On Value

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I haven’t been very productive with my writing lately. 

My wife’s belly is the size of a Carolina Cross watermelon, bulging with new life. She holds it well, the responsibility of forming a new human. She goes for long walks with the dog through the desert. The late summer rains have finally come, the rolling hills around our home are suddenly green. When I see our friends or speak with family on the phone, they all ask how she is doing, how she is feeling. It is a pleasant reprieve to have meaningful small talk, a notch above what the weather is doing. 

This will be our second child, our second daughter. I have noticed something during this pregnancy that I did not notice during the first, with one exception, no one has asked me about my feelings regarding the whole new child situation. Of course, that’s not abnormal. But it seems curious to me why the pervasive social tendency is to avoid asking men how they are feeling, especially when they are upon the precipice of major life changing events. Of course, I’m not the one growing a baby. But I will absolutely harness to myself the responsibility for that human life, for the rest of her life. 

In addition to growing a human, my wife runs her own business, a psychology practice. She is also in the middle of her second masters program. She said something to me the other night that rang like a bell. She said, “Throughout history men have held the power in society, but at the same time they have been discouraged from sharing their emotions. If women had been put in that position there wouldn’t be a society.” I laughed at this as I climbed into bed but I woke up thinking about the bible. Genesis, the part right after the fruit part to be precise. 

Eve eats and shares the fruit with Adam, we know that part. But then Adam rats out his partner (big blue falcon energy there). God’s punishment to women is that they will have to suffer through childbirth (and that their husbands will rule over them). While men will be forced to toil physically to survive. 

As odd of a connection as it may seem to the big black book, the next thing I thought of was this quote by Chris Rock, “Only women, children and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something.” 

Women have an innate biological value in society, they produce more humans. How a pregnant woman is feeling matters enough to ask the question and then listen with sincerity. This is a form of consideration, of love, that does not traditionally extend to men. 

We’ve been inundated by academia with this notion of male privilege, and I wonder when those professors are making their calculations regarding who has this privilege and who does not, if they factor love. What is the value of unconditional love? What are the consequences of a thousand generations of sequestered emotions? War is probably as good an answer to that second question as any I can muster. As far as the first question, you’ll have to find someone a lot smarter than me to answer that one.

The masculine role models throughout antiquity, from Achilles to John Wayne, have been the strong silent type. They have shown us that “being a real man” is synonymous with one's capacity for compartmentalization. Here I am, a real man, walking the footsteps of my father and his father before him. I fought in two wars. I drink my coffee black and my whisky neat. I have cried twice in the last twenty years. And man, have I been productive! I’ve toiled away for over a decade writing book after book. I put my hands in soil, carving out a home where the desert meets the sea. And when other men see this labor they say, “good work.” And I feel valued. 

I sit with my daughter when she cries. I hold her hand when she is nervous or afraid. I love her without any of the conditions or barriers which I place between love and myself. She need only exist. The same is true for her sister. I will work to protect them, to provide them safety and stability, to keep them nurtured and nourished. Though to consider such acts as toil or productivity is inconceivable. And yet, what else have I done, will I ever do with my life that could be more valuable?

I am dedicating more and more energy to these moments. I have stepped away from distractions like social media in favor of what matters. Subsequently, I have not been writing as much. Though I hope that makes it all the more valuable when I do. 

My wife is incredible at teaching our daughter emotional regulation. When she sees the child getting upset, she encourages her to pause and consider why her emotions are spilling over. Our daughter has a higher degree of emotional intelligence than most men my age. She has been taught to value her emotions, to see them, but not allow them to dictate or control her actions or behaviors. She understands that it is as healthy to cry as it is to laugh. 

I mentioned early that there was one exception to being asked about how I was feeling. Here it is. I was surfing recently with a friend. Not a terribly close friend, but more than an acquaintance. We were waiting for the next set. We watched the sun melt through a bruised summer sky. Out of nowhere, and with genuine sincerity, he asked, “How are you doing, man.” It came as such a shock to me that all I could muster in response was a short list of what work I had recently accomplished around the house. I caught a wave. A flappy, shoulder high left that stayed open through the middle section. By the time I paddled back to where we were sitting, the moment to share how I was actually feeling had passed. The question coming from another man seemed so anomalous that it rattled around my skull like the ball bearing inside a can of spray paint. 

I’ve realized something as a result of that question. I don’t ask that question. I am an open ear when my friends share how they are feeling, but I don’t ever ask them. I ask them how the family is doing. I ask them if their elk hunt was productive. I ask them if they’re writing anything new. 

This morning, before I sat down to my productivity, I sent a voice message to a friend who is expecting his first born child soon. I asked him about what new feelings and emotions he was having about being a first time father. The words fumbled out of my mouth in an awkward knot. I can see him in my mind’s eye as he listens to the message, wondering if I was high when I left it, such was the bumbling and unpolished line of questioning. I hope he’s laughing at me now, at the stammering, stiff way I struggled to place value on his emotions. 

So that’s it. That’s my essay. It was more toil than it likely seems. I hope you found some value in it. Now that I have been productive for the day, I’m going to go check on how my wife is feeling. 

With much love and respect,

lj