Don't Bother Children Skateboarding - Part 1

 This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark or photo to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos. Great Britain: Penguin Random House, 2018. Rule 11: Do Not Bother Children When They Are Skateboarding, pp. 285 -302

Opening Thought:  We are beginning the review on Rule 11, and I can say right now that this chapter is one that all parents need to read. The chapter begins with Peterson describing a setting he witnessed on university campus. Skateboarders on the campus had been using the cascading landscapes of concrete and metal railings to test their merit as skateboarders. Peterson speaks to their efforts like a Thunderdome of trial and error. Their cultivation of competence was earned by blood, sweat, and adrenaline. It was calculated, brave and foolish – an often too forgotten combination of the human spirit. However, the institution, which claims to be for the development of young minds, did not see it fit for their mind to develop in this capacity and thus installed prison-like deterrents to shut down the skateboarding young adults.

Peterson uses this rule to speak strongly about how we have failed in our shaping of society. The failure is reflected in this limitation imposed on the skateboarders. We value one form of higher education in society and not others.

Yes, skateboarding is a form of education, any activity that forces one to expand their limits is education, nothing tests your adaptability of mind like flying down the railing of the 15-foot-long staircase on a third-inch thick piece of wood, with an expectation of not falling on your ass.   

The school systems as we know them today were set up in the late 1800s to instill obedience. The desk and chair system are meant to simulate office and factory working environments, preparing the next generation of children to be gears in the larger machine. This system does not affirm the daring, rebellious, and foolish bravery of skateboarders (particularly, that of young boys).

I would argue from the 1800s to the 1950s there was a strong balance, children would still play to their heart's desire after school and on weekends. The dangers of the skatepark were explored and experimented with, the adventures through the wood were taken, and the competition of tackle football games was still a nightly adventure. However, following the 50s we started becoming more sheltered. There was an increased need for both parents to work to support a household after the world wars, meaning there were less secure homes for children to navigate their neighborhood with, stranger danger became an increasing fear, and indoor activities became more prevalent (televisions, computers and cell phones developed over 5 decades). By the time the 2000s arrive most children played mostly inside, no longer taking up the adventure of sport, investigation, or adventure and rather chose to avoid the trial and error of falling on their backsides. They settled for a less adventurous existence of television and video games. Currently, the reigning power over children is social media, which is a whole other can of worms.

Opening Prayer: Heavenly Father, help us to be adventurous. Help us to take the risks in life that are worth taking, to explore the limits of our being, to share an adventure with friends and family, and to love your creation for all its opportunities. In Christ's name, Amen.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 16:13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.  

Reflection: The mentality of the skateboarder was never something I came by naturally, or at least I believe so. Both my parents were cautious in nature, so risk-taking was not encouraged growing up, at least not in sport. My parents, however, did encourage risk-taking in thought, thinking outside the bubble, challenging the status quo, and making sure we did not adopt the narrative of the masses. Every belief we held or assumption we made had to be earned, just like the skateboarders building their skill by testing themselves.

So, although, I found myself able to think circles around many of my peers growing up, I did lack some confidence. I remember being on the playground one winter, and it had been unseasonably warm for a few days leading up to a rapid freeze. The playground was sheets of ice. This was like heaven for all the hockey players, who could seamlessly glide on the ice with their boots, they could even give themselves a running start and slide 20 feet across the playground. I was extremely timid with this, I had not taken risks growing up, and so I hadn’t come to know any of the limitations of my body. I remember trying to glide on the ice once, and I couldn’t even bring myself to do the running start.

I remember at 18 deciding I no longer wanted to fear the icy landscape before me, I began to let myself take risks. As I grew with age, I noticed something about many of the young boys I knew as children, as they began to grow in age their confidence seemed to drastically fall. The more risks I took, the less those around me took, they seem more hesitant to play, be rough, and take risks. By the time I was in university, most of the men I knew suffered from an extreme lack of confidence, and had no desire to pursue truth, meaning, or ambitions – depression and anxiety crippled them, and they were fearful more often than not. They had become cowards.

One of the interesting elements of the review of rule eleven is that Peterson articulates how the erosion against elements of human behavior, (as noted by the skateboarding story), has had a specific detriment to men. Since all human beings are intertwin, what affects one element of the population ultimately affects all of humanity. Peterson attributes this detriment to men as deriving from the higher education systems. He critiques the dominant narratives in western liberal universities, which have grown a disposition toward postmodernism and neo-Marxism over the last 70 years,. In the heart of many of the disciplines which affirm these narratives, there is a “forthright hostile” rhetoric targeted at men. Here we see some of Peterson’s more controversial opinions. I personally agree with Peterson on this one, the universities have become skewed towards a narrow landscape of thought, and it can be dangerous for the staff or students to navigate outside of the postmodern/ neo-Marxist terrain. This terrain has a negative depiction of men throughout history, and it assumes much about the disposition and privilege of maleness, based on their identity as men. This is a toxic misrepresentation of the wider efforts of the human race to survive, learn, and above all odds – seek betterment – and it’s a slanderous assault on half of the human population.

Trying to think back at what lesson I learned as a young boy about what being a man was all about, I began to understand why my peers lost their courage.  I remember teachers in school teaching us that “men” had been responsible for all the horrors of human history, that all men desire to rape women, that the patriarchy is repressive towards women and only upholds men, and that the only good man was one who had a woman guiding him; I also remember being taught, that women were inherently smarter than men (which was affirmed by every sitcom on television when I was a child where each house hold’s father was a walking buffoon, i.e., the Simpsons), women where better students, women understood their emotions better, and etc., and if women ruled the world there would never be any wars. Once I started thinking about the lessons I was raised with by school and by the media I began to see the source of this crippling effect on my peers because we were male, we were lesser, and in some cases evil. You would think we would run for the hills from any ideology which had a shred of this "you're lesser because" nonsense in it. We have seen what it has done throughout history. 

I realized quickly that something in the logic of the general populous was toxic. There was a hatred for men, or at least qualities of personality which are often attributed to the masculine, which had come under fire within the last 100 years of human history. In some cases, rightly so, as all human qualities are limited and not without error, however, the critique of men had developed into a low-level hostility permeating throughout society at all levels. The source of this, I would discover as Peterson has pointed out both in his book and lectures, was the universities. The critique of history which was explored at the academic level was recklessly spilled into the common vernacular of the populous. Boys no longer wanted to grow in men because men were no-good; going up was a death sentence, and thus the older many of my peers grew, the less happy and confident they got. I don’t think many of these young lads could even recognize this in themselves. Don’t worry with any luck, they would find a lady, and she could tell them how to live right... oh wait, none of the ladies took much interest in an emotionally crippled young man.

As children, my peers and I had been internalizing this hostility without even knowing it, without any demand for critique or defense. I feel blessed my parent taught me to take risks with thought. 

In my twenties, I met a young man whose wife was extremely emotionally abusive. If they got into an argument, she would become violent toward this man’s possession, destroying some of his most cherished belonging out of spite. I remember being concerned about this ongoing abuse, so I sought counsel from my inner circle of friends at the time and explained what I had come to find out. One of the couples, (male and female) defended the woman’s abusive behavior and said, “Women have been taking abuse for centuries, it about time it reversed”. Their logic was that innocent people can suffer for the sins of their fathers, and that hostility was allowed to sacrifice innocence for its own endeavors.  I wish I could say this was a rarity, but it seemed like many of the young couples I knew in my twenties were struggling, the men seemed unwilling to live beyond the safety of the screens to which they clung, and the women were extremely hostile towards their male partners, both furious at any of the men’s proficiencies, but also resentful at their incompetence. It seemed like a no-win scenario for both members of the couplings.

In these avenues of thought and society, men have become a thing to punish, and skateboarding a plaything to be discouraged. It seems that at some level in the west we have come to hate a part of what makes us human, a part of the human identity which has been shaped by God’s own image. We have just started the introduction of rule 11, but I know this one is going to be meaningful, powerful, and challenging for all of us.  

Challenge for the Week: Go out and play!

Prayer for your week: Lord, help us to appreciate the risks in life. You did not create us to live our lives in offices but to go out and greet creation with enthusiasm and engagement. Help us to break away from the fear and discouragement the world put on us, and to embrace Your gifts You instilled in us, as men and women. Amen.

Final Thought and Picture: Enough said.