Joe in Babble

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Best of all, it's Kelly birthday!

Enjoy

Posts like that make me, one who did not want to have any children, sigh with a bit of regret. More power to your cute and precious one!

Nice article, but if you are talking about the Gunks then your statement about injured climbers being hauled out by ambulance every weekend is hyperbole to the extreme. I don't think it is productive to reasonable discussion about climbing to describe climbing as even more dangerous than it really is.

And since you are asking for comments about your parenting, I will add that you should put a helmet on your daughter!!

That certainly is a cute pic of your daughter climbing, and the piece is well written. Of coursekelly may just as well despise climbing when she gets a little older simply because her parents love it. I think that would be the saddest day for Joe. Or she could grow up to be the next Tommy Caldwell, female version obviously.

I do agree with Seth however. You have a choice to wear a helmet or not, based on intelligent, adult reasoning. Your child doesn't. If you get a brainer it's your fault. If your daughter gets a brainer...it's your fault. make her wear a helmet until she is old enough to make her own decisions.

RR

The pic is not Kelly. It's a stock photo.

Joe, I have enjoyed your writing in the past and again today. I have 4 "kids" and several close climbing friends who also have broods of thier own, so the idea of how much to push is not new to me. I find that for most kids they will eventually realize that it isn't cool to do what your parent does for fun but eventually drift back to dabble later in climbing. Like anyone else, that may become a casual or obsessive interest. Probably best to love on them and support whatever they want to do but make sure they get ice cream after every climbing day.

Posts like that make me, also one who did not want to have any children, sigh with relief and satisfaction of having made an excellent choice.

You mean she's gonna cut off her finger?

Wow. The comments on that other site immediately took a different direction!

Some genes are best destined for genetic dead-end...

"We've endured sprained ankles 1,000 feet off the deck, broken legs, wet bivouacs, and innumerable near-death experiences."

Hope you have learned from your experiences and are a much safer climber now, but something in the tone of your article tells me maybe not...

I agree with SethG and Welle. When climbers are hauled out every weekend, broken legs and innumerable near-death experiences, either you are exaggerating or something really wrong is going on.

A friend of mine and I talked about it. If you get a sprained or a broken ankle because you fell and swung into the wall wrong, thats part of the game, and that just sucks. As Matt says "if you hit the ground because 4 pieces ripped then you are a moron". There is risk, but redundancy and judgement should minimize things and accidents and death should end up being outliers. And I don't care what level you are at or what you are doing, and we say this (the guys I climb with and myself) even though the guys I climb with do 5.12 and 5.13R climbs regularly (I prefer the G/PG harder climbs myself).

Maybe I am way off but I felt that the story was a tongue-in-cheek, self-depracating shot taken by a Dad at himself and his own screwed up priorities. We are all self-serving to various degrees or none of our souls would need saving. I read the article as a tribute to a daughter that a Dad is very proud of despite his own desire to be footloose and climb as much as possible. I can completely identify with that and think many parents out there also do so in regards to climbing and every other hobby, sport, etc. Of course, how we act that out will be personal and hopefully done for the kid more than ourselves.

I don't think you are off base Chip. But I still had to grit my teeth and tell myself this guy doesn't mean what he is writing. I found the dishonesty irritating, not humorous. I am sure if he wrote honestly he'd be a better writer.

Wow. The comments on that other site immediately took a different direction!

My, my; and I though this site was bad enough!

Too bad... that was the best part of the piece.

Seth -- Yes I should have tempered that remark. "Virtually every weekend" is not entirely accurate. The fact that the editors highlighted it doesn't help, but I have no control over that.

Keep in mind that the piece was written for a non-climbing audience. I wanted to convey that real climbing is inherently dangerous. It's not like a birthday party at the gym in Valhalla.

I personally don't witness injured climbers every weekend, but on more weekends than not I hear the ambulance heading toward the Preserve. Odds are it's coming for a climber and not an apple picker.

Chip -- You are not way off. You get it.

This site is Plato's Academy compared to the slack jawed, monosyllabic snake pit over at rc.com

Been out to dinner, but immediately after posting, I wanted to add that the end was dead on, and good. For me that was the best part.

Added: It was also a "true" part.

From the other site: "I am not sure what everyone above are complaining about. Sounds like they are not living a life consumed by climbing and can't relate to a family who is."

I belive this is correct. But too few of us are living lives truly centered around climbing (includung or especially me)!

added

The root of the problem, especially since most of us imagine in our daydreams that we are.

Joe:

Thanks for the story. I loved it. I started climbing when my kids were 2.5 & 6 years old. I started taking them out a year later, when my daughter was old enough, then 3.5, to put a full body harness. My son, then 7, hated everything about climbing: the height, the outdoors, everything... I would rope him up once a year just to see if "you still hate it" and if he would go 10' up and said it was enough, that was that, if he got up to 40', ditto.

My daughter on the other hand, albeit younger and much smaller, could never get enough of it. It was never long enough, high enough, steep enough. She just loved it.

When my son was 15, we finally got to do our annual outing really late in the season, in October, and at the top of the climb, he looked down and hollered, "Where have I been? This is GREAT! I can't believe I missed ten years of this!"

Ironically, at that point, my daughter was 12 and got completely uninterested in the sport and dropped out of climbing altogether.

My son, now almost 20, is a proficient boulderer and leader. He did a couple of climbing trips in the last year. When he comes to visit from DC, we go climbing together and he now leads harder than I, taking me up stuff and if I am struggling, he will say, "You can do it Mama, I've got you!" which just melts my heart. Up on the ledge, we chat about what is going on in his life while watching the view and honestly, there isn't anything in the world I would trade for these very precious moments.

It is just wonderful to share a passion with one's child, whatever that may be.

Mim, thanks for adding that - it was great to read/hear!

Sometime I will need to get the story from Scotty about how his daughter Nicky Dyal (sp?) got into climbing. How cool that she comes back east almost every year to climb with him.
My oldest is now 22 and has started to enjoy the climbing now after really being very nervous most of his life whenever on a rope.

Actually I am glad that I'm not truly centered around climbing. I love it and have done it for 35+ yrs, BUT the people I know that do it that way tend to be fairly celf-centered. I'm proud that I make contributions to society in other ways.

Thanks Mim, glad you liked it

BTW, you do realize that the gunks (your upstate crag?) are south of 90% of the state?

While we are on the topic of climbing w/ kids:
Into Teen Air

i cringe every time friends from rockland county refer to themselves as from "upstate" as though they have never looked at a map!

I cringe every time friends from rockland county refer to themselves as from "upstate" as though they have never looked at a map!

It depends on one's location all right. To a City dweller, every place in NY north of the Bronx is upstate. But I digress.
I find Mim's post almost as heart-warming as Joeantol's. I have a pal in another state whose son climbed with him as a young boy and that kid wound up far excelling his father in skill. Kind of takes some of the pain of skills gradually diminishing with age by vicarious association.

Mim, well said Thanks

To a TriBeCa dweller, every place in NY north of 14th St. is upstate.

Ding ding! We have a winner!

Upstate and downstate is not a strictly geographic percentage. It is more of a cultural divide. Yonkers is hardly upstate, but someone from Tarrytown who works in the city will tell their coworkers that they are from upstate. It's a bragging rights thing. someone from Plattsburgh can say that someone in Lake george lives downstate...and they skoff at people from Albany who say they live upstate. It's as if your latitude is a bragging right. What about someone from Binghamton? Are they upstate? It is further south than 80% of the state, but I don't think anyone would argue that it is upstate.

Do people from Jersey use upstate/downstate? What about Massholes? their state is oriented east/west. Would someone from Springfield say they are from west state?

http://supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1131635/Swan-Slab-micro-TR


imo i think it's great to expose not push kids to the mountain lifestyle.

I agree with Talus. Expose you kids to the outdoors, climbing, swimming, skiing, camping; and sports, music.... and someday they will decide.