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Maddox, Meet Motorhead

Maddox, my first child and son, was born almost 6 days ago now. Just a day or two after he was born I was listening to Buzzsaw on Sirius in the car (we have a free trial that seems like it should have ended by now…) and when a Motorhead song came on I thought to myself, “I need to introduce Maddox to Motorhead. He can’t miss out on the awesomeness they are.” Then I started thinking I need to come up with a list of all the great things in life that Maddox simply can’t miss out on… And then I realized that would be entirely impossible. We’ll try to give Maddox the experiences to shape his life, but ultimately it’s his life and we can’t be there every moment of every day. Even if we could, he might find the corral itself more interesting than the pigs inside.

Anyway, there’s no way he’ll miss out on Motorhead, or Aphex Twin, or My Bloody Valentine, or ahi tuna, or the assorted works of David Lunch, or gummi cola bottles with the fizzy sugar on the outside, or driving at least halfway across the US, or the pacific coast highway at sunset, or house music in the desert at dawn, or …

10 replies on “Maddox, Meet Motorhead”

I’ve put some thought into this same subject for when Glenna and I have a kid, one of these days.

As much as I want to introduce my child to the joys of technology, great music, reading top-notch science fiction, photography, science and cinema – I know that there’s a chance they’ll get into… Wrestling. Or NASCAR. Or Hannah Montama. That sort of thing is hard to accept for a snob like me. 🙂

So, I’m planning on taking the same route as you: Do my best to expose them to all sorts of great things, providing them with a great breadth of experience to draw upon. Then, watch as they start going off in their own direction.

And, yeah, Maddox will almost certainly go off in directions that you never expected (“What do you mean you’ve registered as a Republican?!”), but in the end he may broaden _your_ experiences a bit as well. And that’s kind of exciting, no?

Anyhow, you two are some of the most interesting people I know. I can’t imagine Maddox possibly being any luckier in the life experiences department.

BTW: Congratulations! 🙂

– Jeff

I can tell you one of the BEST things I EVER started doin with my now 7 year old son… Estes model rockets! Building them from scratch and then launching them (there are even clubs to do it in a group, which we have done a couple of times, see other’s rockets and whatnot) has been VERY rewarding. He is now VERY learned in the entire array of “space sciences” for his age, and just LOVES all things “space”, “scientist” and “engineer” as a result of all this.

What we do it, since he has always been too young for the coordination required for the precision work, I started watching Star Treks… ALL of them from original through all series and movies, while workin on the rockets. That keeps HIM completely occupied so that he doesn’t get at all bored with a month long tedius building of a Dr. Zooch Saturn V or Space Shuttle (Google those… the man is a MAD GENIUS!!!).

You could go ahead and blow his mind in about a year or so by getting one of the ready to launch starter kits (which you will need anyway to get the pad and launch controller you’ll need for all of your home brew scratch builds).

Anyway, I could tell you a slew of wonderful things that my son and I do together… I make sure he gets to see all of the great old shows with me… we are just about finished with season one of Silver Spoons on Hulu, and regularly watch such things as The Addams Family, Partridge Family (he LOVES both), even Andy Griffith and The Beverly Hillbillys on TV Land’s website (we watch EVERYTHING online).

Enjoy YOUR second childhood, that you are now going to be entering… it is AWESOME beyond description! Your son is definitely lucky to have a father with the depth of character that you seem to carry, and there are, from what I can tell, not THAT many lucky born folks these days… most people that has had kids for the last few decades really should not have.

Well, there are kits that take ONE building session, like the ever awesome Estes Big and Baby Berthas… those are our absolute favorites… we custom clone those a lot. But a Zooch Sat V or Space Shuttle is going to take some TIME!!! Those are very heavily detailed kits, and the Space Shuttle orbiter detaches and glides back in… it is spectacular and all made out of nothing but paper tubes and, well… paper!

There is a rocket group out there somewhere around you that has a very colorful character named Fred Schecter involved… you would probably enjoy his forum postings in the model rocket forums like Rocketry Forum and Ye Old Rocket Shoppe!

Oh yes, meant to also tell that my son’s first musical trip of that nature was Weezer when he was 2. He LOVED Weezer there for a little while, then forgot about them, then saw Pork & Beans and wanted to know who they were and put them on his blog (down for maint right now). He watched that YouTube video many, many, many, many times! He loves to emulate Rivers when he’s in there with the Choc Rain guy and lifts his arms to the beat.

Just read Jeff’s post… wow! What an insight for a fellow who is only PLANNING for a child at this point… I appreciate having read that… good stuff.

I spend a little time now and then trying to prepare myself for stuff like that, but the biggest fears for me are drugs like meth. I pray from my deepest soul that he never gets involved in anything like that. He can be a Republican, he can be… gulp… gay… he can be the president of The Sonny And Cher Love Club, he can be a BAD Elvis impersonator… ANYTHING, but please Lord Gawd don’t let him get around that stuff.

Sorry, was just watchin a YouTube and it made me think of one more thing… please dear Lord don’t let my boy wind up an Emo or somethin like that! I will do my best to be open minded about as wide of a variety of things as I can, but if he goes Emo I will probably be forced to love him from a good mile or so! I don’t know… it’s really hard to go these kinds of places. I was sorta a hillbilly 80s metal kid myself, which I still stand behind the coolness of very much, but I do not want my boy to go some direction that he will not be later proud of in some way. I suppose THAT’s what I really hope for, is that he will always feel confident in being who he is, and that he will never regret any of his various inevitable phases.

I’m really grateful to have had this topic to stimulate these thoughts in me at this stage… these really are things that should be as planned for as can realistically be… it’s always wise to strategize!

I wonder if there are is a support group called Fathers Of Emos?!?!?!?!?!!!!!?

I think if a ‘Fathers of Emos’ or ‘Fathers of Gay Sons’ support group is all you have to join will have done a pretty good job raising the kid! I’m worried about things like “Fathers of Axe Murderers” or “Fathers of Fascists” myself.

Thanks for the comments! It’s good to know other fathers have worries, haha.

I’m worried about things like “Fathers of Axe Murderers”

Well, I had already known about my Great Granddaddy killing a man and dumping his body on the steps of the court house back around the early 1900s, but just under two weeks ago I also discovered this about my Great Great Granddaddy on the other side… it has been a secret that my still living Grandmother had planned to take to the grave… but we found out… read the article on the front page of HenryNorris.org!

Today is a *big* one, Dallas! The UPS man just brought a NewEgg box with the hard drive and wireless adapter we need to get his first computer running and on the network… *and*… *AND*… I am making a historical overview disk of AC/DC for when I pick him up from school…

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