Men of a Stand-up Age

When my lovely wife texted me some pictures from the disco party she was at, I smiled. Not just because they included her, who I missed, but because of the picture of our oldest daughter Beatrice and one of her best friends for many years since grade school. Now high school teens, the picture was cute and fun, a refreshing sweetness to see while I was away. This being just one friendship of many she maintains.

Our younger daughter, Bryce, is officially a teen herself, and like her sister, has her own established close friendships. Both girls hang out more with their friends after school and on weekends, spending less time at home than ever before. 

While these changes are bittersweet, our kids no longer kids, it brings an even bigger smile to my face when I see them with their friends. Their relationships are new, honest, and fragile; a multiverse of emotion and inside jokes and laughter, each of them grappling with the overwhelming adolescent changes that become the DNA of their adulthood. Only time will tell if they remain friends over the decades, but there's always that chance. 

For anyone who's had friends for decades, it certainly is a blessing, especially for men who tend to not fare as well as women in the long-term friendship department. In 7th grade I met Robby, a tall and thin boy who befriended me and gave me a cassette tape of two Cheap Trick albums (Heaven Tonight and Live at Budokan), recorded on a discount-bin Thrifty Drug Store cassette mind you, and our rock and roll best friendship was born. I'd love to say I still have that cassette tape, but alas, I don't, just the wonderful memory of when our friendship began.

Then in high school came many new (mutual) friendships, including Jeff, Rob, Greg, Charles, Craig, and many others. And then after right high school came Craig (connected to Robby and other high school friends) and Troy (meet in college). Not all the friendships I've had over the years have withstood the test that time and circumstance bring, but thankfully there are those that have. 

We do get together when we can each year, sometimes together and sometimes one-on-one, and this last time was a wonderful visit, complete with decades of inside jokes and comedy clips (SNL, etc.), lots of laughter, and yes, even serious banter about our lives. It's been decades of friendship. The stereotype of straight male friends isn't lost on us, which is why we thought the Saturday Night Live Straight Male Friend commercial skit was so funny (but a little edgy, so beware if you watch it). Thankfully we're not exactly that (and yet, sometimes we are). 

As I wrote last year in Men of a Vulnerable Age, men can go longer periods of time without talking or seeing each other, and don't necessarily thrive on intimacy and emotional connection as much as women do. But my friends and I have shared quite a bit of our lives (intimately and emotionally) with each other over the years. The good, the bad, the ugly, the meh -- and a whole lot of comedy and tears of laughter. 

Our relationships are a multiverse of life experience, love, and inside jokes. None of us are safe from each other. We relentlessly tease and "bust each other's chops" as the saying goes, and we bust our own chops as well. We're like veteran stand-up comedians heckling an audience of us. It may be perceived as a little harsh and over-the-top at times, and it's especially awkward when we're in mixed company and we see the reaction of others. But for us, it's at times raw, real, retrospective, and always full of love. We're men of a stand-up age, and we've stood by one another for 40+ years. I hope my daughters are as blessed today with their teen friends as I have been. 

Other past posts about and related to these friends of mine:

• Men of a Vulnerable Age
• Endless Possibilities Actually
• Able-Bodied Grateful
• Men of Our Present Age
• The #MeToo Guys
• Men of a Women's Age
• Men of a Consequential Age
• Grown Men Friends and Fathers
• Like Men Knowingly Bound to Their Future
• Because That's How It Works With The Guys That Work
• Big Heart Love to My Class of 1984
• Men of An Unremarkable Age
• Being What Happens Next
• Daddy Day in Monterey

Because That's The Job

"A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us, 'No'
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming..."

–Disney's Aladdin 

But this isn't a Disney movie. It's just real life raising complex little humans -- now teenagers -- don't blink. The sentiment in the song is how they feel, though, and everything they're experiencing is a whole new world. For them and for us. 

I've been writing about my own personal experiences with parenting and personal leadership for over 15 years, how my own past impacted this journey, and all my learning and growth throughout. My wife Amy and I have mostly lead our lives together, and our parenting, with love and empathy and positive discipline, and of course, practicing social, emotional, and physical safety via Kidpower. Our children have been raised with all this, and for over four years we've had weekly family meetings to check in with each other and review managing emotions, providing support, positive communications, and safety plans.

It doesn't mean with get it all right with them, because we don't, but we're proud of our parenting to date and the closeness we have as a family. Change is constant, however, and now our kids are teens are new experiences are happening all the time for them. Thank goodness nothing close to what Amy and I experienced at 12, 13, and 14 years old (which I'm not telling you or them about). But then again, our kids are now at an age where they're not telling us everything either. Ugh. 

Not only that, they're sometimes embarrassed to be around us, their sarcasm has developed and is no longer their "inside voices," they fight us on doing their chores, they question a lot of what we comment on as adults, they're doing things they're not supposed to without asking us first, they're sometimes lying to us and not telling us everything, and who knows what's next. Thank goodness there's no experimentation with drugs, alcohol, or (God forbid) sex (yet), but school is getting harder and more competitive academically, extracurricularly, socially -- all the ly's -- and the stress has increased exponentially. Plus, the perception of that stress is skewed by a still developing prefrontal cortex, hormonal changes, new life experiences happening every day, and friend group influences happening every day. 

God, it's a wonder that any of us survived adolescence. 

In high school I had a civics teacher who read a passage to us all about how young people today are selfish, misguided, obstinate, sarcastic, emotional, have a lack of respect for their elders, etc. The passage had been written over 2,000 years ago during the Roman Empire. Over 2,000 years later, the point was, it could've been written today (by less forgiving adults).

Again, we're grateful to be so close as a family. That's helped us help our kids deal with new and stressful experiences that could lead to social and emotional struggles if left unchecked, something I went through as a teen that I certainly don't want them to go through. We don't always get it right as their parents, but we've worked hard to provide empathic love, support, and guidance to them -- to help them make good choices in all the choices they'll make more and more on their own each day (and there will be bad ones). Whatever this whole new world of adolescence brings us all, we'll always meet our teens where they're at to help them persevere, overcome, learn, grow, and thrive into adulthood. 

Because that's the job, kids. Happy New Year!