Category Archives: Parents

Children, Current Affairs, Parents, Pop Culture

Cleaning Up After The Elephant…

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A couple of my coworkers recently turned vegan after having watched the Netflix documentary “What the Health”, which documents the role that meat and dairy products play in our diet and subsequently our general health.

It would be easy and routine to see the word diet and instantly think about food, Well!… I am not talking about a diet that pertains to just food, I am talking about a diet that pertains to what we also consume visually and spiritually.

The words diet comes from the Greek word diaita which means “a way of life”, consumption comes from the verb consume which derives from its Latin  origins con “altogether” and sumere “take up” – I point out these references because we spend our whole lives being consumers of a multitude of different “diets” or to put it another way we spend our whole lives “altogether taking up a way of life”

As a 70’s baby, I grew up watching Dukes of Hazard. Not the 2005 reboot, no! I’m talking about the original Dukes of Hazzard, man I used to love Daisy Duke. “Just the good ol‘ boys, Never meanin’ no harm” the theme song, Boss Hogg, Roscoe. The way that Bo and Luke would slide across the hood, jump into their car through the window and race away. The General Lee! emblazoned with a huge Confederate flag on the rooftop, how naive I was? Or was I? I guess what you don’t know can’t hurt you…

Nowadays I try not to watch as much TV as I used to, I’m not judging those that do watch a lot of television, I just choose not to. Although, in saying that I was watching the recent public unrest in Charlottesville and I couldn’t help but get angry and agitated, a procession of racists and neo-nazis spewing hate and delivering a message of white nationalism under a banner of “Unite the Right” vehemently opposed by counter-protestors determined to put a halt to the proceedings. Now coming from where I’m from it’s damn near impossible for me to feel a way about white people, especially considering the fact that a lot of my friends are white. I’m not gonna lie though, having watched these events I felt a certain way about a white male that stood next to me on the train the Monday morning after that weekend’s unrest. I  normally wouldn’t, but this imagery left a sense of disdain for white males and led me to believe that this man standing next to me was essentially one of these far-right bigots that were plastered all over my TV screen this past weekend. He looked just like them, was dressed just like one of them for all I know he could have really been there. I tell you this story just as an example of something that I consumed and how it had a negative effect on me. This coming from a man who has experienced and seen quite a bit in his lifetime and considers himself far less likely to have his opinion swayed by external sources.

That’s the thing with a lot of current television and media coverage. There is a tremendous amount of negative content with a little bit of feel-good sprinkled in every now and again but for the most part, it’s negative content that is continually promoted and thrown in our faces.  Go to the local gas station, 7-eleven or bodega and pick up a newspaper, I can almost guarantee you it will be a negative headline. Shock and awe, mouth aghast, is this what editors of newspapers demand of their headline writers? I’m pretty sure that’s how the story goes. Journalistic sensationalism is a word I’ve heard on several occasions in regards to our current news smorgasbord. Then there’s television’s most recent phenomenon – Reality TV, where do I start? Especially that which is targeting a more youthful, urban market. If you peel back the layers to the majority of it you will find nothing, no substance, no art, no form of motivation, nothing that will enhance your life. Not that you won’t be entertained and not that every waking moment should be spent trying to enhance your life but try living on a steady diet of that and see how it slowly infiltrates who you are and then becomes “who you are”.  Don’t get me wrong as someone who watches the occasional reality show, It’s entertaining, I am entertained. But I find that it is somewhat of a guilty pleasure as I can often feel like it’s an hour of my life that I want back after having watched.

In fact, let’s talk about our current President – Donald J. Trump – a businessman who became a reality TV star who became the ULTIMATE reality TV star. I don’t want to get into politics, trust me. But, even his staunchest supporters would have to admit that his presidency is like a serial drama with a storyline that would seem far-fetched if conceived by Shonda Rhimes. Imagine what this is doing to the collective psyche of the American public. The Whitehouse drama that sees someone in his administration either fired or quitting every other day. The racial overtones that see a seemingly politically sanitized racist America emboldened and without mercy inflict their will on the minorities. This could be a whole piece about “45” in and of itself but I’ll cut this short for now and return to regular programming.

This digital world we live in is like a media free for all, a scrimmage controlled by those who get out their content the fastest and whose flock is the largest. Even more so now with the rise of the smartphone, everyone and their mother is a freelance videographer and media is shared at a rapid pace often times without being vetted or censored. Worldstarhiphop.com, many of you may not be familiar with this website but I’m sure at some point you seen at least one viral video with someone shouting “Worldstar” in the background, I can almost guarantee that video was not of the heartwarming variety.

There’s a continual inner dialogue that we as humans have with ourselves. Self-conscious to confident to arrogant. A pendulum that swings from invincible to vulnerable in the blink of an eye. We are a perpetual rollercoaster of emotions and feelings all generated by thoughts, thoughts which are often determined by what we consume. In fact, while doing some research on this piece I’ve come across the term “cognitive distortion”. Cognitive distortions – are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves. Now imagine how bad you’ll end up feeling about yourself if you consume a steady diet of nonsense or not even how bad you’ll feel about yourself but how your thoughts will be controlled by that content. Television, music, social media, aural and visual consumption is essentially what shapes our minds.

Environmentalists talk about “cleaning up after the elephant”: the endless task cleaning up industrial contamination, and how a far more effective strategy is to avoid fouling up the environment in the first place.

– B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. – “The Attention Revolution”

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“avoid fouling up the environment in the first place”

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I would love to be able to say that as a parent, specifically in my role as the father,  that I am without fault in the way that I raise my son. I’m not! I know it, his mother knows it, I’m pretty sure that at this point even my son(who’s currently 4 years old)  knows it. I’m fine with that. There is no parenting handbook, no manual or instructions or rulebook to abide by. This is nothing that prepares you for parenthood. My little guy is a unique individual, unique as in there will only ever be one Cameron Elijah Madiba Walters. We observe and we adjust, we make mistakes and we adjust. As long as I ensure that the primary focus on adjustment is within myself, my demeanor and how I, we as parents, handle his environment.  How we ensure that he is not negatively affected by the world that we display for him to consume. The goal is to clean up after my elephants so as to leave his environment and his domain uncontaminated. 

Current Affairs, Parents, Pop Culture

Life’s Seasons

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I find myself somewhat disappointed with Mark Walters, the man. If I’m being totally honest, writing in the 3rd person for the sake of unwavering accountability.

  • Disappointed with the fact that  I haven’t kept up my end of the bargain when it comes to maintaining a writing schedule.
  • Disappointed with the fact that I haven’t reached some of the goals that I have set myself in life.
  • Disappointed with the fact that I have not kept my end of the bargain in more than a few things in my personal life.

The goal was to keep content flowing no matter what, to have completed such a limited amount of work after almost a year online is disheartening.  Alas, it is what it is and still, I continue. I realize though that I am a continual work in progress and that in itself is encouraging. I do have my excuses, quite a few if I’m honest, but none of them really hold any true weight if I want to be who I aspire to be. So, I’ll take a pass on my excuses and just explain them as excuses that we all have. Although, in the plain light of day you could say it really just boils down to laziness.

The Winter Funk

Photo by Morgan Jones on Unsplash

I always seem to go into this funk during the winter months. I think it’s because of the limited time outside and the little time spent outside is normally accompanied by a dark sky, and some kind of wet weather condition be it rain or snow. Yes, some people like the winter but not me. Like most people, it’s more a time of bunkering down and relaxing.  There’s little to no enthusiasm for the creative side of things, at least for me that is. I guess in a way, your surroundings lose a pulse and a vibrancy and you’re stuck with a “meh” vibe. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain in words but I wouldn’t be surprised if I was not the only one that feels this way. Cabin fever – irritability, listlessness, and similar symptoms resulting from long confinement or isolation indoors during the winter – that about sums it up. All in all leading to more excuses.

The Hamster Wheel

Ah, the old 9 to 5 or in my case the 7 to 4. What with getting up before the crack of dawn and then coming home to an energetic 4-year old with a 3-hour commute and hyper-stressed clients sandwiched in between. It’s no wonder that I often find myself falling asleep in front of the TV most Friday nights. During the week I may alternate between falling asleep and going to bed at a respectable time, Friday is our designated movie night so there’s a desire to stay up late but as previously stated there’s often failure. The workweek grind will leave you with no time for anything else.

Get up, shower, work, eat, sleep…Get up, shower, work, eat, sleep!

Although once again this is an excuse, there’s a saying, if you want something bad enough you will find a way. Sadly, and I use this term begrudgingly because it debunks my too tired myth, this is true. It’s all about habits – breaking the old(BAD) and forming the new(GOOD). I think Gary Vaynerchuk best explains it when speaking, he often asks what are you willing to do to realize your dreams, are you willing to outwork all others? Are you willing to, despite all these excuses, find time to do what it is you set out to do?

Distractions

Social media, social media, a bit of TV, social media and sports. The distraction factor! I guess I could have lumped this in with Winter Funk as these tools and mediums of entertainment go into overdrive during the winter months but they remain a constant thorn in the side of incremental progress all year round. For instance, the sports team I so dearly love – Liverpool F.C – are currently involved in the Champions League Final, those of you not familiar with European soccer, let’s just say that this is like the Superbowl of soccer. Distraction? Hell Yes! as I find a lot of my time currently consumed with following up on the latest news from my team in and around the lead up to this monumental game. I am at heart a big Sports fan. Even on a general level of social media I’ll find myself easily consumed. For example, Twitter – the number of times I’ve logged in with the intent of looking at something specific and got drawn into something entirely different due to a trending topic or an appealing headline.

Me, Myself and I

It’s funny, one of my biggest hangups is not maintaining a high standard or should I say not being able to create works as good as works that have previously been well received. At least, that’s whats in my head. To put it bluntly,  past success leading to present doubt. I say success in the loosest terms as it’s really just my ego being stroked when someone praises your creative side. Mind you,  there is some truth to it though. I have written a couple of pieces that I am extremely proud of and I want to be able to continue to touch people’s emotions. To have value where my words are relevant and resonate with people. Am I an individual? Yes! But,  I am also a peer, I am a part of a whole, the fatherhood fraternity, the parenting community. I want to be able to speak to and for,  those who may not know the words or simply don’t know how to. At the same time, this is also my therapy. The keyboard my voice, the blank slate the psychiatrist’s chair, the echo my thoughts. So once again I make a promise to myself to maintain the schedule which I initially set out to keep, slowly but surely I will break through these mental barriers and gain that oh so precious momentum that will see me adhere to a new found me. A book I am currently reading entitled “GRIT” by Angela Duckworth is helping me recalibrate along with the warm weather and sunshine as we come out of the winter doldrums.

Parents

Dance with my Father, Period!

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As a young man there were times I’d cry myself to sleep at night thinking about my father and the fact that he didn’t want me. I mean he obviously didn’t want me right? If he did he would have been in my life. All my friends had their dads bringing them to football, showing up for Sports day and teaching them to drive, why not mine?

Growing up without a father was not a choice, well it was a choice but it wasn’t my choice. Growing up without a father is a burden that one must carry throughout their entire life and it can either be a burden so heavy that it weighs on one to the extent that it consumes them or it can be a burden so heavy that it inspires and uplifts them to strive for greatness. Me! I chose the latter. Although it can take time to come to that realization and you better hope that a teenage mistake does not lead to a life of misery

As a now mature man I look back on my youth and realize that I was first and foremost lucky to have had the mother that I have, a strong black woman. I was also lucky to have had the grandparents that I have and to this day my granddad to me, is the greatest man that ever lived, but I digress. Lucky that when I did go astray during my teenage years I didn’t get into the kind of trouble that could have really set me back in life. That’s not to say that this is all due to not having a father in my life as there are many boys that do have father’s in their lives that still do and will go astray but the odds are in your favor if daddy is around.

See, there are so many things that a child will miss out on without a father in their lives, young men especially. A mother can try her best but will never replace the male perspective. How to deal with conflict, how to treat a woman, how to show emotion and many more things that youths to teens to young men go through. The simple things that we some times take for granted but are missing from so many young males lives. A simple “well done son” so much power in 3 little words, all the more powerful by omission. With the male influence missing from their home life they have no choice but to seek it from outside sources and who’s to say that this influence will be the most wholesome.

Personally there’s a feeling that I experience whenever I think about my son or someone asks me how he’s doing. A feeling that I can’t explain in words, it’s an emotion unlike no other. I’m sure there are parents out there that understand what I’m talking about and as such it makes it that much harder to understand why some men will not stand up and be fathers to their children. There’s a saying “to each their own” but technically if you are the one that planted the seed then this is your own. As a father I try to remember to tell my son at every opportunity that I love him. I love him for who he is but I also love him for breathing new life into me and creating a desire to be the best possible person that I can be so I can show him someone to be proud of and aspire to be. In a weird way though there is a part of me that is thankful that I lived an experience of not having my father around. As becoming a father now myself, it lets me realize just how special I want to be for my son.

Unfortunately my own father is no longer with us but if he were here today I know he would be proud of the man I have become. Not having him in my life throughout my formative years and having reestablished contact in my 20’s I knew who he was and I knew that he was a good man, maybe I came at a time when he wasn’t ready for fatherhood, maybe there were other factors involved that didn’t allow him to be in my life. To be honest with you I will never know the full truth, I do know however that without even knowing it he taught me something invaluable and that is that fatherhood is to cherished.

This is something that I would want for all men who at some point in time have had relations that have led to a child being born. I therefore leave you with one thought, if you are a man who is not in your child’s life. Those of you who grew up with a father, could you imagine for one second that he had never existed? Or those of you like me, can you remember what it felt like not having a father? I certainly do, as there is one regret that I will always have in this life and that is that I never got to Dance with My Father, Period!