here’s an idea: Let’s take care of ourselves.

It really is that simple. And, it really is more complicated than that.

Here’s why it’s simple: You already know how to take care of yourself.

If not, look no further than the Movember Foundation, the worldwide men’s health initiative that turns every November into a mustache-fest. Here are five pieces of advice from Movember to help you take control of your physical and mental health and look after yourself:

• Check-in regularly with family and friends.
• Get moving.
• Talk about your health.
• Know your family medical history.
• If you notice something out of the ordinary, do something about it.

Simple, right? Common sense stuff.

Here’s why it can be more complicated to take control of your health than that: Failing to act on this common sense advice is how so many men fall short of being effective advocates for their own health.

We know what to do, but we don’t always do it.

“Men don’t talk, they don’t take action, and they die too young,” said Mark Hedstrom, director of Movember in the United States. “That’s really important to get out there. You have to be proactive, guys. You can’t sit back and wait for something bad to happen.”

You know this. You know that complacency kills. You know that when it comes to the leading causes of death among men – heart disease and cancer – steps for prevention and early detection could mean the difference between extended life and imminent death.

Yet, when was the last time you had a meaningful, constructive conversation with a physician about your health? When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with ANYONE about your health?

This isn’t about marching off to your physician for a physical and blood work. In fact, recent studies have actually begun to call into question the need for an annual physical if you’re asymptomatic. This remains controversial, so if you are looking for a way to start a health-related conversation with a physician, here’s one hell of an ice-breaker.

That aside, being your own healthcare advocate is also about common sense. It’s about paying attention to your body and mind so you know how to recognize if something is not quite right, and about knowing what questions to ask when do go to the doctor.

It’s about speaking up on your own behalf – and not just with your doctors. Talk about your health with friends and family members. You might think they’d rather not hear about it, that you’d be perceived as a complainer. Or you might be one of those guys who thinks the quiet, stoic approach is the path to manliness.

Well, forget that nonsense. Your friends and family members want a healthy you. When you talk about your physical, mental and emotional well-being, you take control of your health.

This is particularly true in the examination room.

While your doctors might ask surface questions about symptoms and recent medical history, they usually don’t spend time trying to drag potentially vital information out of you. They have other patients to see in a limited amount of time.

That’s why you should use the time wisely. Pleasantries about last night’s game or the latest episode of that TV show can break the ice. But after that? Get down to business.

“It’s a little bit of a challenge because there’s a preconceived notion among physicians that men don’t ask those questions,” Hedstrom said. “You really need to start asking that question: What does that test result mean? Do I need a colonoscopy? That sort of thing. Men taking action and having a conversation about their health is going to change that.”

You don’t need a medical degree to know what questions to ask. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality suggests, among others:

• What is this test for?
• What is my diagnosis?
• Why do I need this treatment?
• Are there any alternative treatments?
• What are the possible complications?
• Do I need to change my daily routine?

The answers will not always be definitive. Cancer, heart disease and other physical conditions don’t always lend themselves to certainty.

But you want to live a long, healthy, happy life, don’t you? I know I do.

So, take control of your health, men. Let’s figure out what we need to do to make sure we’re around for families as long as possible.

“That’s the most important thing,” said Movember’s Hedstrom. “It’s quite frankly why I show up to work every day.”

Photo: FreeImages.com/Adam Ciesielski

Unless your kids already show an aptitude for working with wind power or healing the sick, you would do well to prep your child for career success now by helping them develop  skills that will serve them no matter how their careers unfold.

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I was going to be in newspapers until the day I died. And then I wasn’t.

I was going to live my life in press boxes and newsrooms. I was going to keel over well into my 80s while on assignment, probably waiting to interview some prima-donna ballplayer in a major-league clubhouse. I would have died grumpy, which for an ancient sportswriter is the same thing as dying happy.

But the newspaper industry beat me to that happy, tragic end. Newspapers as we knew them for centuries all but died in 2007 when the Great Recession gripped the world. Everything in the industry since has been decomposition, including my 2008 layoff from the newspaper that had me covering sports for 16 years.

I thought I had chosen wisely when I picked newspapers as a career in the late 1980s. After all, it was as much a calling as an occupation. I enjoyed the work. I took pride in it. The industry seemed stable and secure, too. It had been viable in the United States since James Franklin of Boston hired his little brother, Benjamin, to work for him at the New England Courant. It was not stable or secure enough.

My experience informs my approach to helping my two elementary-age kids pursue their own professional ambitions. I want to do everything I can in the coming years to help them avoid the unexpected career derailment I suffered in my late 30s. If you worry like I do then President Obama’s recent message to White House interns might resonate: “Worry less about what you want to be, and think more about what you want to do.”

How do we help them do that? How can you prep your child for career success in the unpredictable job market of the second half of the 21st century?

We can start with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent Projections of Occupational Employment, which use data and some kind of business school mathematical voodoo to predict what industries will be thriving and what industries will be fading into oblivion in the year 2024.

What we find there is that the healthcare field will provide many jobs in the coming decade and beyond – physicians, nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and such. No surprise there. The aging Baby Boomers and their aging Generation X children will need a lot of medical attention.

We also find that, according to the 10-year projections of the BLS, the job with the most promise for growth in America is … wind turbine service technician.

Predictions, of course, are a fool’s game when it comes to jobs and the economy. There is no way to know what careers will be “safe” or will pay well or will offer our kids a lifetime of professional satisfaction. Unless they already show an aptitude for working with wind power or healing the sick, you would do well to help them develop career-building skills that will serve them no matter how their careers unfold.

To that end, encourage them to:

• Identify the things they do best and care about the most and work to become experts in those things.
• Make friends with people who also do those things well.
• Find companies that make money doing those things and seek internships or part-time jobs with those companies; learn how they make money doing those things and think about how they can, too.
• Take a course or two (or more) in business and management, regardless of major if they attend college; learn the basics of business and how the entrepreneurial mind works.
• Never stop learning.
• Never stop making friends in their chosen field.
• Develop and maintain a flexible mindset; be aware that their skills and knowledge will evolve with experience, and their careers should evolve accordingly.

This is the advice I will give my kids in the years ahead. It’s too late for most guys my age to actually do most of these wonderful things, of course. These are the things I wish I had done when I was a teenager back in the ‘80s.

But why would I have needed to do those things? I had it all planned out. I was going to live my life in the press box and newsrooms. I was going to be in newspapers until the day I died.

And then, I wasn’t.

Photo for “How to prep your child for career success”: Unemployed via photopin (license)

Editor’s Note: The Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced the results of its annual Baseball Hall of Fame election two weeks ago, stirring the debate about whether players linked to steroid use should receive this highest honor. Writer Carter Gaddis cast one of the 440 ballots in that most recent election. 

I used to daydream about meandering through the Baseball Hall of Fame with my sons. I tell them that as an honorary lifetime member of the BBWAA and a Hall of Fame voter, I proudly played a small role in helping to commemorate the history of the game.

Now and then in this daydream, the boys and I pause and read the bronze plaques of the players who earned my vote. I tell them about watching Rickey Henderson steal bases; about witnessing Greg Maddux bewitch batters; about Ken Griffey Jr.’s backward cap and his contagious smile.

At some point during this little Norman Rockwell painting of a baseball dad’s dream, I take a minute to explain that even though the players they see enshrined in Cooperstown earned it, the Hall of Fame was incomplete.

Some of the greatest players were missing.

Pete Rose, yes. Shoeless Joe Jackson, sure. They gambled with their legacies and lost.

But also Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield and Roger Clemens. Imposing batters who hit many majestic home runs and an intimidating pitcher who might have been the best ever.

Champions who were as exciting to watch as any players of any era. Baseball players who dominated the game during their careers.

Then I tell my sons: I did not vote for any of them.

I tell them about the rule, the one that instructs Hall of Fame voters to take into account “integrity, sportsmanship, and character” of the candidates, as well as their playing records and contributions to their respective teams.

Bonds and Clemens, I explain to my sons, were tied to the illicit use of performance-enhancing drugs, which in the opinions of many observers tainted these great players’ historic achievements. The other four also were implicated in PED use to varying degrees.

It all sounds so logical in my head. In my vision, I have all the answers.

But the idyll is shattered when, like a needle scratching a vinyl record, my sons say to me in unison, “So what?”

To this, I have no answer.

Character matters

The question is what the current debate about Hall of Fame voting comes down to: So what? Why do “integrity, sportsmanship, and character” matter in a candidate for the Hall of Fame, besides the fact that an archaic stipulation written generations ago says those qualities must be taken into account?

For my part, I take the privilege of voting seriously. I conduct thorough research, and then make my decisions based on the best information available. I trust my experience and, ultimately, my instinct.

Voters (including me) have hemmed and hawed and given reasons why and why not, and excoriated fellow voters for naked hubris or ignorance. The public (and many voters) have decried the process.

Who are we to say Bonds and Clemens are not Hall of Fame worthy?

Well, we’re members of the BBWAA, and the responsibility was offered and accepted long ago. I do it because I care about the game, and because I was asked to do it.

That is a debate for another time, another place.

I write this now as a father, a father who happens to also be one of the privileged few to cast a ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. As with every role I play in life, my status as a voter is linked to and influenced by the most important role I will ever play.

Dad.

Let me be clear – the moral and ethical ambiguity of Baseball Hall of Fame voting is child’s play compared to the daily challenge of parenthood.

The parenting decisions I make every day, the lessons I try to impart, the love I share, the example I try to set for my sons … in these things and all else, integrity, sportsmanship and character matter. I don’t need a written rule to tell me that.

I want so much for there to be a correlation between my stance as a voter on Bonds, Clemens, et al, and my role as a father. I want to be able to point to those players and say to my sons, “See? This is what happens when you cheat, when you take shortcuts in life. We must live with the consequences of our actions.”

I want to wrap this in a moral, ethical bow – an object lesson in parenting brought to you by the great game of baseball.

This isn’t that.

I’m not cynical, but I am realistic enough to know that my day-to-day responsibilities as a parent only relate to the raging debate about the qualifications of certain Hall of Fame candidates in the most tangential way. Still …

If I could script that daydream vision of Cooperstown with my sons, they would not ask why it mattered that Bonds, Clemens and the rest of the exiled greats were excluded. In the face of evidence of cheating, they would not ask me, “So what?”

Instead, they would file the fact of Bonds’ and Clemens’ absence away for future consideration, and we would move on. They would point to the bronze image of a man with a script “B” on his cap and ask: “Who is that?”

And I would say: “That’s Jackie Robinson. He changed the game in 1947, the year your grandfather was born. See what it says there?” And I point to the final sentence on his plaque:

“Displayed tremendous courage and poise in 1947
when he integrated the modern major leagues
in the face of intense adversity.”

That is true character. They would file that away, too. And we would move on.

Photo credit: Kevin McKeever

Hey, you. Unreasonably Intense Sports Parent.

Knock it off, OK? That’d be great.

For everyone.

Oh, I get it. Trust me. That’s your kid out there. She’s got game, too.

You just want her to excel (and have fun).

You just want her to win (and have fun).

She should also DOMINATE THOSE OTHER PUNKS LIKE JORDAN on EHLO (and have fun) AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN “OUT,” REF? ARE YOU FREAKING BLIND? IDIOT!

I get it, though. I have kids, too. My older son played non-competitive YMCA soccer from age 4 until 9 when he turned to baseball – the sport of my youth.

I want him to excel, to win, to have fun.

So, yeah, I’m a sports parent. I yell, too. I’m into it. No matter the score, no matter if he’s pitching or batting or playing the field, I watch with an alert and practiced eye and mentally record the advice I’ll give him later when we’re out in the backyard playing catch.

And I yell. Boy, do I yell.

“Stay in the box, buddy!”

“It’s in the dirt! Cover the plate! COVER THE PLATE!”

“It’s OK! You’ll get ‘em next time!”

He hears me. Everybody hears me. I’m yelling, loudly, so of course, everybody hears me.

That is, everybody hears me when THEY’RE not yelling, too.

Because that’s what a sports parent does, right? We yell encouragement and advice and even the occasional admonition.

Researchers to the youth sports parent: Chill out!

Here’s the thing, though. Two recent studies – one from Ithaca College, the other from the Boston-based youth coaching consortium, CoachUp – revealed, in part, what common sense should tell us, anyway: When it comes to youth sports, parents just need to chill.

What does that mean?

It means placing an overt and unyielding expectation of victory on a kid is a bad idea. Stop emphasizing performance and outcome ahead of social interaction. Don’t act like a jackass by berating coaches and officials.

It does not mean we shouldn’t place any expectations whatsoever on our kids.

I submit that parents should set reasonable expectations regarding a child’s participation in youth sports. Those expectations should be explained clearly, and parents should be sure their kid understands exactly how to live up to those expectations.

For example, the expectations I place on my son for baseball are these:

• I expect him to have fun.
• I expect him to treat his teammates and his opponents with respect.
• I expect him to learn how to catch, throw, run, slide and swing a bat well enough that he won’t get hurt during the course of a game.
• I expect him to pay attention to his coaches during practice, and he’ll listen to me when we’re playing catch in the backyard.
• I expect him to learn the rules of the game, and remember what he is supposed to be doing at all times on the baseball field. If he doesn’t know or remember, I expect him to ask his coaches or more-experienced teammates.
• I expect him to finish his homework before weekday practices and weeknight games.

These expectations are not negotiable. Nor are they unreasonable. Nor do I go berserk and scream and yell until I’m purple if he doesn’t quite live up to one or more of those expectations. I readily acknowledge that trying to live up to all of those – including the part about having fun – might present a challenge for my son. So be it. Growth happens when we confront our anxieties. We either overcome it or succumb to it. Either way, we learn.

Expectations go both ways. My son should expect me, as a sports parent:

• To be enthusiastic, but respectful, during games.
• To give encouragement where needed and to show empathy when things go poorly.
• To know when to step aside, when to shut up, and when to let him fail.
• To allow him to figure out the best way to respond to that failure, but to be there to remind him that there is another at-bat, another inning, another game, another season ahead.
• To be there for him and be happy for him and to hug him after the game – win or lose.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I want my son to excel at sports. Would I love one day to sit in the stands and watch my son throw a no-hitter, or drive in the winning run on a bigger stage? You bet.

I also want him to make a perfect score on the SAT, never get anything worse than an A on his report card, learn to play the violin like Itzhak Perlman, blaze trails like Susan B. Anthony and President Obama, discover creative ways to transform the world like Steve Jobs, stand up for what’s right in the face of seemingly overwhelming adversity like Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai, and be as kind and generous as his mother.

So, sit down, Unreasonably Intense Sports Parent. Have a seat next to me. I’m right here with you. Let’s talk about our hopes and dreams and, yes, our expectations for our kids. Let’s have some fun.

Photos: PublicDomainPictures.net