Artist’s Statement:

What I wanted to express is that a man is a man. He’s going to do what he has to do, what he has to function in his life, to look after himself. He’s got hobbies, a man needs to go to the store to buy things for himself or his home. If he’s married and got kids, he needs to look after them, he’s got to take care of the kids. He’s got to function. I look after my grandson. I did everything for him when he was younger. At that time I had a walker, I used to put him in the basket in the walker and walk with him and I used to look after him, feed him, dress him, and change him; whatever had to be done. It’s all part of life. It’s living, it’s functioning as a total person. I hate it when I hear a man say, “Oh I’ll never change a baby’s diaper”. I’ll look at them and I’ll pass the remark, “well maybe your father changed your diaper, what’s wrong with you changing yours.” You cook a meal, you feed the kids, you go shopping to buy the groceries, and that’s what you do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a male or female. Like, here in the public library, in the men’s washroom, there’s a changing table, and I agree with that. I’ve seen men in there with their babies on it changing them. It’s wonderful. This is what a lot of people don’t realize, even people who don’t have MS. They don’t know how to live. They don’t know how to be a human being, and they’ve got all these misconceived rules. “Oh men don’t do that, oh men don’t do this.” You know, I taught my grandson it’s alright to cry. Somebody told him, when he was twelve or thirteen that boys don’t cry, and I looked at him and I said, “if you want to cry, you cry.” I get sick and tired of the way kids are brought up today, especially boys. They are not supposed to show and express feelings or anything. They’re taught to be this robot creature that doesn’t exist.

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