Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

Image credit via Flickr cc license.

“Mom, my teacher says I need indoor shoes for school. Ones that haven’t ever been worn outside.”

HULK. SMASH.

This isn’t my first time around the grade school block, so it’s not that I’m surprised. It’s just that …

ARRGH! SMASH! SMASH!

Every time I think about how utterly unnecessary it is for my kids to …

STILL. SMASHING …. OKAY. Now, I’m good.

Sorry ’bout that. I know from talking to other parents, and from airing out my grievances on Twitter last night, that you either completely agree with me and are in the midst of your own Hulk smash, or you think I’m crazy. So let me show you around my crazy.

First, you need to understand my absolute, undying, belief that good running shoes are the absolute, best, everyday shoe for growing kids of any gender. They need these shoes to participate in gym classes, but they also need them to support all the flat out running, jumping, climbing and playing they do all the time.

So my preference (and the obvious choice for most parents) is to buy each child one pair of quality running shoes at the end of every summer that they can basically wear all the time until winter. Then they will leave those shoes at school and wear boots to and from school until spring. This way I only have to buy one pair each per child per year of running shoes, winter boots, rain boots, sandals, dress shoes and assorted specialty items like skates, cleats and dancing shoes. I just feel like that’s enough.

But no. Many schools (but not all), and some teachers (but not all) within schools where there is no official policy, ask that children also bring indoor shoes (that really have to be running shoes for gym) to be kept at school during the fall and spring. So, if I want my kids to have good running shoes for gym class and for outdoor play, that means two pairs per kid per year!

When I was a child, I cannot imagine the schools demanding that families provide two pairs of the same kind of shoe for their child. Honestly, at our school, kids were lucky if they had warm boots in the winter. Of course, we also ate peanut butter everyday and thought that juice boxes counted as a “fruits and vegetables” serving or two. It was a simpler time.

Simpler time or not, buying extra pairs of shoes is still a stretch for many families. That’s, what, an extra $40 or $50 per child, that could go toward anything else. For a great many people that is money that would be better spent on groceries, rent, debt repayment, extracurricular activities, or things like books and schools supplies. For other people the extra cost doesn’t require such a personal sacrifice, but that doesn’t mean it’s less wasteful. To be honest, this year we can find the money for a second pair of runners for our kids. We’ll be all right. 

But that money could have gone toward further supporting our school’s fundraising efforts, sponsoring a friend who is raising money for charity, paying down debt, saving for the kids’ university educations, or helping a Syrian refugee. There are children in the world who have no shoes, but we need to buy our kids two pairs of the same bloody shoes?

That’s double the number of shoes that end up in a landfill, too, because we can’t bear the idea of wearing the same shoes inside and outside of a building. As I asked on Twitter last night, “When did we become so germaphobic that special inside shoes are always necessary?”

It’s not about the germs, many people said. It’s about the dirt. Okay, fine. Substitute “dirtaphobic” for “germaphobic” then. I think it’s all part of a general societal trend for increased cleanliness and over-sanitation. It’s a  trend, by the way, that scientists think might actually be making us sicker.

I mean, schools are public buildings that house hundreds of children all day, every day. Of course there’s going to be dirt! You can make the kids change their shoes outside their classrooms, but there’s still dirt in the halls. There’s dirt in the stairwells. There’s dirt clinging to their grubby little bodies. There’s little bugs living in their hair half the time, for fuck’s sake.

It’s kind of like when parents insist on spoon feeding their toddlers for months and years on end to prevent a mess. You know what’s easier? Letting them learn to feed themselves and then wiping everything down after.

I’ve also heard the theory that schools have cut back on custodial and cleaning services. I have no idea if that’s right, but it does seem plausible. It does not, however, follow that the cost of keeping the floors reasonably clean should fall onto the shoulders of the families. Let the floors get dirty, I say! And then have them cleaned every once in a while. They are floors.

Alas, it not up to me to shatter the prevailing orthodoxies of our time. All I can do is get all the complaining out of my system. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shoe shopping to do.

This is the third in a three-part series about helicopter parenting and back-to-school tech shopping that I’m writing as Best Buy Canada‘s parenting spokesperson. Here’s what looks good to me this year.

We all want to give our kids the best learning tools possible and to set them up for a successful school year. But kids and families really do have wildly different needs (and budgets.) You’re average kindergarten student doesn’t actually need any tech at all. He’s still getting max stimulation from crayons and building blocks. Your ultra-creative 16-year-old, though, might really benefit from platforms and software that support graphic design. And what you want or need to buy often depends on what you already own. So the smartest thing to do, by far, is to actually talk to the front-line staff at your local Best Buy. Those Blue Shirts are there to help you decide exactly what your kid does (and does not) need.

That said, here’s what I’m drooling over this year. My top-five tech tools that parents should consider (and one that I want just for me.)

Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Tablets have been the biggest item on the learning tech front for a while. Mobility is their key virtue because what good is the tool that you don’t have with you? And they really are great for pulling up reading material, videos, pictures and online browsing. But they really don’t work as laptop replacements; they are awkward to type on and since they lack a full operating system, they often don’t support key software or work with other devices.

That’s why I don’t even think of the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 as a tablet. It’s a full operating system within the body of a tablet. That means you can run any program you would have on your laptop (*cough cough* Word.) It has an adjustable kickstand so that it will stand up and you can buy a magnetic keyboard to work with it. But it’s also a kick-ass tablet with all the high-res, touch screen, and camera features you’d expect; plus it comes with a Surface Pen so you can take handwritten notes too.

If I had to buy one thing to do everything, this would be it.

Asus Zenbook 13.3

But if all you need, want or can afford is a basic laptop, you can still get an excellent model for half the price of a Surface Pro. This Asus Zenbook has a zippy processor speed with more than enough memory. It has a great display, eight hours worth of battery power per charge and (this is key) it only weighs 2.6 pounds.

Lifeproof fre power iPhone case

Of course, your high school and university students are going to have a phone, too. And if you’re paying for that phone, you probably don’t want to pay to replace it — over and over again. Lifeproof phone cases (for iPhone and Samsung) are waterproof, drop-proof, snow and dirt-proof. And the newest iPhone case shown above even holds a backup charge so now matter how exciting your child’s life, they can still keep in touch.

GoPro HERO

I happen to have a kid who is really into making movies and documentaries. The technology for getting a feel for how to execute those kinds of projects is now actually within reach which is awesome. The Go Pro is a tiny, high-res video camera that can be carried around or mounted to a helmet, handlebar, or just about anywhere. It has fancy technology that evens out shaking and jostling for a clear picture. Some models also boast built-in wifi and bluetooth, high-fidelity mics, time-lapse and various other camera modes, and are waterproof.

Skullcandy Hesh 2 headphones

These are solid performing mid-priced headphones that are also Bluetooth-enabled and have a built-in microphone for taking phone calls. Headphones may seem like a frill when we’re talking about back-to-school needs, but supporting a love of music and drowning out background noise while studying are two pretty essential functions if you ask me.

Rebecca Minkoff leather wristlet for Galaxy S6 (plus it holds two cards)

I’m not going to lie. This one’s for me.

Big thanks again to Best Buy Canada for bringing me on board. The other week I gushed about my experience in an actual helicopter over Toronto. Last week I talked about why we really do want to hover over our kids when we’re buying tech. 

Image credit via Flickr cc license.

I don’t believe in catering to my kids’ tastes when it comes to dinner. I generally try to feed them food they like for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, but I also think it’s important that they are exposed to a variety of different foods and encouraged to try them. It’s important to me, really, that I get to eat what I want, too.

So does that mean that no other parents should ever go for mac and cheese over mussels arrabiata? Is it never okay to offer a peanut butter sandwich and apple slices when coconut curry chicken has been patently rejected? Should we force all our children’s friends and our nieces and nephews to choke back kale salads or bust? Maybe restaurants should stop serving kids’ meals altogether!

But of course they shouldn’t. Just because I feel strongly about making dinner a constant struggle eating a good variety of food, doesn’t mean that also has to be everybody’s priority. To be honest, there are days when I can’t be bothered about it either.

Yet, when it comes to parenting, everyone thinks they know best. People like to insist that their own values and priorities should apply to everyone. Participation medals and trophies for kids are in the spotlight again after Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, James Harrison, posted a picture to Instagram of the trophies his sons received. 

I came home to find out that my boys received two trophies for nothing, participation trophies! While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy. I’m sorry I’m not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I’m not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best…cause sometimes your best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better…not cry and whine until somebody gives you something to shut u up and keep you happy. #harrisonfamilyvalues

A photo posted by James Harrison (@jhharrison92) on Aug 15, 2015 at 10:09am PDT

This is all fine and good. Harrison is a professional athlete and teaching his children what it means to work for and earn an award is obviously important to him. But, holy cow, is this ever a popular opinion — and one I’ve seen echoed many times before. Kids these days are given everything for nothing, the thinking goes. They are entitled brats who will never learn how to work hard or cope with disappointment. We must not mollycoddle them!

Ah, whatever, I say. What. Ever.

Give the little kids their trophies for coming out. The more competitive leagues for families and kids who are serious about athletics could probably ditch the participation trophies (if only to spare me yet another hunk of plastic in the home), but house league programs that are about learning and having fun should reward the kids for showing up.

For lots of kids (and especially for younger children), going to practices, learning new skills, and playing as part of a team, actually is an accomplishment. Have you never had to drag a reluctant child out of bed for skating lessons? Or bribed your kids to please just get in the car and go to the game it’s for your own good dammit why does this have to be so hard?

Some kids love team sports and thrive at them and will go on to compete at higher and higher levels. Others are shy, insecure, or physically uncoordinated, and it’s a challenge just to get them to join in. But it’s still good for them! Physical exercise, discipline and team spirit benefits all the players, good and bad alike.

So, at the end of the season, we should absolutely take a moment to recognize every player who worked to make the year a success. We should hand out medals or even trophies to our youngest and weakest to shine a light on the entire season for them. It’s something they can hang up or put on a shelf and look at with pride. When they look back on last year’s season, then, maybe they won’t remember the fights and the tantrums; they’ll remember earning an award as part of a team.

But of course that trophy still says “participant”.

Anybody who thinks kids are fooled into believing they’re the winners just because they got a trophy is fooling themselves. As soon as children are old enough and emotionally mature enough to care about competing, they know who the champions really are. Try having a “just for fun” game of anything with some ten-years and tell them not to keep score. Impossible! They will always keep score.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what we do. Because participation trophies mean as much to competitive children as a big, solid gold, “thanks for coming out” trophy would have meant to Harrison and the Pittsburgh Steelers when they lost the Superbowl XLV to the Greenbay Packers. They mean nothing at all.

I long ago made it a rule not to blog about not blogging. No more posts that start off with an apology for having been away, follow with a litany of excuses and end in a heap of empty promises, I said to myself. God. What kind of abject narcissist thinks people have been stopping by her url on the reg, ever refreshing their screen, hoping for some new wise crack about her kids anyway? If you want to write something, then go ahead and write it, I continued telling myself. Otherwise, just shut up.

Okay, so. Screw that rule.

The problem with taking a blog breather is that I feel pressured to make the first post after the break some kind of special. I don’t know why. It’s not as though most people even notice when you haven’t been blogging.  But here I am. One three-quarters done post about dieting that I was excited to post several weeks ago, sits in my drafts folder, feeling staler by the minute. (Not that it’s lonely, my drafts folder is full of half-baked blog posts I didn’t have the attention span to actually finish.) Several bigger story ideas float around in my head, too, but those are destined for non-blogging platforms. I have a few odd writing jobs to distract me, an up-ended summer work schedule, kids and vacations and home repairs to manage. I have excuses is what I’m saying.

And being sick of the internet is one of them. Is it even possible to get more disillusioned with the internet than we already are? All the endless streams of mediocre-at-best fluff that’s put out because websites need content, content, content — on the double! — but are only willing to pay minimum rates for maximum output. Please, for the love of all mankind, spare me your three intro paragraphs about what summer means to you and just tell me how to make that freaking sour cherry lemonade. I already hate myself for clicking on the link; don’t drive me into a bottomless depression.

Then reading a brilliantly written story like Kathryn Schulz’s earthquake piece in the New Yorker simultaneously fills me with hope for the future of the written word and makes me want to set fire to my, um, internet connection and swear to never write another “quick take” as long as I live.

But in the end, I’m not ready to forsake my online existence just yet. I simply need to get back into this space and share some stories, thoughts or goddamned lists if that’s what I feel like writing at least a couple times a week to keep from getting twitchy.

I had some pretty big and far-reaching posts earlier this year and, hey, I’ll take ’em. But this is a blog which (for me) means fast, loose, and dirty most of the time. Even the posts I’ve worked hardest and longest on are put out in a kind of flurry. The internet runs on the here and now, so I might spend hours and hours writing and researching something but I still push it out as fast as I can and see what happens.

So while my relationship with the internet is complicated, here’s my big empty promise to sit down a couple times a week and try to craft a sweet little blog post because I miss it. It keeps me on my toes.

Image via Flickr cc license. 

Beards and man buns can step aside because the latest dude trend is the dadbod. It all started about a month ago when Mackenzie Pearson wrote an article called “Why Girls Love The Dad Bod,” on The Odyssey. Then last Thursday New York Mag’s The Cut tried to figure out what exactly a dadbod is and whether or not women are into it. This all-important line of inquiry was then continued by Salon, The Atlantic and just about everybody else.

Dadbod is exactly what it sounds like. It’s what the male physique typically looks like after clocking 40 hours in a cubicle and ten hours of commuting to and from the burbs every week. It’s what happens when you’re finally grown up enough to consume however many beers and burgers as you damn well feel like, and the only reason you wear athletic gear is to coach a t-ball game.

You don’t actually have to live in the suburbs, or even be a dad to look like one, of course. In fact, the term usually refers to young men who manage to rock a dadbod even though they are not actually dads. You just need to be kind of soft around the middle. You have arms like saplings and no part of you could possibly be described as “cut.” Chances are pretty good that manscaping is also completely off your radar.

If this is you, then congratulations. You have a dadbod and, yes, chicks dig it. But it’s not because we appreciate your laid back attitude, and it’s not because we want to raid your fridge, as The Cut suggested. Pearson was more on the money when she wrote that girls love the dadbod because, “We like being the pretty one.”

The reason I’m all about the dadbod has nothing to do with what is says about you and everything to do with what it says about me. Your dadbod makes my mombod look better, basically.

When I squeeze into my tummy-controlled one piece at the beach and douse myself in baby powder to prevent inner-thigh burn, I like to look over at my male companion and think, “Oh yeah, baby. We  could look worse.”

Nobody wants to play Lyle Lovett to their partner’s Julia Roberts, know what I mean. For one thing, just standing next to a smoking hot guy with actual abdominal definition is going to make us look dumpy by comparison. What’s more, it makes us feel less attractive.

It’s not that we’re more attracted to the dadbod, you see. Do you really think we watch Olympic swimming because we care about whether some guy can shave a fraction of a second off his butterfly? Of course not.

The reason I dig a dadbod is because how your body makes me feel about myself is more important than how it makes me feel about you.