Archive for CaveBabies and Cavekids
How Can Fathers Develop a Greater Connection With Daughters?
Posted by: | CommentsFor many years, it was seen as a harmless quirk that children gravitate towards their Mother most of the time, and that Fathers were traditionally seen as standoffish, especially when it came to interacting with daughters. What this doesn’t consider, however, is that Fathers who are unable to communicate, or at least feel unable to, with their female offspring obviously cannot do so for a reason, whether this is down to emotional development or confidence.
Obviously, we cannot send Dad back to when he was a teenager and make him more emotionally aware for when he has children, or go back even further and ensure that parents of generations past shared the same traits.
What we can do, however, is put together a list of fun things modern Fathers can do with their daughters in order to build a greater bond and further strengthen the relationship.
Playtime
From an early age, all Fathers should take it upon themselves to nurture their relationship with their daughter through play. This might mean putting aside a few personal hang-ups and forgetting about how self-aware they might be, especially when it comes to playing with dolls or having a fairy tea party, for example.
However, these experiences will set out a pathway for later years. A Father and his little girl will hold these shared times dear forever, and no-one will ever take that away.
Time to be Friends
Often the most awkward time for this dynamic is during a child’s teenage years, when girls in particular go through many physical and hormonal changes. The awkwardness is felt on both sides, so the best Fathers can do at this stage is to be a friend as much as a parent.
What they shouldn’t do is become remote and believe that everything should be done by Mum. Single male parents should seek advice if they feel uncomfortable, but never get anyone to do their job for them.
Meeting the Boys
Meeting a daughter’s first boyfriend can be something of a surreal experience, and is probably downright scary for the younger ones. However, Fathers should be prepared to be friendly and welcoming – too many still take the Neanderthal route of ‘let’s give him the third degree – before giving honest feedback to their child afterwards.
Everyone should remember the golden rule that everyone is their own person, however, and you might not always agree with the decisions people make.
The Father/Daughter relationship is an important family dynamic, but one that is often lost due to un-necessary feelings of awkwardness and difficulty. Fathers everywhere should seek to build a stronger bond with their daughter, no matter what age they are. It may seem strange at first, but will be worth it in the long run.
Heavy Kids and Caveman Theory
Posted by: | CommentsOne of my top irritations today concerns the growing prevalence of “food police” in our society. All the way from our First Lady to local school board members, we are bombarded with do-good advice, guidelines and laws which supposedly will create less fat kids and adults.
This has been going on for well over 20 years. However, lately the rhetoric has been ramped up several notches. I just watched a TV special about obesity in our children. The central theme was how government had an obligation to the people to tackle and fix this problem. Additionally, all food related businesses, small and large had a societal obligation to “provide healthier choices” (one of the do-gooder’s favorite anti-obesity buzz words).
Do not misinterpret what I am saying about the “do-gooders”. I do admire them for their concern and their willingness to take action.
But they are simply wrong in their approach.
Once again, please allow me to simply interject some caveman theory into the issue. For those who can’t quite subscribe to the caveman theory principles on this blog, how about we just talk about plain common sense instead.
The food police have been hard at it for over twenty years (a case can be made for 30 years in fact).
Thousands upon thousands of laws have been created in order to “provide more healthy choices”. Yet, every year our children get fatter, fatter, and fatter.
Hundreds of the world’s most famous people in the past few decades have jumped upon the bandwagon of healthy eating to fight obesity. Yet, every year our children get fatter, fatter, and fatter.
Millions upon millions of advertising dollars have been spent by our government and private organization to ensure parents understand the importance of “healthy options”. Yet, every year our children get fatter, fatter, and fatter.
Um, listen, even a caveman can figure out something is amiss here. The only answer the food police have to the problem is to make more laws and rules, enlist more people to spread the word, and spend more money “educating” parents about healthy choices (all the things that HAVE NOT worked at ALL in the past 20 years).
In the 60’s our school lunch rooms served the very greasiest pizza, fried chicken, and french fries known to man. We ate REAL butter on our homemade hot roles (delicious I might add!). The concept of salad bars was still years away. At best, we had a few pieces of lettuce with our hamburger and fries.
In the 60’s and 70’s restaurants, drive-in’s and McDonalds were free to serve the tastiest foods they could fry up in deep fryers of animal fat (lard makes for the best tasting fries possible).
Instead of healthy eating commercials, we as kids learned about the tastiest and sugar filled breakfast cereals in the world (which our Mothers gladly bought and fed us).
I could go on, but you get the point.
And guess what. The kids in the 60’s, 70’s and before, were MUCH skinnier than they are today after 20+ years of the best efforts of the food police!
Yes, the do-gooders think the problem is still the lack of focus and availability of “healthy choices”.
Honestly, I’m at a loss for words here with respect to their lack of common sense and their inability to understand just how misguided they are.
When I was a kid, we had 4 grainy channels of TV to watch, when we watched it. We had no computers, iPads, iPods, Facebook, or any other gizmos to keep our rears glued to a chair, couch, or floor.
My goodness, if you took those things away from our kids today, what WOULD they do with themselves? How, I wonder, did I manage when I was a kid without those things?
I’ll tell you how.
My friends and I PLAYED together outside. We played all weekends, every weekend. We played after school as much as possible. In the summer we played until dark and sometimes past dark if we could. On rainy days, we played “army” or the like inside. We burned a ton of calories…just like cavekids did.
We were NORMAL kids. Today, our kids are not doing “normal” things kids have done for ions of time. It’s not natural to spend so much of your time growing up stuck to a seat playing video games or Facebooking, or whatever else they do that requires only eyes and fingers instead of legs, feet, arms, and good lung capacity.
THAT is the problem with obesity in our youth today. The food police can restrict, educate, and make all the laws they want. The only thing that will change is that our kids will get fatter, fatter, and fatter.
Oh, some say that “times” have changed. It’s unsafe for kids to play outside now. That’s why we must regulate and lower the amount of “bad” food choices they have.
That’s a weak argument and will only lead to our kids getting fatter, fatter, and fatter. Any physiologist will tell you that lowering activity lowers the metabolic rate. That’s why it’s very difficult to lose weight and keep it off simply by dieting and “eating right” without exercise.
I’m not offering any solution here accept to point out that if our kids had the amount of exercise kids in the 60’s had, they would not still be getting fatter, fatter, and fatter.
Think about this the next time you hear a food policeman at work.
Day Care and Cave Babies
Posted by: | CommentsIs day care for modern day babies and toddlers hurtful to them? Caveman Theory says no. Early caveman babies were raised in clans where many babies and toddlers were present and raised by numbers of women. That was good. It is good. Older babies and toddlers benefit from early socialization. Stay at home moms without other children near the age of their older baby or toddler should seek out times for their child to interact with other children his or her age.
Therefore, day care itself is not bad for the child.
However…
The problem is that the 6-week old baby is separated from its mother. During caveman days, the groups of mothers, including the biological mother generally, took care of the groups of children; the baby still had contact with his or her mother.
Working moms: I am sorry, but all is not well for your baby when, after 6 weeks of age, they suddenly find themselves without you for 8+ hours, 5 days a week. And NO…you can rationalize all you want, but NOTHING good comes from leaving a 2 or 3 month old baby with strangers. At that time in the baby’s life, it needs it’s mothers.
Mothers KNOW this instinctively. But they cling to “feel good” thoughts such as, “it builds independence”. Yeah right. What it builds is anxiety and insecurity because they learn they can’t count on their mothers not to abandon them for hours on end.
Economically, you may have no choice in these times; I understand that. But never rationalize your way around the fact that your baby is better off with you 24/7 the first six months and nearly that often the rest of the first year.
What about stay at home dads you ask? That’s another post coming soon.
Men and Babies
Posted by: | CommentsSorry to break this to you guys, but babies don’t need a guy right off but for one thing….to “bring home the bacon”. For the first few months of life, the mother/baby bond is all the child needs (along with the “bacon” for the mom to eat). Modern society now “expects” men to be able-bodied caretakers of these fragile creatures that only a mother can truly understand and care for properly.
As men, it’s simply not in our DNA. For example, all women think all babies are “cute”. When a man see’s his newborn, he is not thinking “cute”. He is proud, but “cuteness” does not enter his thoughts. If he uses the word “cute”, it’s for his wife’s sake. What the man is really thinking is, “I want to get out of here so I can go chase some bacon (his DNA s screaming that in fact.)”
Today’s modern world gives us more time together. Men can often take time off from chasing the bacon to stay home and “help with the baby”. On one hand that is good. But on the other hand, women almost never realize that men do not think as they do. Men don’t wake up with every whimper from the child. Men aren’t able to handle the down and dirty aspects of babies (if you know what I mean). Men are just plain lousy when it comes to baby care. Period.
Problems arise when women do not understand this basic DNA difference. They feel devalued when their husband does not rise to the occasion in baby rearing in all ways. This is a perfect example of Caveman Theory in action. In times past, it would never be expected that a man would share much or probably any of the day to day baby care. Therefore, it simply is not in our DNA and will never come naturally.
