The Willow Glen Resident Dad-son male-bonding will have to wait By Deborah Taylor-Hollis The latest strange epiphany to overcome me came this week when I realized I would never let my husband take my son camping--not yet. He's his son too, and he's a great dad, but I would no more let my baby of 512 years go out into the woods with his father than I would let the child play with a plugged-in chain saw. It isn't that I am afraid of the woods. I took my son last summer for three days to family camp, and we as a family go off regularly camping at the state parks. No, this is a direct bias against my husband's parenting skills--I would never let him take the wee one out into the woods. I'm not trying to belittle my partner's parenting skills. He is a great father, kind and helpful, gentle and giving, a man who can read Thomas the Tank Engine stories until he's blue in the train ... nope, it's more of a control thing. I am a control freak, and I don't think my husband could keep the kid in eye's view out in the dangerous deep dark green place. Not that I'm a perfect parent either. I love to sleep in late, and could probably sleep through an earthquake of say ... let me rephrase that ... I did sleep through a 5.8 earthquake that happened before 9 a.m. I am the night owl incarnate, ruler of the moon, shadow stalker, the woman who can paint by lamplight, but who does not understand how people can stand upright and make words come out of their mouths before 9 in the morning. I have always said that dawn was just a Soviet ruse to muddle and distract America while they silently took over the world with good coffee and warm hand towels. Dawn, morning, early day in general, is evil. So in the parenting department, my son learned early how to get up alone and become cozy on the couch with cereal and PBS until mommy made her first appearance. Unless the child starts dating a chef's daughter in high school, he won't know what eggs Benedict are before college. I am not claiming to be Wonder Mom. The issue of letting my son and his dad take off for a little testosterone time alone, however, is not one I'm willing to talk about yet. Maybe when he's 7 or 8, and can basically take care of himself for brief periods of time, then I'll think about letting the two of them go off for guy time in the great outdoors. No way I'm letting my baby go out as grizzly food yet. And I don't think I'm alone in this. Over the years, I've seen advertising for the great outdoors populated with father/son teams, aimed to tug at heartstrings and overcome with emotional appeals. But when you actually go out into America, you just don't find that many grown men with their elementary school-aged sons doing the "no girls allowed" weekends. And I'll actually pay you money if you can find one guy out there with his kids--minus mom--who has one in diapers. The reality is, men want to go out alone in the woods with other men once they are of drinking age. That's the best place to really toast Mother Nature--and to get toasted. Guys like to have other men with them--people they can ignore for long periods of time, borrow money from, and who will believe their long tales of courage and freedom before they got married. Kids won't do that. Kids will remind you that mom makes a better hot dog; they will demand to hear stories that you cannot remember; and they will need several trips to the bathroom by flashlight that the average adult male will not want to undertake once the boots come off for the night. And the women of the world are happy with this. We understand that our little cubs will have to one day join their alienated kinfolk around the big fire of manhood, but as long as they can give us hugs without embarrassment, kisses just for saying good morning, and want to hear about Winnie the Pooh, then we aren't going to let them out of our sight--and especially not out of doors. I don't care if the greatest outdoor tracker/woodsman/camper on the planet volunteered to lead the camping expedition. I wouldn't care if Davey Crockett himself stepped forward and wanted to take the 5-year-old on the trip; even if the man had a certified daycare credential, there is no way my boy is going off alone with the guys for a hot weekend of big trees, tall tales and wild wilderness. I think most moms feel that way. Mother bears in the wild won't even let the fathers come around once the cubs are born--it isn't that the mother is afraid he will eat them, so much as that he will lose them before he starts. [ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Willow Glen Resident, February 10, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.