The prerogative to have a little fun
So last night I went to see Shania Twain. It was my mum’s birthday and she booked the tickets months ago for her partner, my sisters and I to go to a concert together. She reads this newsletter so I’m obliged to say: hello mum! Happy birthday!
But I digress. Shania played her show and finished with the obvious encore: the one-two punch of That Don’t Impress Me Much followed by Man! I Feel Like A Woman.
Man, I felt like… a man. A pretty conspicuous man, really, given that the majority of concertgoers were middle-aged women in cowboy hats. I’ve been in this position only a couple of times in my life – eg. a minority. To be fair, there were still plenty of men at the concert, but quite a few of them looked similar to me and my stepdad – dragged along in attendance by someone else, and trying to look like they were enjoying themselves.
As Shania closed the show, I was listening to the lyrics and thinking about that one line: “The best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun”. Initially I was musing to myself about the odd proliferation of the word “prerogative” in pop songs (shoutout to Bobby Brown/Britney!), but then I thought about the line itself. Women do have the prerogative to have a little fun, right?
(before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re all clear what “prerogative” means: it’s “a right or privilege exclusive to a particular individual or class”. Now on with the newsletter!)
Do men have a “right or privilege” to have fun? I wrote last week about “banter” and feeling a need to prove I’m a “funny dad”. But having fun—especially visible fun—feels like something men are hard-wired to avoid.
I wanna be free yeah, to feel the way I feel
It’s presumably tied up with that classic male repression of emotions: don’t show your feelings, don’t let them see you cry, don’t do anything that might make you look effeminate (or heaven forbid, “gay”). Nobody teaches you this stuff; you’re never given, er, a “man manual” (sorry) which spells it out. But from a young age, boys discourage one another from this display of raw enjoyment. It’s why we think it’s so cute when little boys (in particular) unselfconsciously skip around a room or hold hands with each other: they haven’t been socialised into not being seen to have fun yet.
One way I’ve noticed this in myself lately is via the birth of our second child. She’s nearly four months old and we’re just starting to get a bit of interaction back from her in the form of facial expressions, sounds and movements. It’s a great time in parenting as you finally start to have some two-way interactions with this little creature, and I’ve been loving trying to find the things that get a response from her.
It made me realise that since the birth of my first child four years ago, I’ve subsequently learned to have fun with my kids. Babies thrive on big facial expressions, repetitive games and movements, and engaging sounds and shapes. When my son was born I’d barely spent any significant time around infants and although I’d seen family and friends do this simplest of things, I remember feeling a little self conscious to start bouncing a baby on my knee and cooing at it. It feels ridiculous to type now, but there’s a threshold of inbuilt repression (at least for me) which makes it feel like I’m far too uptight and awkward to make a child laugh.
This time, though? I’m bouncing the baby around while singing acapella versions of the Pink Panther theme tune, wobbling my face around so my cheeks make a silly noise and playing lengthy games of peek-a-boo all so the baby might give me a dribbly grin or a surprised gurgle of joy. And it’s worth it! Even when I realise our neighbours on the street can see me through the window, but can’t see the baby.
Man, I feel like a newsletter
Watching Shania straddle a giant motorbike last night (long story), I thought about how women seem to get a free pass for having fun, but men need to get over their own ridiculous hang-ups about it before they can feel comfortable enough to laugh with abandonment at a good joke or do something silly purely for the joy of self-expression (instead of for bravado or dare-devilry, which seem to be the only valid prisms in masculinity for this).
Maybe we should try to feel like a woman a little more often.
Mini feels this week
Why are the youth so confident?!
I posted a job advert for a role on my team this week and within 24 hours I’d received approximately a billion LinkedIn connection requests, plus inbox messages and calendar bookings from total strangers wanting to talk about the role. All of them were young graduate-types searching for rare junior engineering roles. I don’t know who’s telling them they need to connect with the hiring manager before they’ve even spoken, or that they should set up calls independently of the recruitment process, but these kids must be overflowing with confidence because I’d feel like it was too pushy to email a recruiter even after scheduling an interview.
Just ask for help, you fool
This is a note to self. I’ve been doing a lot of home music recording this past couple of years and I’ve been sharing an in-progress song with my best friends who are both musicians. I can’t get the drums right and it’s never been a strong point of mine. By finally just asking them what was wrong (and for advice), they broke down the details of how the kick drum was out of sync with the bass and Nathan even put together a demo track with my guitars imposed on top to illustrate how the song should work. They’ve got no stake in this besides helping me make a good song but they’re offering their time and support. I just wish I’d asked earlier.
That’s it for this week – thanks for giving me a space to talk about my feelings, and hopefully having some time to reflect on yours. Let me know in the comments if any of this resonates with you, or just tell me your favourite Shania song. Hope it impresses you much!
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