Jon Montgomery, gold-medal skeleton racer and host of Amazing Race Canada knows how to face obstacles head-on. His current challenge: adjusting to parenthood with new son, Jaxon, age one.
Most surprising thing about becoming a dad: How long everything now takes… oh, and how much your heart grows, too!
Favourite dad job: Tub-time!
Least favourite dad job? Diaper bin take-out. Pukefest!
Where you shine as a parent: My forehead…I’m losing hair quickly. My wife says I’m good at feeding though.
What you should work on: Patience
What do you hope for your son? That he is happy and feels like he belongs somewhere.
How do you deal with being away from your family for work? Facetime. And enjoying your work helps!
Do you do ALL the challenges on Amazing Race Canada? You bet! Except dancing. Jon don’t dance.
Favourite challenge you’ve done: Probably the scariest one: jumping off the Macau Tower in China at 762 feet high!
Least favourite challenges: Eating the gross foods.
Advice for kids who want to be athletes: Start by just playing… anything!
Travel tips for families: Take your time and don’t feel stressed if you hold people up. – you are going to hold people up! If they lose their s**t, that’s on them and not you! I have to remind myself of this often, as I don’t like to feel like I’m inconveniencing someone around me.
Some kid sports are eliminating the “competition factor” (ie: everybody gets a trophy). How do you feel about that? I feel sorry for the kids who won’t have another chance to learn some of these valuable life lessons while they are young; but, they’ll get their education one way or another. The consequences for being lazy, not working well with others, having poor sportsmanship, and never learning the value in losing will be astronomically higher if they learn these things later in life – because the laws that govern this world do not change simply because we feel children are too young to learn them.
Originally published in ParentsCanada magazine, Fall 2017.
