Today was a day like most any other day, as it included what I affectionately call the nice-ninety. The nice-ninety are the best 90 minutes of each day of the work week. No, I don’t sneak off somewhere for an extended lunch hour. No, I don’t leave the office to take a nap. No, it doesn’t include some x-rated activity. The nice-ninety is just as it sounds a nice ninety minutes. What do I do for these nice ninety minutes you ask? What else! I spend them with Supaman.
For the last eight years, many of the moments which make up the nice-ninety have been spent in the gym or traveling to and from the gym with my son. Even in the midst of some of our most trying and cantankerous training days, I always remind my son during and after our training that these moments are the best moments of my day.
As time has gone by and I have had the fortune of talking to other parents, I realize just how much every parent and child could benefit from a nice ninety or even a special sixty. There are two immediate benefits I believe all parents and children could profit from if they shared time in their day the way my son and I do.
Benefit One: Human Connectedness
The first such benefit would be social/human connectedness. Let’s face it; Americans are becoming less socially connected. Sure we text, email and instant message one another but let’s not confuse this form of communication with real human interaction. I know that this is going to sound “old school” but we don’t value human contact the way our ancestors did. Strangely, many of my peers seem to prefer non-verbal communication, 140 characters or less, even with their own children nonetheless in the place of face to face human interaction. I can’t even begin to tell you what a shame I believe this to be.
Benefit Two: Health
The second benefit would be health related. I don’t know if you have noticed but America is growing (no pun intended) increasingly fat and sick. The number of adults and children who are categorized as obese grows exponentially each year. The number of adults and children who suffer diet and exercise related illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. grows exponentially each year as well. Our health issues much like our communication issues are easily solvable. As our children’s first and best role models, the more we value our time with them and the more we value our own health, the more our children will value human contact and their health.
First Hand Experience
[singlepic id=6 w=320 h=240 float=]I experienced firsthand the value of human interaction and the importance of being my son’s health role model. In December 1999, six months before my son’s fifth birthday and seven months before my thirty-fifth birthday, I reluctantly and I do mean I reluctantly weighed myself. To my surprise, I was more than 30 pounds overweight. By some measures, I would have been considered obese. Here I thought that I was being a great dad and role model by working long days and moonlighting; hoping to provide my son with everything he could ever need from a material standpoint. All the while, I was unknowingly engaged in a process of being disconnected with my son, my waist line was ballooning, I started losing my hair and worse I was actually shortening my life.
One of those mornings in December 1999, while my wife was asleep, I awoke in the wee hours of the morning. My intentions were to go into the home office to work for a few hours before getting my son ready for school. Unfortunately, I never made it to the office. I was only able to get out of bed and walk a couple feet. Instead of walking to my office, I walked into the bedroom closet which was out of her view in the event that she woke up. I did not want her to see what was happening. I thought that I was having a heart attack. Poor diet, little to no exercise and the stresses of life had taken their toll on me. At that moment, I knew I had to change. What I didn’t know, at that moment, was the profound effect my health changes would have on my son.
Three Months Later
Three months after the event in the closet, I had dropped about 25 pounds. My body was different: leaner and more muscular. I looked and felt younger. Everyone noticed my physical change especially my son. All of a sudden when I dropped him off or picked him up from school, I wasn’t simply Naeem’s dad anymore. Now when I dropped him off or picked him up, I was Naeem’s dad, the dad with the muscles. My son’s classmates wanted me to do things that until three months prior, I like their dads could not do. His classmates wanted to squeeze my arms, have me make a muscle and/or pick them up.
As flattering as it was for me to be the father with muscles, my son was not satisfied with that status. My son wanted to be the muscle son. If I had muscles, he had to have muscles. [singlepic id=7 w=320 h=240 float=]As if by osmosis, the more conscientious that I became about what I ate, the more conscientious he became about what he ate. If I was going to work out, he demanded that I help him workout. He wanted to work out with me at the gym but every gym that I inquired about a membership for him told me he was too young to exercise at the gym. {I believe this thinking and application of when a child should exercise to be flawed and a contributor in the social disconnect of parents and children and for the poor health of Americans.}
Short Term Fix
For a couple years, I was able to satisfy his insistence to workout with me by purchasing medicine balls, bands, videos and other home body weight gadgets that we could use at home together. However, just before his ninth birthday, he began to beg me about letting him go to the gym with me. I offered the Kids Room at the gym but he protested being with those “little” kids and further commented about the way the room smelled. I reminded him about the home gym equipment. He was not having the home gym equipment either. In short, he wanted to be where I was. If I was pumping iron, he wanted to be pumping iron. If I was running on the treadmill, he wanted to run on the treadmill. What was I to do? Well like all good fathers, I let my soon to be nine year old son’s compelling arguments about good health, the “little” kids, the “stinky” Kid’s Room and his crocodile tears, mainly his crocodile tears, convince me to allow him to join a health club.
How did he join a health club at almost nine years old? You guessed it, like all good fathers, I lied on his application. I know, I know…not a great role model moment. Although, you know what happened, after lying about is age to get his membership, other parents and adults marveled at his desire to be fit and healthy. He developed an appreciation for the work ethic required to find success at any subject on any level. He found the athletic success that he once thought impossible due to his small stature (always in the bottom 10 – 25 percentiles for his height and weight). He began to understand that life and all that we hope to accomplish is a process much like the process his dad underwent to change his health and subsequently his life.
Today when I spend my nice ninety with my son, I don’t have to spend as much time instructing him on things like his weightlifting form or his running technique. Instead, we have ninety minutes of real human interaction. We talk about school, politics, things he values, his friends, comic books, spirituality, movies, girls/women, video games, music, technology, things that I have done to make him mad…etc. In essence, anything and everything is on the table for discussion and it doesn’t have to be done in 140 characters or less and it never includes LOL, ROFL, SMH, BRB or any other abbreviations. As if spending quality time with my son was not enough, we enjoy an added benefit. We are having face to face human interaction while doing something, exercising, which helps humans live longer and more satisfying lives. What could be nicer than this?
