Climbing and Parenting

[Dru]

Ok, I don't have kids but I want to jump in here. How many people live in a vacuum??? Unless you are a friendless orphan there is someone, probably many people, who will miss you when/if you die. So to single out parent climbers as somehow more selfish for taking risks than non parent climbers is a bit ingenuous to me.

My big problem is with parent climbers who leave the kids at home in the care of wife/husband/TV and take off to the mountains every single weekend. Hmmmm priorities? Just like business man Dad working 80 hr weeks and getting his comeuppance when the kids cry more at the nannies' funeral than his.

This post deliberately incoherent in tone. whatever.

[Bronco]

Of course your people will care when you are gone Dru, buck up!!

I think the distinction is kids are DEPENDANT on thier parents and it is somewhat irresponsible for parents to take unnecsary risks. Nobody is discounting the life of a single climbing geek with no kids. Just discriminating against parent climbing superstars.

[Dru]

Nobody's life was ever completely ruined because they grew up an orphan...

Just look at James (star of james & The Giant peach). if that Rhinocerous hadn't gobbled up his parents he would never have been sent to Aunts Sponge and Spiker and would never have had his big adventure...

Bronco, I'm so touched you care! Group hug everyone!

[Bronco]

eh, I'll take a rain check on the hug thang.

[Dru]

[Dan_Harris]

While it is true that our children should be our top priorities, being a parent should not preclude anyone from doing what they do for recreation. Having a past time in and of itself is not selfish unless it is all consuming. I know many who spend very little time with their kids because their job is all consuming. To me this is pretty selfish. In fact these people are even more selfish than the climber who takes off for an occasional day or even weekend. I'm going fishing for a weekend with some colleagues, my family does not want to go, am I being selfish? If it is the risk thing, should race drivers stop racing when they are parents? I have a herniated disk in my neck and was told to stop playing soccer because of the possibility of serious injury from all the heading of the ball. So I restarted back packing and then climbing. By some of these posts I shouldn't climb either. What am I supposed to do to recharge my batteries? I have always been active and needed to do something physically challenging out of doors. Being a parent and husband is just part of who I am. Am I to supposed ignore the other parts of me because of this? I know the risks, my wife knows the risks, my children know the risks. They have learned to take precautions, study the situation, prepare for eventualities in what they do, just as I do before a trip. As with anything in life, a little moderation can go a long ways. I've rambled enough.

[Fairweather]

Get that new book by The Mountaineers: "75 Scrambles in the Cascades", and take your kids WITH you...

[haireball]

One of my favorite fields of study has been "natural-language-philosophy" and the closely related discipline of semantics, so it grieves me to read the statement "climbing increases ones risk of death..." Say WHAT?!? Every human being's risk of death is 100% whether they climb or not. There is no way (short of MIRACLE) to either increase or decrease this probability. Furthermore if any of you think for an instant that you have ANY CONTROL WHATSOEVER over WHEN or HOW you die, let me be blunt - you are deceiving yourself! The ONLY way to CONTROL how or when you die is to SUICIDE! No, thankyou - I'd rather embrace the RISK of LIVING...

I believe that any activity that augments my capacity to share love and joy with my children, my wife, and the rest of the people in my life, is a worthwhile thing for me to be doing. So I climb!

[Terminal_Gravity]

Great Thread. I had two children...My oldest daughter, eight, died in a freak accident on a family rafting trip a little over a year ago. After working 80+ hour weeks in Seattle (and essientially missing a year of my daughters lives) we moved to the mountains where we could spend time regularly enjoying outdoor pursuits. Logan loved the water, hiking, camping and was intrigued by climbing. There are certainly more risks in the outdoors than sitting at home playing video games. But I think the question is not simply life or death but the value of the life you are living. After all, given enough time the chance of survival drops to zero anyway.

I think that the real trick should be to maximize value of life not just the quantity; a risk/value assesment if you will.

Since my daughters death I have climbed more regularly and more extreme things, mostly solo. This has added enough value and focus to my life to keep me happy and emotionally healthy. Which allows me to be a good and interactive father and husband.

We all fantize or day dream about things... more money, a better job, a better lover. I found that after Logans death I was either fantizing about a large caliber shell entering my brain case or about climbing. Its not hard to figure out which is more productive. So... I don't think that climbing ,even extreme things, is completely selfish to your family or friends. It depends on the way you go about it. I would not miss my daughters birthday for any climb.

I recently on-sight free soloed The Grand Teton in a day, but the trip included my wife and daughter. They had a great time and hiked and swam the day I climbed. Clearly, that was not "selfish" climbing. Last week I choose not to solo 170 ft of active 70 to 90 degree hanging glacier on Mt Robson with only two screws, a couple of screamers and 6mm static line. I was not able to summit but at my level of ability doing so would have been a selfish level of risk.

I will keep climbing hard and often but I will be a better father because of it.

[Terminal_Gravity]

No more comments on this thread???

[Fairweather]

Such terrible sorrow. Your story leaves reply difficult. For me, the irony is that when I'm on a climb that is potentially dangerous I worry more about my kids at home than any anything else.

When I take my kids on a climb or hike I am extremely cautious, even paranoid. I always take a short rope, even on easy day hikes and rope them up to cross even easy snowpatches. I hope my paranoia does not dampen their enjoyment of these trips.

I also find that evenings at high camp make me somewhat depressed/homesick, whereas morning finds me psyched and in high spirits.

Strange but true...

 

[David_Parker]

Dan, a very well expressed thread and I truly hope Alex's kids got the messages that you think (hope) they did. I just hope they didn't get them because someone told them that was what their father was like. I have to wonder how much time Alex actually spent climbing with his kids. Unless they climbed with him, his spirit to be known by them was distant. If Conrad is slowing down, hopefully he'll be able to bridge the gap and show them instead of tell them.

I love to climb and I hope to climb a lot, sometimes with and sometimes without my son. My fear is that when I'm with him he has this tendancy to say "I know, Dad!" and I know you can only really learn by time on experience. I don't want to discourage him by telling him he doesn't know because he's only 6! Gotta love his attitude though. Sometimes I think kids learn they can't do things when previously they thought they could. Climbing keeps them sharp, confident, goal oriented and promotes self esteem. Keep climbing and teach your children well.

 

[Dan_Petersen]

None of us will get out of here alive. Nor do we get to choose when we go, or how we go (unless we cheat, of course). One of the wonders of children is that they grow into totally independent beings before we know it. And as they grow we stand the risk of losing them, just as they stand the risk of losing us, always before we are ready, for we are never ready.

As several here have pointed out, you can choose to live in such a way that you are happy with yourself. That happiness is infectious to your children, just as unhappiness and fear are infectious. If your children remember you as happy and free, and they can emulate that happiness and freedom, I believe you have left them something more valuable than security. When and how you go is largely out of your control.

I have been blest with children to raise, and then to share the world with. I can now climb with one of my son’s and have him take all the hard leads. I can tell you that I worry far more about his anchors and knots than I do my own. Even though he is the far more competent climber, I am still the father, taking responsibility. How silly love is. My head knows it is his responsibility, but my heart can’t grasp it.

If my children were to die before me, I wonder if I could stand it. Yet, we must stand it. My father and mother died when I was fairly young, and hardly a day and never a week passes that I don’t think of them. I like to think that those thoughts strengthen their souls. I would want to do the same for my children, if I had to, as long as I lived, and of course, I would hope they would want to do the same for me.

This is all far afield from where this thread started. What happened on September 11th has colored my thoughts, as I am sure it has colored everyone else’s. We watched untold numbers of heroes go in harm’s way for altruistic and unselfish reasons and pay the ultimate price. Parents and children are left behind to deal with life in the absence of ones they love. All the great responses here are uplifting because it shows how seriously we all take parenthood. I think there are no clearly right or wrong answers, but there are definitely many diverse good answers (and good parents) included here.

And, on a lighter note, David, if you think he thinks he already knows everything at six, wait ‘til he’s thirteen!

Maybe it’s time to re-direct the discussion to the biggest challenges we face when we head for the hills with the kids. How about how to deal with a bedwetting accident three days into a seven-day backpack trip (been there, done that, no good answers)? Or how to convince a child that, no, the injured frog (crow, bat, snake) she found can’t be taken home and nursed back to perfect health?

 

[Terminal_Gravity]

Thanks Dan,

I think that you "short rope" attitude has merits and can be a lesson to me.

My daughter, Claire is 7 now and is an enthusiastic hiker. I hope that by climbing with me she can see, even feel, the difference between climbing within ones limits and beyond them; and the focus that can come from respecting exposure versus the danger that comes from fear of falling. When I started climbing without my parents around at age 12 I had that typically youthful "can't get hurt" invincibility. A couple of broken bones later my climbing got safer. Hopefully, by me setting a good example she can avoid that phase.

I can relate to the night time homesickness and morning enthuasim.