GoFatherhood™

It was fifty years ago today — February 20, 1962 — that astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in his little space capsule Friendship 7. Perhaps not as much a milestone as Neil Armstrong and his team stepping foot on the moon as the amazing culmination of Apollo 11, but still an accomplishment worth honoring and remembering in an era where our accomplishments seem to be more focused on product sales and consumer electronics than grand, sweeping epic adventures.

It’s also hard to remember just how tense the Cold War was back then and to appreciate just how paranoid we Americans all were about The Russkies getting into space first, but there were major military reasons we wanted to get into space and make sure that those darn Reds didn’t spy on us and colonize the Moon.

Indeed, it was only a few years prior that the Western world was shocked by the successful launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik-1 in October, 1957, sparking a long-simmering anxiety that immediately sparked the first American satellite launch, Explorer 1, which went up into space just a few months later, and more formally the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958.

The Space Race was officially on.

Demonstrating he really did have The Right Stuff, John Glenn, a US Marine who saw active duty in the Korean War as a fighter pilot, was assigned to NASA in 1959 as one of seven men on the Mercury Project. He was the fifth man in space — third American — and just a few months before I was born he strapped himself onto the nose of the great Atlas launch vehicle, a massive tube full of highly explosive liquid fuel, survived the boost off the planet and circling the globe three times during a flight lasting 4 hours and 55 minutes.

Seven months later, President John F. Kennedy was at Rice University explaining why we needed to reach the moon, not just orbit our own planet, in his famously stirring speech:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

I sometimes wonder how we’ve lost our way as a nation, with no great adventures, no big science, to focus our attentions on. Is the latest iPad and 500-channel TV really a good replacement for something our children could be inspired by? I don’t think so.

Kudos, Mr. Glenn. You did something truly amazing.

My 11yo son is pretty upset with me right now. He’s had a subscription to Sports Illustrated for about ten months or so and was enthused about getting the swimsuit edition, the issue of the magazine that’s devoted to gals in exotic locations wearing skimpy bikinis.

Except when it arrived in the mail, I made a doubtless controversial parenting decision and tossed it straight into the recycle bin rather than putting it on the table as I do any other magazine we receive.

He’s not happy about that. In fact, he knows that it’s swimsuit edition time because one of his 11yo buddies received the issue and was talking about it at school. At eleven.

Look at the photo of the cover, though, and you might get a hint of why I made this call: to be blunt, the swimsuit edition is just pornographic. There’s not much artistic about it, and it sure doesn’t seem to me that it’s any sort of celebration of the most attractive male and female athletes. Just supermodels as close to naked as they can get away with.

Also — and I realize this might be missing the point, but it’s how I look at things — I’ve spent a lot of time at beaches, in Florida, Hawaii, California, and various islands in the Caribbean (I’m a beach guy and grew up on SoCal beaches) but the kind of teeny, tiny bikinis that the models are wearing are nothing you’d ever see in real life. Look at the cover model, Kate Upton, and her bikini bottom on the cover shot. It’s just barely more than having a 1″ square of tape over her genitals and would probably get her arrested for public indecency in most beach communities.

There’s also a rather creepy undertone in middle aged guys lusting over models who are portrayed as prepubescent (completely free of any pubic or body hair) but that’s a more complex discussion that isn’t really relevant other than to note in passing…

More importantly, this is not something my son needs to see at his young age. At 15, I imagine I’ll have lost some level of control over his life, but at 11, when he’s in sixth grade and already very much a part of our overly sexualized world, it’s not good at any level.

Instead, I told him it was too pornographic and got rid of it and that I was more worried about him learning to respect and honor women in our modern society than him learning that there are some just-about-naked women who have been Photoshopped to perfection for a national magazine. He wasn’t impressed, but if I don’t talk about this as his father, who will?

What do you think, though? Was I wrong in tossing the magazine without him being able to check it out, wrong in giving him a brief lecture about how real relationships work and how pornographic images like this just set unreasonable – and damaging – expectations of women in our culture?

I’ve written before about my concern that in our zeal to ensure no-one ever feels badly about their accomplishments that everyone gets a trophy and wins a medal we’re actually creating a generation of children who can’t actually handle the win/lose realities of adult life.

All the warm fuzzy thoughts about valuing everyone, everyone’s a winner, etc, is great, but with the exception of a few odd pockets here and there in the world, my experience in life is that it’s actually a dog-eat-dog jungle. There are definitely “win:win” situations, but there are also “win:lose” situations, and that’s okay.

Take this blog entry. We all have finite hours in a day and by reading this blog entry, you’re not reading someone else’s entry. I won, they lost. The people doing something else other than reading this article? I lost ‘em. Win, lose. If we all cross-link, though, you can’t actually read all of our articles so somewhere, at some point, someone has to lose.

Don’t worry, though, I’m not a pessimist. Far from it. In fact, I believe that hope is one of the most fundamental of human emotions and it’s what helps us get up in the morning and strive for something better in our lives.

I prefer to think of myself as a pragmatic optimist, however, because I also believe that we can’t cure world hunger, we can’t make everyone equal and we’ll never stop being attracted to winners, even as we ceaselessly learn about their dark sides and secrets.

For children, the challenge is that they don’t really have a world view yet and if us parents are doing our job well, they’re shielded and protected from the worst, the ugliest of the world around them.

Often, the shielding begins at school with helicopter parents and extreme liberal teachers who are more worried everyone gets a gold star than that the children are challenged to better themselves. A generation of students where 75% is an “A-” once the curve is applied and are in shock when they learn life is actually kinda hard and there are people out there who aren’t committed to your success and some who actively dislike you. Just because.

With this in mind, you can only imagine my reaction when I saw my daughter had ended up with a mediocre grade in one of her classes and then two days letter received the following note from the school (altered to protect privacy):

Dear parents,

This fall we welcomed a new teacher to our school. During the semester, M- made clear to the students that poor effort and/or behavior would be reflected in their grade. At the end of the semester, many students were quite surprised by the grades they received. We know that many parents were, too. Though we support M-’s work with the class and his judgement on the grading, we have a commitment in the high school to notify parents when a student is likely to receive a poor grade. This part did not happen to our satisfaction.

After considering various options, we have decided to offer pass/fail to students who are not satisfied with their grades in this course. This course will then not be reflected in the student’s GPA. For students who earned a grade that they would like to keep, they can opt to have that grade included in the GPA. There is no stigma on a transcript for a P/F course, as others will be graded this way as well over the four years of high school.

We are sorry for the confusion about this and believe that this solution, while not excusing poor effort on the part of those who received low grades, best represents our efforts to grade fairly and give students (and their parents) fair warning when they are not meeting expectations in a course.

Let me [rather cynically] translate in case it’s a bit confusing: we hired a new teacher who hadn’t learned to water down his grades and when he actually gave some of the lazier students a poor grade, parents complained and instead of standing behind the teacher, we overrode his evaluation and changed the grade to “pass”. No worries, though, on the transcript a “pass” looks a lot better than a “C” or “C-”.

Yeah, kinda cynical of me, I admit. it’s not quite as bad as I am characterizing in the above paragraph, but still, is it just me, or does this seem more like the act of a school that’s parent body is worried more about GPA for college admissions than the fact that their son or daughter just didn’t do well in a class and needs to do better next time to keep up a good GPA?

Is it much of a step from this to a school that offers “college-ready GPA” and has double-books? You know, one set of grades that actually evaluate the student on the various subjects and courses, and another that’s the official transcript to ensure that little Jane or Joey can get into the Ivy League of their choice…?

It’s not easy being a single dad with three active kids, even if I get time off each week. Still, on a typical week I only get a few nights off, so it’s a wonderful thing when I can escape for a much needed breather, and when five-star Colorado hotel The Broadmoor invited my girlfriend and I to preview their splendid Valentine’s Day romantic getaway package, we jumped at the chance!

The experience was even better than we expected, and we both had high expectations before we even stepped foot on the property. I’ve spent a fair amount of time at big resorts, notably the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Hawaii and the Disney-owned Walt Disney World properties in Orlando, Florida, and was surprised at just how much they had to offer at The Broadmoor, including their own bookstore, children’s store, golf store, a half-dozen restaurants and at least as many bars and taverns, spread throughout its 3000 acres.

The resort was founded back in 1891 as a small hotel and casino. I can imagine the dusty cowboys riding off the plains and the rich folk taking the transcontinental railroad – completed less than 30 years earlier – to get to Colorado Springs and Pike’s Peak. The modern resort replaced the casino and was built in 1918 by Philly-based entrepreneur named Spencer Penrose who had amassed a fortune from mining claims at nearby Cripple Creek. After a grand tour through Europe’s finest hostelries, he famously decided to build a resort of his own, with no expense spared. The Broadmoor is the result of his wealth and enthusiasm.

What was our experience like? Amazing.

We checked in and found our room warm, comfortable and extremely quiet, even as there was some construction going on at one of the outbuildings. As you can see, it’s plush and cosy:

We didn’t have much time to unpack and get comfortable, though, because the first thing we had lined up was a couples massage at the Broadmoor Spa. To put this in context, I’ve had a lot of experience with massage therapy and frequently go to one or another local therapist in town (one benefit of being in Boulder, Colorado is that there are a lot of skilled practitioners in the area).

The Spa is quite famous in Colorado and justifiably so. It’s luxurious in a way that I’m definitely not used to experiencing: I realized most of my massages are in a room that doubles as a hair salon, therapist’s office or has some other primary purpose. To be at a proper Spa was lovely and far more relaxing. In fact, with its many lounge areas, platters of fruit and trendy custom-blend teas, it was the kind of luxury I’d like to get used to experiencing.

Unlike some massage centers where a “couples massage” can mean that you’re in separate rooms and that the only couple-related element is a small discount on the price, at the Broadmoor Spa we had a special couples room — with fireplace! — and had our tables set up just a few feet apart. 75 extraordinarily relaxing minutes later, we were both ready to try out their steam room and aromatherapy rooms. Unfortunately, the steam rooms are not co-ed so we parted, just to meet up again 30 minutes later in the main Spa lounge to nibble on fresh pineapple and watermelon.

DINNER AT THE SUMMIT

We reluctantly left the Spa after a few hours of pampering and went back to the room to change for dinner. There are a number of different restaurants at The Broadmoor, notably including the formal Penrose Room, but our reservations were for the chic and trendy Summit restaurant, known for its eclectic wine selection as much as its menu.

From the moment we saw the signage outside the restaurant, it felt like a dining experience at Walt Disney World much more than a meal at a hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. All that was missing was warm weather and someone dressed up as Mickey Mouse. Actually, we didn’t miss the latter, but the weather could have been a tad warmer…

Dinner started with the friendly staff demonstrating great savvy about gluten-free options, including item-by-item advice on how they could modify menu items to make them truly gluten-free, and the server bringing out a stack of gluten-free bread (from local Colorado bakery Udi’s) that was a tasty appetizer, along with parmesan gnocchi and a light garden salad.

Our meals were bacon-wrapped swordfish and “angry trout” (photo, below), both of which were splendid, particularly given that we’re in a landlocked state, not convenient to the coast.

Dessert was the weak link: we had butternut squash ice cream and pineapple-vanilla sorbet and while the sorbet was better than the ice cream, neither was as impressive as all the courses prior. We probably should have skipped dessert or tried a more popular item like the flourless chocolate cake…

After dinner we popped around the corner to the famous Golden Bee, a British-style pub known for its sing-alongs. In fact, every table has lyric books and the pianist calls out the number of the song as he starts playing so you can find the lyrics in time to join in. The night we were there, however, it was pretty quiet, with over half the tables vacant. Still fun, with music varying from Neil Diamond to The Beatles to college fight songs, but it’d clearly be tremendous, crazy fun on a night with lots of people and perhaps a drink or two extra flowing from the bar.

Back at the room, the bed was comfortable and the room was blissfully quiet and peaceful, quite conducive to a good night’s sleep. There’s the usual hotel room amenity of a big television staring at the bed, but neither of us are TV watchers, so it stayed off the whole time, as did the little TV inset into the wall in the bathroom. I suppose if you’re obsessively glued to Bloomberg TV or The Food Channel, it would be delightful to have multiple screens, but I’m a big fan of peace and quiet. Perhaps it’s because I have three kids. Perhaps.

BREAKFAST AND CHECKOUT

The next morning we reluctantly got out of bed to a cold morning — indeed, a major storm was heading into Colorado that afternoon, so we didn’t tarry too long lest we get stuck in The Springs, unable to get back home to Denver and Boulder. A hot shower, plush towels and a gorgeous view of the clouds rolling over Pike’s Peak helped improve the morning, and we walked to the Lake Terrace restaurant for breakfast, the last part of our Valentine’s Day special preview.

Main Lobby of The Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs, Colorado

For breakfast we ordered a Denver omelette and poached eggs with veggies, and I added a café latte to my order. The food was light, modest in size, and very tasty, served with grilled potatoes and a skewer of fresh veggies. The bonus with the coffee was that it’s served with a stirrer of rock candy, basically crystalized sugar. Really good to chew on or use in the coffee, though generally I have my coffee without sweetener. A nice surprise, and the entire meal was delicious.

All too soon, though, we needed to pack up and drive back to Denver. We’d valet parked, so we handed our ticket to the attendant and just a few minutes later the car pulled up and they helped us pack our suitcases back into the car. With a last sigh we drove down the majestic main driveway and onto the highway, northward and back to the reality of our lives.

Our short visit to The Broadmoor, with a couples massage, chic fish dinner, plush, quiet room and delicious breakfast felt like a long weekend holiday, and was quite refreshing. Which was good, because 24-hours later we were waking up to 20″ of snow and a surprise snow day with the kids, so the break was much needed.

The Valentine’s Day Package

The official Valentine’s Day package from The Broadmoor includes:

* Accommodations
* 15% discount on select retail purchases
* Complimentary access to an evening of live music and dancing on February 11 or 18, 2012
* $50 Breakfast credit per night of the package
* Suites at 40% off of published rates

Package prices starting at $125 per person, per night based on double occupancy. Package available February 10 through 19, 2012 but live music and dancing are only available February 11 and 18, 2012.

Oh, and the amenities we enjoyed? This is the “disclosure” part, as we didn’t pay for anything other than drinks at The Golden Bee.

According to the team at The Broadmoor, our massage was $171/person, an average dinner for two at The Summit is $108, and our breakfast ran about $40. The deluxe room we had also cost $240 for the night. Total cost of our overnight getaway was about $750, but if we’d have flown to Scottsdale or Santa Fe, we’d have spent half of that just on airfare, so all told, it seemed very reasonable given the amenities we enjoyed.

Most importantly, we’d definitely go back!

The Broadmoor is a hidden gem here in Colorado. Colorado Springs is not known as a chic or trendy city but is more famous for the Air Force Academy and the headquarters of the conservative organization Focus on the Family, so it’s rather amazing that this 3000 acre resort is tucked into a quiet corner of the city. But it’s worth the drive from Denver, and even if you can only stop by on a summer afternoon for a sandwich at the poolside grill, I can’t speak highly enough about what a pleasure it is to visit The Broadmoor.

And so the time has come that my teen daughter (15) has a boyfriend who comes over and hangs out with us. He’s a delightful and eerily respectful young man who sometimes seems more interested in impressing me than my daughter, but maybe that’s just because I’m an intimidating guy? I like him and am glad to see my girl stepping into the more adult world of dating and relationships.

Problem is, I’m now waaaayyyy out of my comfort zone but I do feel like it’s important to have some “rules of dating” for my daughter so that we don’t slide into trouble before she’s ready (heck, before I’m ready!) to deal with it. I already prohibit them from being together without an adult around (e.g., studying at one of our houses) and when they’re in my place, the bedroom door has to stay wide open if they’re upstairs hanging out.

Complicating matters, of course, is that we’re talking about two households because she also spends time at her Mom’s place with her fella…

To open up this discussion, here’s the email I sent my ex this evening about this topic:

[Young Mr X] was over this afternoon and my rule with them is that they can hang out in A’s room (away from the little ones) as long as the bedroom door remains open. When I went up later in the afternoon, however, they were both laying on the bed and my impression was that they had been making out a bit. She denies it, but…

I’m a bit out of my depths with this stuff because I don’t know what are reasonable boundaries and limitations for their behaviors and activities. A’s only 15, but… she’s 15 in our modern culture and there’s a lot more sexualization and sexuality in the air — even at her school — than when we were her age.

I can certainly get a parenting book to read up on best ideas, or ask a family therapist for a recommendation or two, but it seems to me that it’d be smart and safe for her to have normalized behavioral parameters at both of our houses, and then perhaps even send a carefully worded note to his folks as we agreed was appropriate.

What do you think?

In a similar spirit, let me ask y’all, my faithful readers, for recommendations on how to allow my teen gal the freedom to begin her exploration of relationships with this boy while still creating healthy and age appropriate boundaries so that they don’t stray into dangerous territory before it’s appropriate?

If you’ve had teens, particularly teen girls, what rules have you made and how’d they work out? If you’ve read a book or two on raising teen girls — and I do think that it’s different to have a daughter than a son vis-a-vis all this dating stuff — what could you recommend to me?

Thanks. I need help.

Ordinarily, there’s no question: school trumps sports, whether it’s college or earlier in my son’s academic career. He’s in sixth grade, so we’ve got a while to go before we have to worry about NCAA regulations.

Which is why it’s so darn frustrating that we find ourselves in the scheduling remake of When Worlds Collide: the collision of the last basketball game and the evening performance of my son’s school play.

The game is the last one of their season and was scheduled to be 5-6pm, with the play starting at 7pm at school, about a 20 minute drive from the gym. The coach recognized the problem — as every single boy in my son’s class is also on the basketball team — so he managed to have the game switch to start at 4pm, meaning that they’re done at 5pm and don’t have to step into the play until 7pm.

For her part, the class teacher has no sympathy and no interest in the game and made it very clear to us parents that the play will be at its standard time, no later starts, no reschedule. The boy should all skip the game so that they’re not too tired for the play, whether it starts at 5pm or 4pm. The play is more important.

On the surface, the solution is obvious: skip the game, send the clear message that school is always more important than sports. Except then there’s that commitment thing. By joining a basketball league I believe my son made a commitment to both his teammates and the league that he’d do his very best to attend every practice and play every game with enthusiasm.

So what’s a Dad to do? My druthers is to have him play in the game from 4-5pm on the day of the tournament, then take him to get the best, healthiest dinner possible, followed by taking him to school where he preps and performs in the play. I think he’ll rise to the occasion and do fine. And if not, well, then I’ll perhaps find myself in the position of explaining why commitment to a team is also important as a lesson to model.

What would you do, fellow parent and reader?

This is a story about how the connectivity of the Internet changes how we buy things, and I present it for your amusement and entertainment…

A few months ago I spoke at Blogworld Expo in Los Angeles and, like many others, stayed at the Sheraton Los Angeles. As is typical for a conference, evenings would find a group of us hanging out in the lobby bar, sharing a drink and talking about what we learned, what we’re doing and generally socializing. You know, the real value of a conference!

While sitting at the lobby bar, I couldn’t help but notice the great 70′s retro cinematic paintings on the wall, and was particularly taken with this one:

I was so struck by it that I asked the hotel concierge about the painting and artist. He asked me to email the manager, so I did, attaching the above photo I’d taken with my iPhone:

Hello Ian. I was just staying at the Sheraton for the last few days as part of a conference and was very interested in one of the paintings in your lobby bar. My question: can you please either put me in touch with the artist or tell me their name / where you purchased it?  Thanks!

His response:

Thanks for the interest, Dave. I am copying your message to the owner of the gallery that provides us with this artwork, and I am sure he will be pleased to contact you directly and answer your questions.

The gallery owner then contacted me with more information on the art piece:

Thank you for your interest in the artwork we provided for the Sheraton Downtown LA. The artist you saw at the Bar of The Sheraton is Sean D’Anconia. You can view more of his art here [[ link ]]. If you are interested in any of the works please contact me and I can help ensure you get the piece you are looking for. These pieces are hand painted Giclee prints on Canvas, and are one of a kind. If you have any more questions about his style or the art please do not hesitate to ask.

We went back and forth talking about sizes, prices, etc, and I also connected with the artist, Sean D’Anconia directly, through his Danconia Creative Web site. Sean responded asking for more information about whether I was looking for an original print or a giclee print. My answer:

A Giclee print would be fine (I don’t have a ton of $$ for investing in art) and I didn’t see any information at all about pricing, artist, gallery, etc at the Sheraton.

His response was a good dose of reality about the price of a unique piece like this one, which I learned is called “Majestyscope”:

The actual piece at the Sheraton ranges in price quite a bit, depending on if you seek an original painting or a print, framed or otherwise. Let me know your budget and I can get you some quotes on other options (paper print, etc.) as needed.

To cut a long story stort, we came to an agreement on a giclee print, signed and numbered, and I even joined Sean’s fan club on Facebook (which you can find here: Sean d’Anconia on Facebook). The print arrived in a stiff tube and, of course, I used social media to identify a good framing shop here in town — Silverleaf Framing — thanks to a recommendation from my artist friend Steve Lowtwait.

Finally, after spending almost as much on the frame as the print (frames are expensive if you want to do something cool! In fact, my first choice for frames, a really cool retro acrylic custom frame, priced out at over $950. I picked something else), it’s on the wall in my house:

So not only do I have a cool new piece of art in my house — thanks, Sean! — but I have quite a story behind the piece too. Oh, and Sean does too, on his blog: Shoot it in Majestyscope!

I just realized this morning as I looked around my garage and counted one fancy car seat and two car booster seats that I don’t need them any more. My little one, K-, turned 8 last week (I even hosted a party for her pals at the local bowling alley. Solo. Yikes!) and the Colorado law for children needing to be in a booster seat states that “under 8″ is the criterion.

So we’re done. I can get rid of these car seats (which turns out to be a surprisingly tricky thing because technically it’s illegal to resell them, as detailed in a much earlier blog post I wrote here about why you can’t buy or sell used carseats).

Eight is old for requiring carseats, actually: a lot of states have six as the cutoff age and some also add a weight requirement so that those increasingly rare underweight children, the little waifs, might have to be in a carseat even longer.

But no, according to Colorado law, the cutoff age for car seat use changed from six to eight on 1 August, 2011.

When you read about these laws, though, it’s hard to understand why even eight year olds should be considered safe without car seats: younger children who use booster seats are apparently 45% less likely to be injured in a crash than those using adult seat belts.

Ah, as I read more I can see that the safety experts actually recommend booster seats based on height, not weight, and that the boosters are recommended until the little folk are 4’9″ or taller.

Which makes me want to measure K- and see how tall she is. Then again, she’s very excited that she can just sit on the regular car seat like her bigger siblings so if I said that there was a height requirement for her being done, I suspect there’d be rebellion in the ranks.

And the whole thing about this being yet another milestone and my littlest one moving along in age? Yeah, I’m going to avoid thinking about that one. Time is a beautiful thing, even when it inexorably pulls them away from being those cute-as-a-button little ones.

Now if I can only figure out what to do with these extra car seats…

A reader writes…

Hi Dave. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind giving me your thoughts on men staring and making other women feel special by asking them questions, complimenting them, and giving them lots of attention when they are married. My husband does this and it has been an ongoing struggle and source of deep pain for me that is ultimately eroding our marriage. He seems to justify it by saying he is not touching or doing anything wrong and that he is just enjoying the beauty around him and that he is being a typical man. Can you give me your thoughts on this and any words of advice on how to handle this to save our marriage. It would be soooooooo appreciated! Thanks for any words of wisdom you may have!

I think the answer to this is quite simple: if you tell your husband that it upsets you and he still does it, you’ve got a problem. He’s got a problem too, but it doesn’t bode well for your marriage, as you suggest.

Having said that, I think some people are naturally more extroverted than others and if you are a social person, you’ll naturally chat up other people and be friendly, whether they’re male, female, attractive, unattractive, whatever. If you narrow that down and are only interested in talking with “potentials”, people who you would want to ask out on a date if you weren’t in a relationship, well, it’s pretty self-evident that it’s a problematic behavior, I think!

The thing of it is, though, is that I believe that if you’re married, there’s no relationship that should be more important than the one between you and your spouse, so if they ask you to do or not do something and it’s not unreasonable or manipulative, then your desire to make your partner happy should trump any other motivation you may have. If it’s your job — like a cocktail waitress who has to flirt to maximize her tips — then it’s not quite the same, but that’s not what you’re describing in this situation either.

Your husband talking to other women is no big deal. Complimenting them and giving them lots of attention sounds like something between flirting and courting them, and it’s clearly inappropriate if your relationship is monogamous. When you ask him why he does this, what’s his explanation? Need for attention? Desire to feel attractive / desirable / sexy / eligible by other women?  The answer “what’s the big deal?” doesn’t cut it, and if he doesn’t know why he’s doing it, well, maybe that’s something a marriage counselor could help you two with?

With all that in mind, I will admit that I feel like men are hardwired to keep an eye out for eligible women and I certainly am aware of attractive women who are in my field of view, even as I’m in a long-term relationship of my own. What I do once I see them, well, that’s something I can consciously decide and clearly it’s going to be a problem if I choose to chat them up or flirt with them. So to me the potential problem here is not that your husband notices attractive women — heck, you are probably quite aware when a handsome man walks into a room, aren’t you? — but that he then acts upon his base impulse to flirt with her and, more seriously, that he continues this behavior even after you’ve clearly told him you are upset when he does this and that you feel it’s hurtful to your relationship.

Respect.

Good luck with this, I think it’s going to be a tricky situation to resolve.

I get letters. This time, the letter was from a young Mom:

Is 4 years old too young to use oil free acne stress control night cleansing pads made by neutrogena? As the mother I use them every night. Some nights my 4 year old son will come in and want to clean his face as well.

I didn’t think it would harm him till a friend of mine said it would mess up his skin. Should he not be cleaning his face with this yet, am I harming his face by letting him use the cleansing pads?

Here’s how I responded to her, after thinking about it for a while:

Personally, I wouldn’t allow my 4yo to use this sort of thing if I was in your situation.

But here’s what you can do instead: save a half-dozen of the pads after you use them, along with their can/container. Rinse them in a bowl of water until they’re completely free of the Neutrogena chemicals and paint or otherwise decorate the container to make it something special.

Now fill up the container 1/2-way with water. Put a few drops of lavender and it’ll even smell nice, then add the clean pads in the specially labeled container.

Problem solved and now your 4yo has a special face cleaner all their own, just like mommy!

What do you think, dear reader? Good solution? What would you do in this situation or if sent this particular question?