There are few things in life I hate as much as talking to my young kids on the phone.
You have a young baby at home. You’re at work. You get a call from your wife and you have a perfectly lovely 10 minute conversation and then she says “bwach bwach wants to talk to you!” And then you hear what is apparently your baby gnawing and slobbering on and trying to eat your phone, even though that really doesn’t have much of a sound at all. And you’re forced to jolt yourself into your sing-songy “how is baby doing today” voice even though you don't have your baby to look at so you don't get to see the kid smile when you do it, so you have to force it and, while forcing it, you imagine the baby is just staring into space listening to the television while you’re making a fool of yourself on the phone and you just get really fucking self-conscious and you start looking around seeing if anyone can hear you making the ridiculous sounds you are making, and I really hope you don’t work in a cubicle.
And so a year or two passes, and your kid is two and can actually talk some and so you call home from your parents’ house, because you’re spending the night because your mom is going into surgery or something, and you talk to your wife and have a perfectly lovely 10 minute conversation with her, but during it you hear your toddler making noise in the background, demanding to be picked up, which works to silence the kid, and later you hear your toddler chattering at your wife and grabbing at the phone and you’re hearing “no, momma is talking” and then, later “you can talk to daddy in a minute” and then, after a minute, your wife says “cha cha cha wants to talk to you.”
And you talk and ask questions and you say .. what? You have no idea what to say. “How are you” doesn’t work. They have no idea what that means. “What did you do today?” Maybe. But even if you came up with something, it wouldn’t matter, because your toddler is going to be stone cold silent. Not a word. And you’ve seen this before while you were at home, with your own mother trying to talk to her grandkids on the phone from miles and miles away and the kids just sit staring at the phone, rapt at attention for a minute or two, mystified, but then drop the phone and are off to the races with practically no notice, and you have to scramble over to the phone and pick it up and cut off your mother who is still talking to them and it’s just embarrassing and you know that that is you now. You're the idiot talking to no one.
And then the kid is four and your wife calls from the car on the way home after picking them up from preschool and the kid whines “but I want to talk to daa-deee” (daa-deee is your name; two a’s; three e’s) and so, after a perfectly lovely 5 minute conversation with your wife, she hands the cell phone back and … they drop it during the exchange… and your wife pulls the car over, and you figure you have to stay on the line. So they pick the phone back up, and then your kid wants to press the buttons while they talk to you (which your wife legitimately can’t control, as she’s driving) and the kid invariably hangs up, but that makes them cry so your wife calls you back again to make them happy again and you try to talk to them and …
... see, if you don't have kids, you probably aren’t aware of this, but children have an inter-child pact that requires that, once they get on the phones with their fathers, they are only allowed to use the specific words that their mothers say to them. In addition to those words, they can use the words “daa-deee” and the word “I.” That’s it. (I think Milton Bradley actually markets the game as “Taboo for Preschool.”)
So your wife says “tell daddy what you did at school today.” And your kid says, to your wife, “like what.” And your wife says “about the pictures you drew” and you can hear what your wife is saying, so then your kid says “daa-deee, I drew pictures at school today.” See, “drew,” “pictures,” “at,” “school,” and “today” were all words first uttered by your wife. This will continue for 5 more minutes, as you get to hear your wife spoon feed your child words to say to you. Which would be ok, if your wife hadn’t already told you all of these things before she handed the phone back to your kid in the first place.
OK, once in a while they’ll say something funny or cute. Like, once a year. The other hours are hours you’ll never get back again. So just don’t get your kids in the habit of talking to you on the phone. Or, if it’s too late, just don’t pay any attention.
For example, I’ve written this entire passage while my 1-year old and 4-year old have been talking to me on the phone. I have so much more free time now. You gotta try this.
January 31, 2008
January 28, 2008
A Word or Two About Little Man Poo
I think a major fear of many fathers is all the shit (and by "shit" I mean actual poop like the kind that comes out of your body) and the changing of diapers. Not many dads know a lot about shit (again, I mean actual poop). If you’re like me, you might have babysat 5 times as a kid, probably making sure your friends had no idea you were actually doing that, and making sure the kids were at least 3 years old, because you weren’t doing any freaking diaper changing. You kind of feared it. So you’ve got no experience at all. But you try to be strong as a father, and you face the fear and you say “yes… I will change my share of the diapers” and you do it and, oh my god, you can’t believe how easy it is! I mean, it barely even smells at all! Particularly if the infant is being breast fed, there’s almost no smell. Some people even say it is “sweet” smelling. Honestly, that kind of comment is for the weirdos, but you will actually hear people say that. And so you conquer the fear of infant poo after some initial experiences with it. And you feel you’ve conquered a real challenge. The fear is gone.
At around 10 months of age, once they start eating real food, the door slams, the guillotine falls, the honeymoon ends. Watch out. Whole new ballgame. The fear was justified! Get out while you can! Some observers have been known to walk past when a 10 month old’s diaper is being changed and noting “ahhh… you’re in the man poo stage, eh?” Based upon the smell, until you get acclimated, you might actually wonder from time-to-time if you just might accidentally have started changing your own father’s diapers. Or question if, maybe, just possibly, a full grown man is shitting into a paper bag and slipping it into the child’s diaper when you aren’t looking (I’m not saying it’s probable, just that it seems plausible).
Of course, everything gets better with time. Do you remember how, at some point by maybe, say, sophomore year in college, puking after you drank excess quantities of alcohol no longer seemed all that awful and wasn’t necessarily show-stopping? Does the phrase “Puke and rally” ring bells with anyone? Or anyone who has done farm work or factory work in a less-than-ideal environment just “gets used to the smell.” Eventually changing the man-poo stage diapers gets to be like that. You might wince at the first one of the day, and after taking a week off it is hard to get back into the swing of things, but you get used to it
But I’ve said nothing about quantity. This is another complete mystery.
When my son was two, I was roughly 12 times the age, approximately twice the height and 7 times his weight. I ate approximately 5 times as many calories as he does. I was 3-5 times as fast as him, and could lift things with a weight approximately 8-10 times as heavy as he can. My clothing takes up at least 4-6 times as much material.
So why are his shits 90% the size of mine?
Are assholes like eyes? After you're born, they are essentially full-size already and grow very little after birth? When he goes into the bathroom, announcing his attention to “take a dunk” (in my daughter’s words), I sometimes ask him not to flush because I want to come in and admire the size. I just look at it and look back at him, and I think “your insides must just be a giant empty space, where all that poo previously was. You must be a hollow shell. I wonder if I took a tank of helium and put it in your ass, could I inflate you? Could I fill up this hollow shell of a boy and make you float around my house? And if I did that, would your farts be the high-pitched squeal of a balloon deflating?”
At around 10 months of age, once they start eating real food, the door slams, the guillotine falls, the honeymoon ends. Watch out. Whole new ballgame. The fear was justified! Get out while you can! Some observers have been known to walk past when a 10 month old’s diaper is being changed and noting “ahhh… you’re in the man poo stage, eh?” Based upon the smell, until you get acclimated, you might actually wonder from time-to-time if you just might accidentally have started changing your own father’s diapers. Or question if, maybe, just possibly, a full grown man is shitting into a paper bag and slipping it into the child’s diaper when you aren’t looking (I’m not saying it’s probable, just that it seems plausible).
Of course, everything gets better with time. Do you remember how, at some point by maybe, say, sophomore year in college, puking after you drank excess quantities of alcohol no longer seemed all that awful and wasn’t necessarily show-stopping? Does the phrase “Puke and rally” ring bells with anyone? Or anyone who has done farm work or factory work in a less-than-ideal environment just “gets used to the smell.” Eventually changing the man-poo stage diapers gets to be like that. You might wince at the first one of the day, and after taking a week off it is hard to get back into the swing of things, but you get used to it
But I’ve said nothing about quantity. This is another complete mystery.
When my son was two, I was roughly 12 times the age, approximately twice the height and 7 times his weight. I ate approximately 5 times as many calories as he does. I was 3-5 times as fast as him, and could lift things with a weight approximately 8-10 times as heavy as he can. My clothing takes up at least 4-6 times as much material.
So why are his shits 90% the size of mine?
Are assholes like eyes? After you're born, they are essentially full-size already and grow very little after birth? When he goes into the bathroom, announcing his attention to “take a dunk” (in my daughter’s words), I sometimes ask him not to flush because I want to come in and admire the size. I just look at it and look back at him, and I think “your insides must just be a giant empty space, where all that poo previously was. You must be a hollow shell. I wonder if I took a tank of helium and put it in your ass, could I inflate you? Could I fill up this hollow shell of a boy and make you float around my house? And if I did that, would your farts be the high-pitched squeal of a balloon deflating?”
January 26, 2008
Remarkable Parenting
Of course I would love to be a remarkable parent. It's certainly an admirable goal. It’s also impossible.
In a wildly successful marriage or relationship, one partner recognizes their own quirks and talents and finds one of the people in this world that those quirks and talents complement or match, forming a weird and beautiful symbiosis (or so I would suspect that's how it goes from watching movies, having never actually seen such a relationship). In a great music group, the members find one another and decide to form a group due to their shared common vision of what great rock music sounds like. They choose one another, and after that the band recognizes the talents of the individual members and they find producers and managers that share their vision and they use those diverse talents and symbiotic interaction to create a sum that is greater than the parts, and they create Smells Like Teen Spirit or It Takes a Nation of Millions. In any endeavor that involves a group working together, a key step – the key step -- is finding the right group. What is Chuck D without Flavor Flav? If you don’t choose the right mix of people, it’s not going to be as great. Getting to choose matters. A lot.
How does this relate to fatherhood? Anyone that remembers their teen years can see where this is going. There isn’t a teenager out there (outside of the Romney family) that hasn’t once thought about how unfair it is that “I didn’t get to choose my parents.”
And while the parents are normally kind enough to bite their tongue when their teen notes that the kid didn’t choose his parents, it is absolutely true that parents don’t get to choose their kids either. And, per the above, if you don’t get to choose the relationship, if you don’t get to choose your music group, that’s a big potential problem if you want the relationship to be a great one.
I am sure that I am the perfect father. For some children. That aren’t presently living in my house. That I have no genetic relationship with. They’re probably in Edmonton or Morocco or something. [while I do not know where the children that are perfect for me reside, it is well-known that the woman I am perfect for and who is perfect for me is, of course, the indomitable Rachel Leigh Cook.]
Certainly the genes you contribute to your children and the fact that you raise them in a particular way go a long way in determining who they are. How you raise them gives you common interests and a common way of looking at the world (note to parents of infants and toddlers: don’t get all cocky and think you’re going to continue to control everything and overestimate your power (you’ll get cocky despite the warning, it's inevitable): your kids have, or will soon have, minds of their own, and you have less control than you think). And genetics makes sure that your children will be somewhat similar to you and your wife in disposition.
[An aside about genetics: the dirty little secret of genetics that most parents fail to understand is that a particular kid does not possess 50% of his mom’s genes and 50% of his dad’s genes. Actually, the father contributes his genes and the mother contributes her genes, and then the baby’s genetics are chosen randomly from one or the other for each particular gene. So the kid could end up 79% wife, 21% husband. Or vice versa. Which, for most people, will seem absolutely obvious once they think about it and how certain family members seemed to follow after their father more than their mother, or vice versa. Think about it a bit. Doesn’t it seem obvious? But I digress…]
So I’m generally well-matched to my children. I will be remarkably able to teach my son how to position yourself so that, when choosing teams for neighborhood sports, you get picked second-to-last or third-to-last instead of last. I was excellent at being chosen third-to-last. Just this weekend I explained to my second grade daughter that the easiest way to quickly cure a crazy static electricity problem with your very thin hair is to secretly lick your hand before tamping down your hair, thus saving her the ridicule of her classmates that had begun to pepper her at school.
So while I’m generally well-matched, I’m not perfectly matched to my children. And so while my parenting style (and lifestyle) are probably a pretty good match, there’s probably someone out there that would be a little bit better than me at knowing what to do with my flesh and blood. While it is ok to admit this for yourself, your wife will not allow this to be admitted about her; you will be expected to garrote any woman that appears to be able to out-parent her with her own flesh and blood. For us dads, just knowing that our expectations should be lowered just a notch is probably enough.
[Note on the bracketed part on genetics above: I made that part up. It’s not true at all. Actually, you get exactly 50% of your genes from your father and 50% from your mother. But didn’t you believe that shit up there? Didn’t it make sense and seem right? I swear it should be true.]
[Another note on genetics: Actually, while each kid has 50% of his/her genes from the mom and 50% from the dad, you do not get 25% from each grandparent. You get 50% from each set of grandparents, but the individual portions are random. You might get 40% from grandma and 10% from grandad. So the 50% of my genes that my kids have might all be from my father and might not include my mother at all. I’m not making this one up. I swear. And doesn't that seem to make sense when you think about it: how there's one grandparent you seem to have no genetic relationship with at all?]
So if there’s no remarkable parenting, what does that mean? Well, I guess it means that, in large part, the experiences you have with your child are not going to be remarkable ones. They are going to be common, everyday experiences. And if you read a book on fatherhood or spend a few hours trolling the daddy-blogs, you’ll learn a lot of what’s going to happen to you.
During the course of being a father, every father assembles a handy bag of stories. One story is about a giant, disgusting shit that had to be cleaned up. Another is about someone being peed on without a diaper. There is normally a story about a child escaping the house unbeknownst to the parents. A story about how the kid vomited and either (a) you were holding the child facing you, so they threw up on you, (b) the vomit was in the bed, making it very very nasty to clean up, particularly if it had milk in it. A story about the child swearing at an inopportune moment (and there’s a hierarchy: of course “fuck” stories are funnier than “dammit” stories). There are many others in the story bag. There are variants on the theme, but each father gets the same general bag of stories to work with. (This is why it is crucial to have friends with kids the same age as you. Your stories are interesting to one another because you're experiencing the same things as them).
Just like you don’t choose your kids, you don’t get to choose your stories. That’s the problem. It’s not like music or movies or books or your career or your hobbies or your friends or the food you eat or the clothes you wear or who you’re married to. You have something to say about all of those things, or you outright get to choose them. The stories … you can’t make them happen: either something interesting to you happens, or it doesn’t. So by becoming a father you are taking the activities in life that used to (hopefully) make you a somewhat interesting person and you don’t get to do those activities as much anymore; instead you spend your time on your kids and what you get back, on an intellectual/everyday level, are … some stories, which happen to be very similar to the stories that all of the other fathers are picking up as well. You may be a very interesting person, but your stories just might happen to suck, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Let me be clear that this is absolutely fine. I am of course not mentioning all of the emotional benefits of fatherhood (which are a whole 'nother topic alltogether). You can be wholly fulfilled and happy as a father with a normal, loving relationship with your children. I doubt that most people have the goal of creating great art with their lives. Which is a damn good thing because, as a father, you're not going to. But that's not to say that you might not wish that there was more aspects of fatherhood that were like great art/music/movies and less moments that were a tad mind-numbing.
In fact, if you're a new dad, or not yet a dad but plan to have kids someday, you probably should stop reading this blog, and you shouldn’t read any parenting books and you shouldn’t talk to other fathers about parenting. Being a dad is mind-numbing enough and has too few surprising parts. If all you are getting on an intellectual level are some surprising experiences and the stories that come out of them, the last thing you want is to have the surprise ruined and learn that other peoples’ stories are more interesting than yours. Blogs and books and accumulating other fathers’ knowledge are just huge spoilers, like when someone gives away the plot of a movie before you see it. You learn too much about stuff and then, when it happens, it won’t be exciting, you’ll just think “well, now that has finally happened to me.” The problem is that this ain’t no two-hour movie that you can afford to have spoiled. This movie lasts 18 years. So save the surprises and go in unprepared.
So burn what you’re reading now (or, if this were on paper, you would burn it). Instead, here’s a link to http://www.espn.com/. Stay away from this blog and all daddy-blogs. They'll do nothing for you.
UPDATE (2/3/08): Clearly many of you have taken my exortation not to read this a little too seriously, as my average daily hit count has dropped in half since I posted the above. Dudes, I was kidding! Come back! Daddyfesto loves you!
In a wildly successful marriage or relationship, one partner recognizes their own quirks and talents and finds one of the people in this world that those quirks and talents complement or match, forming a weird and beautiful symbiosis (or so I would suspect that's how it goes from watching movies, having never actually seen such a relationship). In a great music group, the members find one another and decide to form a group due to their shared common vision of what great rock music sounds like. They choose one another, and after that the band recognizes the talents of the individual members and they find producers and managers that share their vision and they use those diverse talents and symbiotic interaction to create a sum that is greater than the parts, and they create Smells Like Teen Spirit or It Takes a Nation of Millions. In any endeavor that involves a group working together, a key step – the key step -- is finding the right group. What is Chuck D without Flavor Flav? If you don’t choose the right mix of people, it’s not going to be as great. Getting to choose matters. A lot.
How does this relate to fatherhood? Anyone that remembers their teen years can see where this is going. There isn’t a teenager out there (outside of the Romney family) that hasn’t once thought about how unfair it is that “I didn’t get to choose my parents.”
And while the parents are normally kind enough to bite their tongue when their teen notes that the kid didn’t choose his parents, it is absolutely true that parents don’t get to choose their kids either. And, per the above, if you don’t get to choose the relationship, if you don’t get to choose your music group, that’s a big potential problem if you want the relationship to be a great one.
I am sure that I am the perfect father. For some children. That aren’t presently living in my house. That I have no genetic relationship with. They’re probably in Edmonton or Morocco or something. [while I do not know where the children that are perfect for me reside, it is well-known that the woman I am perfect for and who is perfect for me is, of course, the indomitable Rachel Leigh Cook.]
Certainly the genes you contribute to your children and the fact that you raise them in a particular way go a long way in determining who they are. How you raise them gives you common interests and a common way of looking at the world (note to parents of infants and toddlers: don’t get all cocky and think you’re going to continue to control everything and overestimate your power (you’ll get cocky despite the warning, it's inevitable): your kids have, or will soon have, minds of their own, and you have less control than you think). And genetics makes sure that your children will be somewhat similar to you and your wife in disposition.
[An aside about genetics: the dirty little secret of genetics that most parents fail to understand is that a particular kid does not possess 50% of his mom’s genes and 50% of his dad’s genes. Actually, the father contributes his genes and the mother contributes her genes, and then the baby’s genetics are chosen randomly from one or the other for each particular gene. So the kid could end up 79% wife, 21% husband. Or vice versa. Which, for most people, will seem absolutely obvious once they think about it and how certain family members seemed to follow after their father more than their mother, or vice versa. Think about it a bit. Doesn’t it seem obvious? But I digress…]
So I’m generally well-matched to my children. I will be remarkably able to teach my son how to position yourself so that, when choosing teams for neighborhood sports, you get picked second-to-last or third-to-last instead of last. I was excellent at being chosen third-to-last. Just this weekend I explained to my second grade daughter that the easiest way to quickly cure a crazy static electricity problem with your very thin hair is to secretly lick your hand before tamping down your hair, thus saving her the ridicule of her classmates that had begun to pepper her at school.
So while I’m generally well-matched, I’m not perfectly matched to my children. And so while my parenting style (and lifestyle) are probably a pretty good match, there’s probably someone out there that would be a little bit better than me at knowing what to do with my flesh and blood. While it is ok to admit this for yourself, your wife will not allow this to be admitted about her; you will be expected to garrote any woman that appears to be able to out-parent her with her own flesh and blood. For us dads, just knowing that our expectations should be lowered just a notch is probably enough.
[Note on the bracketed part on genetics above: I made that part up. It’s not true at all. Actually, you get exactly 50% of your genes from your father and 50% from your mother. But didn’t you believe that shit up there? Didn’t it make sense and seem right? I swear it should be true.]
[Another note on genetics: Actually, while each kid has 50% of his/her genes from the mom and 50% from the dad, you do not get 25% from each grandparent. You get 50% from each set of grandparents, but the individual portions are random. You might get 40% from grandma and 10% from grandad. So the 50% of my genes that my kids have might all be from my father and might not include my mother at all. I’m not making this one up. I swear. And doesn't that seem to make sense when you think about it: how there's one grandparent you seem to have no genetic relationship with at all?]
So if there’s no remarkable parenting, what does that mean? Well, I guess it means that, in large part, the experiences you have with your child are not going to be remarkable ones. They are going to be common, everyday experiences. And if you read a book on fatherhood or spend a few hours trolling the daddy-blogs, you’ll learn a lot of what’s going to happen to you.
During the course of being a father, every father assembles a handy bag of stories. One story is about a giant, disgusting shit that had to be cleaned up. Another is about someone being peed on without a diaper. There is normally a story about a child escaping the house unbeknownst to the parents. A story about how the kid vomited and either (a) you were holding the child facing you, so they threw up on you, (b) the vomit was in the bed, making it very very nasty to clean up, particularly if it had milk in it. A story about the child swearing at an inopportune moment (and there’s a hierarchy: of course “fuck” stories are funnier than “dammit” stories). There are many others in the story bag. There are variants on the theme, but each father gets the same general bag of stories to work with. (This is why it is crucial to have friends with kids the same age as you. Your stories are interesting to one another because you're experiencing the same things as them).
Just like you don’t choose your kids, you don’t get to choose your stories. That’s the problem. It’s not like music or movies or books or your career or your hobbies or your friends or the food you eat or the clothes you wear or who you’re married to. You have something to say about all of those things, or you outright get to choose them. The stories … you can’t make them happen: either something interesting to you happens, or it doesn’t. So by becoming a father you are taking the activities in life that used to (hopefully) make you a somewhat interesting person and you don’t get to do those activities as much anymore; instead you spend your time on your kids and what you get back, on an intellectual/everyday level, are … some stories, which happen to be very similar to the stories that all of the other fathers are picking up as well. You may be a very interesting person, but your stories just might happen to suck, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Let me be clear that this is absolutely fine. I am of course not mentioning all of the emotional benefits of fatherhood (which are a whole 'nother topic alltogether). You can be wholly fulfilled and happy as a father with a normal, loving relationship with your children. I doubt that most people have the goal of creating great art with their lives. Which is a damn good thing because, as a father, you're not going to. But that's not to say that you might not wish that there was more aspects of fatherhood that were like great art/music/movies and less moments that were a tad mind-numbing.
In fact, if you're a new dad, or not yet a dad but plan to have kids someday, you probably should stop reading this blog, and you shouldn’t read any parenting books and you shouldn’t talk to other fathers about parenting. Being a dad is mind-numbing enough and has too few surprising parts. If all you are getting on an intellectual level are some surprising experiences and the stories that come out of them, the last thing you want is to have the surprise ruined and learn that other peoples’ stories are more interesting than yours. Blogs and books and accumulating other fathers’ knowledge are just huge spoilers, like when someone gives away the plot of a movie before you see it. You learn too much about stuff and then, when it happens, it won’t be exciting, you’ll just think “well, now that has finally happened to me.” The problem is that this ain’t no two-hour movie that you can afford to have spoiled. This movie lasts 18 years. So save the surprises and go in unprepared.
So burn what you’re reading now (or, if this were on paper, you would burn it). Instead, here’s a link to http://www.espn.com/. Stay away from this blog and all daddy-blogs. They'll do nothing for you.
UPDATE (2/3/08): Clearly many of you have taken my exortation not to read this a little too seriously, as my average daily hit count has dropped in half since I posted the above. Dudes, I was kidding! Come back! Daddyfesto loves you!
January 25, 2008
Indian Summer: Months Three Through Seven
As I noted in the post below, all kids suck for the first several weeks of their lives. But, at some point, your child will no longer suck. The constant crying will subside. She or he will start non-fart-related smiling and pulling on your finger in recognition of who you are instead of based upon innate reflex. The kid will start taking a lot of naps during the day. Awake for an hour or two; asleep for an hour or two.
Coming out of the dark hell of the first few weeks is a glorious, glorious thing. A glorious thing too many first-time parents squander. Listen to me closely. This is it. This is your window; your opportunity to be seized. The last breath of fresh air for many, many, many years. Your dome will be grey when you get to breathe this fresh air again.
It is at this stage that your child, while asleep, is basically an extra purse. A cute purse. An expensive purse. A very important purse. But a piece of luggage nonetheless. And where can you take a purse? I’ll give you three guesses! Give up?
YOU CAN TAKE A PURSE ANYWHERE!! On a bus, train, car or aeroplane! In the ubiquitous car-seat carrier, your kid can go to a restaurant, your kid can go to a sporting event, your kid can go to a bar; some people even take ‘em to movies and get away with it.
So get out of the house and do stuff! At this point you have no idea how disruptive and destructive a 1-year old can be, walking around tearing shit up. You can’t take a 1-year old anywhere.
Right now you have a small, immobile, easy-to-care for purse that you have to dump milk into once and awhile.
So get the hell out of the house! Hop the in car and drive down the highway 150 miles to a friends’ house for the weekend. DO SOMETHING. It’s the last chance you’ll have for quite a while. The coming winter is 18-years long.
Coming out of the dark hell of the first few weeks is a glorious, glorious thing. A glorious thing too many first-time parents squander. Listen to me closely. This is it. This is your window; your opportunity to be seized. The last breath of fresh air for many, many, many years. Your dome will be grey when you get to breathe this fresh air again.
It is at this stage that your child, while asleep, is basically an extra purse. A cute purse. An expensive purse. A very important purse. But a piece of luggage nonetheless. And where can you take a purse? I’ll give you three guesses! Give up?
YOU CAN TAKE A PURSE ANYWHERE!! On a bus, train, car or aeroplane! In the ubiquitous car-seat carrier, your kid can go to a restaurant, your kid can go to a sporting event, your kid can go to a bar; some people even take ‘em to movies and get away with it.
So get out of the house and do stuff! At this point you have no idea how disruptive and destructive a 1-year old can be, walking around tearing shit up. You can’t take a 1-year old anywhere.
Right now you have a small, immobile, easy-to-care for purse that you have to dump milk into once and awhile.
So get the hell out of the house! Hop the in car and drive down the highway 150 miles to a friends’ house for the weekend. DO SOMETHING. It’s the last chance you’ll have for quite a while. The coming winter is 18-years long.
January 24, 2008
The First (Give or Take) Six Weeks: Learning the Tricks of the Trade
I used to believe it was gospel that all kids were just fucking awful for the first six weeks of their lives. I’ve since realized that there is a range of “just fucking awfulness.” It might be three weeks. It might be eight. If they are colicky, it might be a year or two.
But the point is that the kid is going to be just fucking awful for some period of time, and the first kid is probably going to be the worst. If you have multiple children down the road, one day you’ll look back and think “my first kid had such a bad temperament compared to these others.” And a few years later, you’ll realize “my god, the first one sucked so bad because we were incompetent.” And you’ll never really know which was the real reason. Probably a little of both.
In any event, the first several weeks will likely be hell. They were for us. Screaming. For hours. Crying. Constant need for attention. No rhyme or reason to the crying. Nothing you can do to stop it; most of what you do makes it worse. Prepare your self for this.
The crying will get very very annoying. And you will begin to wonder why you aren’t allowed to simply put a hand over a crying baby’s mouth.
Let’s really think about that for a second. I mean, it’s not like she’ll remember what happened to her when she was a baby. No one has memories until they are at least 2 or 3, and most people, down the road, don’t have memories of being even that age. And doing it is not mean or cruel if it settles the kid down. Being settled down is a good thing! It’s like relaxing. People like to relax. So, really, reducing her oxygen is doing her a favor. You know, if covering her mouth is a good thing, plugging her nose while I cover their mouth is probably doubly good! Wow, this is a LOT quieter than before, when my hand was NOT covering her mouth. And although she might be slightly sadder, I am a LOT happier, and isn’t it the overall, cumulative happiness of the family that matters? Isn’t that what the great utilitarian philosophers have taught us?
OK… let’s just say it’s probably best to not be alone with the child for extended periods of time in the beginning.
You will also learn the first trick of the trade. Your whole life you have seen parents pick up crying children and put their child’s head on their shoulders and you’ve come to equate that position as a position of comfort for the child. You probably subconsciously (or consciously) thought “Parents must know that kids like that position; that’s why they do that.” Ummmm… no.
If your kid is screaming, you don’t want to bear the brunt of that awful wailing sound. Walking away is mean (and, thus, not something you can pull of while in public), so you’re forced to pick the kid up and, admittedly, this normally will help get them to stop screaming. If you’re holding them, and they’re screaming, it’s awful. But sticking the kid’s head over your shoulder makes the sound goes behind you, over your shoulder, and not right into your ear. It’s the only way to hold them and not have your eardrums in pain.
And the moment I realized this was the moment I realized just how cold and calculating this parenting business is sometimes.
In fact, it was this realization that led me to realize that maybe, just maybe, my parents were not the best parents in the world. I had long since realized that they had their flaws as people, but I had always just assumed that every action that they took as a parent was self-abnegating, undertaken with only my interests in mind. But once you start noticing the tricks you’re pulling, you’ll start retroactively recognizing the tricks your parents were playing on you. You’ll realize that your dad fostered a love of watching sports in you because it gave him an excuse to go to watch the games but still be able to argue to your mother that he was doing something family oriented. “I’m watching the games with my son! It’s a FAMILY event.” You’ll realize that when your dad took you to bad Star Trek movies, it wasn’t because he was doing you a favor. You were doing him a favor by liking the same things as him.
And while it may burst your balloon with respect to your parents, you won’t feel bad for one fucking second playing the same games with your children. You’ll start secretly pushing them to give up the nursery rhyme / crappy kid music CD that grandma bought that you grew tired of several months ago and showing them how comforting the sounds of baseball on the radio can be (or at least classical music). You won’t feel bad because, deep down, you know just how much the damn kids owe you, and you know just how much you’ve put up with, and you know that doing one thing for yourself will make the tally of selfless vs. selfish acts be 12,932 to 142. Bumping the selfish acts count up to 143 won’t even begin to level the playing field.
So in the summer, feel free to sit back and see what Tom Hamilton has to say about the Tribe every now and again. You've earned it.
But the point is that the kid is going to be just fucking awful for some period of time, and the first kid is probably going to be the worst. If you have multiple children down the road, one day you’ll look back and think “my first kid had such a bad temperament compared to these others.” And a few years later, you’ll realize “my god, the first one sucked so bad because we were incompetent.” And you’ll never really know which was the real reason. Probably a little of both.
In any event, the first several weeks will likely be hell. They were for us. Screaming. For hours. Crying. Constant need for attention. No rhyme or reason to the crying. Nothing you can do to stop it; most of what you do makes it worse. Prepare your self for this.
The crying will get very very annoying. And you will begin to wonder why you aren’t allowed to simply put a hand over a crying baby’s mouth.
Let’s really think about that for a second. I mean, it’s not like she’ll remember what happened to her when she was a baby. No one has memories until they are at least 2 or 3, and most people, down the road, don’t have memories of being even that age. And doing it is not mean or cruel if it settles the kid down. Being settled down is a good thing! It’s like relaxing. People like to relax. So, really, reducing her oxygen is doing her a favor. You know, if covering her mouth is a good thing, plugging her nose while I cover their mouth is probably doubly good! Wow, this is a LOT quieter than before, when my hand was NOT covering her mouth. And although she might be slightly sadder, I am a LOT happier, and isn’t it the overall, cumulative happiness of the family that matters? Isn’t that what the great utilitarian philosophers have taught us?
OK… let’s just say it’s probably best to not be alone with the child for extended periods of time in the beginning.
You will also learn the first trick of the trade. Your whole life you have seen parents pick up crying children and put their child’s head on their shoulders and you’ve come to equate that position as a position of comfort for the child. You probably subconsciously (or consciously) thought “Parents must know that kids like that position; that’s why they do that.” Ummmm… no.
If your kid is screaming, you don’t want to bear the brunt of that awful wailing sound. Walking away is mean (and, thus, not something you can pull of while in public), so you’re forced to pick the kid up and, admittedly, this normally will help get them to stop screaming. If you’re holding them, and they’re screaming, it’s awful. But sticking the kid’s head over your shoulder makes the sound goes behind you, over your shoulder, and not right into your ear. It’s the only way to hold them and not have your eardrums in pain.
And the moment I realized this was the moment I realized just how cold and calculating this parenting business is sometimes.
In fact, it was this realization that led me to realize that maybe, just maybe, my parents were not the best parents in the world. I had long since realized that they had their flaws as people, but I had always just assumed that every action that they took as a parent was self-abnegating, undertaken with only my interests in mind. But once you start noticing the tricks you’re pulling, you’ll start retroactively recognizing the tricks your parents were playing on you. You’ll realize that your dad fostered a love of watching sports in you because it gave him an excuse to go to watch the games but still be able to argue to your mother that he was doing something family oriented. “I’m watching the games with my son! It’s a FAMILY event.” You’ll realize that when your dad took you to bad Star Trek movies, it wasn’t because he was doing you a favor. You were doing him a favor by liking the same things as him.
And while it may burst your balloon with respect to your parents, you won’t feel bad for one fucking second playing the same games with your children. You’ll start secretly pushing them to give up the nursery rhyme / crappy kid music CD that grandma bought that you grew tired of several months ago and showing them how comforting the sounds of baseball on the radio can be (or at least classical music). You won’t feel bad because, deep down, you know just how much the damn kids owe you, and you know just how much you’ve put up with, and you know that doing one thing for yourself will make the tally of selfless vs. selfish acts be 12,932 to 142. Bumping the selfish acts count up to 143 won’t even begin to level the playing field.
So in the summer, feel free to sit back and see what Tom Hamilton has to say about the Tribe every now and again. You've earned it.
January 21, 2008
Here is What Fatherhood Will Do To You
Right now, if you are single (or married without kids), there are probably things in your life that you don’t like to do. But if you take on those unpleasant or loathsome tasks, maybe you reward yourself with something you like better. If you don’t like going to the gym, you tell yourself that if you go and work out, then you can eat eggs and bacon for breakfast at the local diner the next day. If you hate mowing the lawn, you tell yourself that when you’re done you can take a nap or have a beer and watch the Buckeyes. Or maybe you just suck it up without a reward.
Those unpleasant or loathsome things you don’t like doing? Once you have kids, they are now your reward. You’re LUCKY if you get to go to the gym. In fact, to get to go, you have to watch the kids while your spouse watches her reality TV show, or you have to fix lunch on Saturday and build up goodwill for the privilege and honor of going to the gym in the afternoon. At the end of the day you will think back on the high points of your day and you will think of how great it was that you got to go work out.
There will come a day when you’ll find yourself finishing mowing the lawn, standing in your driveway, leaning up against the upright part of the mower. And you’ll look up to the house, and you … well, you won’t actually be able to see them through the walls … but for just a moment it will be like you have x-ray vision, and you’ll in some weird way be able to see through the walls and see your children scattered about the house, running in doodle-patterns, yapping and screaming, with foods and sauces dripping from their faces, hanging there, defying gravity, and you’ll see your harried wife’s mouth screaming at them, and having something to do with the x-ray vision, her mouth will be moving in slow motion. And you’ll think to yourself “I think it is very important that I double cut my lawn today” or "wow those bushes need trimmed," even though just six years prior you mocked men who were obsessed with and spent hours-a-weekend on their yards. A silly man you were back then, thinking that a yard obsession had anything to do with what the yard looked like.
That is what having a kid is going to do to you.
You will begin striving for the privilege of doing the crappy things in life.
Those unpleasant or loathsome things you don’t like doing? Once you have kids, they are now your reward. You’re LUCKY if you get to go to the gym. In fact, to get to go, you have to watch the kids while your spouse watches her reality TV show, or you have to fix lunch on Saturday and build up goodwill for the privilege and honor of going to the gym in the afternoon. At the end of the day you will think back on the high points of your day and you will think of how great it was that you got to go work out.
There will come a day when you’ll find yourself finishing mowing the lawn, standing in your driveway, leaning up against the upright part of the mower. And you’ll look up to the house, and you … well, you won’t actually be able to see them through the walls … but for just a moment it will be like you have x-ray vision, and you’ll in some weird way be able to see through the walls and see your children scattered about the house, running in doodle-patterns, yapping and screaming, with foods and sauces dripping from their faces, hanging there, defying gravity, and you’ll see your harried wife’s mouth screaming at them, and having something to do with the x-ray vision, her mouth will be moving in slow motion. And you’ll think to yourself “I think it is very important that I double cut my lawn today” or "wow those bushes need trimmed," even though just six years prior you mocked men who were obsessed with and spent hours-a-weekend on their yards. A silly man you were back then, thinking that a yard obsession had anything to do with what the yard looked like.
That is what having a kid is going to do to you.
You will begin striving for the privilege of doing the crappy things in life.
January 20, 2008
Mommy-Blogging and Daddy-Blogging
It's really insane. I've never randomly drifted from blog to blog before, but I've done so over the past two weeks and TONS of the blogs I hit were mommy blogs. It's like women as a group realized in 2004 and 2005 that blogs were so much cheaper than scrapbooking and migrated to it en masse. If you don't believe me, go up to the "Next Blog" thing at the top of the page, just to the left of center and click on "next blog." (watch out, I hit one NSFW site once). Approximately half the bandwidth the United States appears to be taken up by these things.
There are daddy blogs, but they are quite a bit rarer, although there are still a lot of them. More than you would think. There is a perhaps expected phenomenon that the dads that blog tend to be a tad bit more sensitive than you would expect from the average dad. And it appears that half of them are of the stay-at-home variety.
Perhaps the best daddy blog I found for brand new dads is a series of articles this guy did in the first year of his daughter's life. He's a self-described geek, but lots of good observations.
There are daddy blogs, but they are quite a bit rarer, although there are still a lot of them. More than you would think. There is a perhaps expected phenomenon that the dads that blog tend to be a tad bit more sensitive than you would expect from the average dad. And it appears that half of them are of the stay-at-home variety.
Perhaps the best daddy blog I found for brand new dads is a series of articles this guy did in the first year of his daughter's life. He's a self-described geek, but lots of good observations.
Some Brief Words About Your Car
A few words about your car. If you just had a kid, lets talk about your car. Before you had children, you used to have a car that you drove, and your wife used to have a car that she drove. Your car. Her car. Very simple.
But the title to this section is a misnomer now. YOU no longer have a car. Now, there is one car that is safer and has carseats permanently installed. This car is called “the baby’s car.” There is another, probably smaller, probably less safe car, that either doesn’t have a car seat, or has the shitty, second-hand car seat. That is the “non-baby car.” If you have the baby, you take the baby’s car. If you don’t have the baby, you take the non-baby car.
You don’t have a car anymore.
But the title to this section is a misnomer now. YOU no longer have a car. Now, there is one car that is safer and has carseats permanently installed. This car is called “the baby’s car.” There is another, probably smaller, probably less safe car, that either doesn’t have a car seat, or has the shitty, second-hand car seat. That is the “non-baby car.” If you have the baby, you take the baby’s car. If you don’t have the baby, you take the non-baby car.
You don’t have a car anymore.
January 18, 2008
The Birth (Continued) and the Maternity Ward
Y’know, I said that there were seven rules to know about the birth of your child, but I actually forgot the biggest job you have during the birth. During the birthing experience, you are Bad Cop. Your wife gets to be Good Cop. She's the pregnant one, she gets to pick, and wives always want to be Good Cop.
It works like this. When your wife feels like something pushing or leaking or hurting too much, or if she doesn’t think the drugs are working, she will tell you it hurts. And you will say “should I get the nurse” and she will say “ummmm…. no.” And then she will squeak and moan and wail in pain some more. And then, after 10 minutes, you will say “I’m getting the nurse” and she will say “well … ok.” So you will go out the door and there will be 4 nurses sitting around talking and eating out of clear or orange Tupperware containers, but none of them will be your nurse, and that means they cannot help you in any way, and you will walk down the hall looking into rooms for your nurse, and looking into those other rooms you very likely will see much too much of your wife’s fellow patients, which is not at all a good thing on a labor and delivery floor, and you’ll eventually find your nurse and you will hang in the doorway of some other lady’s room and you'll try to say, authoritatively, “my wife needs you” and they will say “one minute sir” and you will wait and after 3 minutes you will say “we need you to come over here please, my wife really needs you” in a gruff voice and the nurse will follow you back to the room, and you won’t talk the whole time, and you are not friends with this nurse. And when you get back to the room, your wife will bury you. She will say “awwww… did you come here for me? Did my silly husband get you?” IF THIS HAPPENS, you should feel doubly bad, because if you’re wife is able to pull off a cover-up like that, then you’re easily several hours from the birth. Only when her Good Cop façade breaks down are you ready to go.
And that’s your job for 6 or 12 or 24 or 48 hours or however long it takes. Barging around the hospital, getting people’s attention, getting your wife drugs and ice and popsicles and making sure people are checking in on her, pissing people off if necessary. You’re the advocate.
Your role changes when the kid's out and you move upstairs (and the maternity floors are always upstairs, on a higher floor than labor and delivery). Now you are part PR machine (calling (and now texting!) parents and siblings on both sides, maybe aunts and uncles, then friends), part Paparazzi (taking movies and pics) and part Fido. Your wife will say “I need …” and you will snap to attention and spring out of your chair. Realize, she’s been training you and having you do shit for her for 9 months; you’re at the absolute peak of your obedience powers and she’s at the absolute peak of her ability to order you around using a tone of voice normally heard in Civil War era movies when white ladies are ordering around their slaves (but you don't mind; you're well-trained). And you fetch things like, like … Big Macs and fries (I was sent for a value meal less than an hour after our first child was born), and pillows and blankets and diapers and bandaids and wipes and papertowels and more ice and water and giant fucking adult diapers for your wife and this kind of bizarre fishnet stocking underwear for her and …. maybe even creams and other things having to do with an episiotomy. And, y’know, honey, maybe its time for your mother to come up and visit. I need to go home and shower, babe.
And you will have great fun at the fishbowl nursery window! Early on, while you’ll want your baby to be with you, just having the kid in your room will triple your adrenaline levels and stress levels, so you’ll drop them off in the fishbowl nursery and then 10 minutes later you’ll go get them again, and then you’ll put them back in the fishbowl and your wife will nap and you’ll just stand at the window for a while and watch the kid, and you’ll see another new father and you’ll think to yourself “look at that bozo; that guy is just staring like an idiot” and he'll look over at you like "dude, don't try to bond with me just because our babies just happened to be born at the same time" and you will think "I wasn't trying to bond with you, I was making fun of you in my head" then you will stare like an idiot in the window at your kid and then….
… you’ll notice that this one kid in the fishbowl (the one over on the right in the back) is a lot taller than your kid.
… and you’ll notice that another is well-behaved and not screaming all the time
… and that one over there is cute (and you don’t think any babies are cute, especially coneheaded smush-nosed, stretched-out-eye newborns, but, as far as ugly babies go, that’s a cute one)
The women don’t see this. They are normally bedridden or semi-bedridden during this phase. They sit in the room all day while you take the baby back and forth in those silly wheely carts (the hospital dudes will actually yell at you if you carry the baby in your arms in the hall, which makes perfect sense because, I mean, who carries a baby in their arms at home; so of course you can’t walk around and carry a baby at the same time in a hospital). The moms don’t see all of it, and there’ll be a split, maybe the first split, in how you and your wife see this parenting thing. Women, not seeing any kids but their child, coddle and comfort the child. Men, having sized up the competition, realize it’s a rough world out there and our kids gotta toughen up. The difference in view isn't genetic. It’s all about the fishbowl.
Of course, none of this applies to your third child (or more). For your third child, the sign may say “Maternity Ward” but it looks to you like it says “Free Babysitting for 48 Hours!!” Well, it’s not free, but you’re paying for it anyway so you might as well use it. When our youngest daughter was born, I actually put my 3-year old in the wheeley cart with the baby and tried to check them both. Tabs were kept for the remainder of our stay.
FINAL THOUGHT: Hospital staff seem to be under the impression that they are wardens and jailors and that you MUST NOT LEAVE THE HOSPITAL and you CANNOT LEAVE THE HOSPITAL until you are DISCHARGED by the hospital equivalent of a parole board and being discharged is extremely important and that, in essence, they can kidnap you and make you stay as long as they want until they decide to discharge you, which basically depends upon when the doctor decides to show up. Despite my intense desire to follow in the footsteps of Thoreau and march me and my brood defiantly out of the hospital pre-discharge (gasp, not in a wheelchair!) and strike a blow for liberty and freedom and all that is right and good, my wife told me to shut up and go fetch the car, so I did it real quick.
It works like this. When your wife feels like something pushing or leaking or hurting too much, or if she doesn’t think the drugs are working, she will tell you it hurts. And you will say “should I get the nurse” and she will say “ummmm…. no.” And then she will squeak and moan and wail in pain some more. And then, after 10 minutes, you will say “I’m getting the nurse” and she will say “well … ok.” So you will go out the door and there will be 4 nurses sitting around talking and eating out of clear or orange Tupperware containers, but none of them will be your nurse, and that means they cannot help you in any way, and you will walk down the hall looking into rooms for your nurse, and looking into those other rooms you very likely will see much too much of your wife’s fellow patients, which is not at all a good thing on a labor and delivery floor, and you’ll eventually find your nurse and you will hang in the doorway of some other lady’s room and you'll try to say, authoritatively, “my wife needs you” and they will say “one minute sir” and you will wait and after 3 minutes you will say “we need you to come over here please, my wife really needs you” in a gruff voice and the nurse will follow you back to the room, and you won’t talk the whole time, and you are not friends with this nurse. And when you get back to the room, your wife will bury you. She will say “awwww… did you come here for me? Did my silly husband get you?” IF THIS HAPPENS, you should feel doubly bad, because if you’re wife is able to pull off a cover-up like that, then you’re easily several hours from the birth. Only when her Good Cop façade breaks down are you ready to go.
And that’s your job for 6 or 12 or 24 or 48 hours or however long it takes. Barging around the hospital, getting people’s attention, getting your wife drugs and ice and popsicles and making sure people are checking in on her, pissing people off if necessary. You’re the advocate.
Your role changes when the kid's out and you move upstairs (and the maternity floors are always upstairs, on a higher floor than labor and delivery). Now you are part PR machine (calling (and now texting!) parents and siblings on both sides, maybe aunts and uncles, then friends), part Paparazzi (taking movies and pics) and part Fido. Your wife will say “I need …” and you will snap to attention and spring out of your chair. Realize, she’s been training you and having you do shit for her for 9 months; you’re at the absolute peak of your obedience powers and she’s at the absolute peak of her ability to order you around using a tone of voice normally heard in Civil War era movies when white ladies are ordering around their slaves (but you don't mind; you're well-trained). And you fetch things like, like … Big Macs and fries (I was sent for a value meal less than an hour after our first child was born), and pillows and blankets and diapers and bandaids and wipes and papertowels and more ice and water and giant fucking adult diapers for your wife and this kind of bizarre fishnet stocking underwear for her and …. maybe even creams and other things having to do with an episiotomy. And, y’know, honey, maybe its time for your mother to come up and visit. I need to go home and shower, babe.
And you will have great fun at the fishbowl nursery window! Early on, while you’ll want your baby to be with you, just having the kid in your room will triple your adrenaline levels and stress levels, so you’ll drop them off in the fishbowl nursery and then 10 minutes later you’ll go get them again, and then you’ll put them back in the fishbowl and your wife will nap and you’ll just stand at the window for a while and watch the kid, and you’ll see another new father and you’ll think to yourself “look at that bozo; that guy is just staring like an idiot” and he'll look over at you like "dude, don't try to bond with me just because our babies just happened to be born at the same time" and you will think "I wasn't trying to bond with you, I was making fun of you in my head" then you will stare like an idiot in the window at your kid and then….
… you’ll notice that this one kid in the fishbowl (the one over on the right in the back) is a lot taller than your kid.
… and you’ll notice that another is well-behaved and not screaming all the time
… and that one over there is cute (and you don’t think any babies are cute, especially coneheaded smush-nosed, stretched-out-eye newborns, but, as far as ugly babies go, that’s a cute one)
The women don’t see this. They are normally bedridden or semi-bedridden during this phase. They sit in the room all day while you take the baby back and forth in those silly wheely carts (the hospital dudes will actually yell at you if you carry the baby in your arms in the hall, which makes perfect sense because, I mean, who carries a baby in their arms at home; so of course you can’t walk around and carry a baby at the same time in a hospital). The moms don’t see all of it, and there’ll be a split, maybe the first split, in how you and your wife see this parenting thing. Women, not seeing any kids but their child, coddle and comfort the child. Men, having sized up the competition, realize it’s a rough world out there and our kids gotta toughen up. The difference in view isn't genetic. It’s all about the fishbowl.
Of course, none of this applies to your third child (or more). For your third child, the sign may say “Maternity Ward” but it looks to you like it says “Free Babysitting for 48 Hours!!” Well, it’s not free, but you’re paying for it anyway so you might as well use it. When our youngest daughter was born, I actually put my 3-year old in the wheeley cart with the baby and tried to check them both. Tabs were kept for the remainder of our stay.
FINAL THOUGHT: Hospital staff seem to be under the impression that they are wardens and jailors and that you MUST NOT LEAVE THE HOSPITAL and you CANNOT LEAVE THE HOSPITAL until you are DISCHARGED by the hospital equivalent of a parole board and being discharged is extremely important and that, in essence, they can kidnap you and make you stay as long as they want until they decide to discharge you, which basically depends upon when the doctor decides to show up. Despite my intense desire to follow in the footsteps of Thoreau and march me and my brood defiantly out of the hospital pre-discharge (gasp, not in a wheelchair!) and strike a blow for liberty and freedom and all that is right and good, my wife told me to shut up and go fetch the car, so I did it real quick.
January 17, 2008
Michael Lewis's "Dad Again"
Some of the best writing I've read on fatherhood are the short pieces Michael Lewis has done for Slate on and off for the past 5 years. The most recent one, about vascectomies, is good, not great, but some of the earlier ones are top notch.
[ed note: Just so you know, while Daddyfesto is, in fact, a blog, I'm writing it and thinking about it more as columns or mini-book chapters or whatever. So I won't be doing short 2 sentence updates like the above unless something blows me away and is worthy of such an update. This also means that, to take the time for the longer posts, after this burst of initial activity, I plan on updating this one or twice a week and not more frequently (and hopefully not less frequently). We'll see how it goes. Thx for reading.]
[ed note: Just so you know, while Daddyfesto is, in fact, a blog, I'm writing it and thinking about it more as columns or mini-book chapters or whatever. So I won't be doing short 2 sentence updates like the above unless something blows me away and is worthy of such an update. This also means that, to take the time for the longer posts, after this burst of initial activity, I plan on updating this one or twice a week and not more frequently (and hopefully not less frequently). We'll see how it goes. Thx for reading.]
January 16, 2008
The Birth: Seven Simple Rules
There are seven rules for fathers to know prior to going into the hospital for the birth of your child.
As an initial matter, note that none of the rules is “be there for your wife.” Of course you should try to “be there for your wife,” but either the birth will be reasonably easy, and it won’t matter because she won’t need your help all that much (and afterward, at dinner parties, she’ll describe in detail to her friends how worthless you were), or the birth will be hard, and she will “climb the sheets” (when lying on a bed and in pain, the leg motion people make when viewed from the ceiling looks like they are vertical and on a stairmaster; although actually, to me, there's also a kind of Egyptian-y, hieroglyphic-ish feel to it, so maybe there's a new term we could come up with that works in the word Pharaoh or something, but I digress...), and no matter what you do, she’ll hate you and everyone in the hospital that day and you’re screwed. So really it doesn’t matter. Your father was a lucky, lucky bastard not to have to be in the delivery room when you were born (if you can catch an illness that excuses from the delivery room, my advice is to run with it). So take Lamaze classes and do whatever your wife wants. Do your best. But none of it’s gonna matter (and get yourself used to that helpless feeling, my friend).
So skip "be there for your wife." Here are the rules that can really help you.
First, for god’s sake, don’t bring a video camera to the hospital until after your kid is born. In fact, if you were considering bringing a video camera to film the emergence of the child from the ladyparts, please stop reading this and fucking jump off a bridge or something. Second, stay near your wife’s head during this process (trust me on this one, particularly if you plan on having sex at any time in the years after the birth). Third, the nurses secretly grade you on how supportive you are, so make sure you are reasonably nice to your wife, at least when they are around, so you can get good grades. Fourth, apparently there is a shortage of help at hospitals or something, because you might get asked to hold a leg (probably your own wife’s) when the baby is about to come. If you decline, you will get a worse grade from the nurses, so you pretty much have to do it. Fifth, let the doctor cut the umbilical cord. Do Delta’s pilots open up the cockpit door after a landing and say to you “do you want to taxi the plane over to the gate?” No, they don’t. So why doctors get all lazy and want you to do part of their job, I don’t understand. Sixth, tell the nurses to clean the goddamn baby off before they hand it to you. I know it’s your child and everything, and you love it but that’s still blood and, for lack of a better term, vagina snot that’s dripping off the kid. The nurses are gonna clean the kid up anyway. You've gone 9 months without holding the kid. Two more minutes ain't gonna hurt. Let them earn their pay before they do the handoff. I mean, you might want to wear that shirt again.
Seventh, and most important, have a song ready to go to sing to your child, as you likely will be left alone with him/her in the 20-90 minute period after everything is taken care of, the child checks out as healthy (knock on wood), and they are getting ready to move you out of labor & delivery and onto the new mothers’ floor. This is the most important rule. Your wife will be exhausted. She’ll kind of want to hold the baby, and will do her best for a bit (and maybe try to breastfeed). But she’s actually absolutely exhausted and, to her, what’s important is that someone hold the baby, so if you do it, she feels OK resting.
If this is your first child, you will get to start to practice that ridiculous sing-songy voice (“how is baby doing today!”), but there’s no way to keep that shit up as a rookie father for more than 2 minutes without feeling like an idiot, even if you were to do it alone, in your basement with no one else in the house and all the lights off. Singing is marginally less painful than goo goo-ing (at least you’ve done that before in your life), so go ahead and sing. And you want your kid to be cool, so you gotta plan and have the right song ready to go. In the modern age, centuries after Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, you don’t want your child’s first cultural experience to be Mary Had a Little Lamb.
I figure there are a couple of styles of songs you can go with. Old, 1930-1950’s songs. Maybe some Sinatra. Little Richard. Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher. That kind of thing. Something common enough that they'll hear it later in life and think warmly of their old dad. Or you could pick a solid rock song that won’t stress your vocal chords. Something Eddie Vedder could handle. This is likely, however, to sound ridiculous to others that are listening to you sing, particularly if you are singing “Jeremy” or “Better Man” or something like that to a 20-minute old person. Also, remember that if you imprint a song on your child, you probably will have to break this song out in public from time to time in an effort to calm the child down. Accordingly, it may be safest to pick a nice ironic song that your friends will recognize as such. Singable metal works here. “No More Tears” by Ozzy Osborne. “More Than Words” by Extreme. Something like that. Something that once you start singing, your buddies will smile at you, your baby will smile at you, and you won’t feel bad about continuing.
Don’t brush this off.
This is not a joke.
This is the FIRST CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF YOUR OFFSPRING’S ENTIRE LIFETIME. Are you ready for it?
Do NOT underestimate the importance of this. I did not plan properly and sang a Broadway showtune to my son and now there’s a 50/50 shot he’s gay. I literally halved the boy’s testosterone with three minutes of singing. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
More about the birth here.
As an initial matter, note that none of the rules is “be there for your wife.” Of course you should try to “be there for your wife,” but either the birth will be reasonably easy, and it won’t matter because she won’t need your help all that much (and afterward, at dinner parties, she’ll describe in detail to her friends how worthless you were), or the birth will be hard, and she will “climb the sheets” (when lying on a bed and in pain, the leg motion people make when viewed from the ceiling looks like they are vertical and on a stairmaster; although actually, to me, there's also a kind of Egyptian-y, hieroglyphic-ish feel to it, so maybe there's a new term we could come up with that works in the word Pharaoh or something, but I digress...), and no matter what you do, she’ll hate you and everyone in the hospital that day and you’re screwed. So really it doesn’t matter. Your father was a lucky, lucky bastard not to have to be in the delivery room when you were born (if you can catch an illness that excuses from the delivery room, my advice is to run with it). So take Lamaze classes and do whatever your wife wants. Do your best. But none of it’s gonna matter (and get yourself used to that helpless feeling, my friend).
So skip "be there for your wife." Here are the rules that can really help you.
First, for god’s sake, don’t bring a video camera to the hospital until after your kid is born. In fact, if you were considering bringing a video camera to film the emergence of the child from the ladyparts, please stop reading this and fucking jump off a bridge or something. Second, stay near your wife’s head during this process (trust me on this one, particularly if you plan on having sex at any time in the years after the birth). Third, the nurses secretly grade you on how supportive you are, so make sure you are reasonably nice to your wife, at least when they are around, so you can get good grades. Fourth, apparently there is a shortage of help at hospitals or something, because you might get asked to hold a leg (probably your own wife’s) when the baby is about to come. If you decline, you will get a worse grade from the nurses, so you pretty much have to do it. Fifth, let the doctor cut the umbilical cord. Do Delta’s pilots open up the cockpit door after a landing and say to you “do you want to taxi the plane over to the gate?” No, they don’t. So why doctors get all lazy and want you to do part of their job, I don’t understand. Sixth, tell the nurses to clean the goddamn baby off before they hand it to you. I know it’s your child and everything, and you love it but that’s still blood and, for lack of a better term, vagina snot that’s dripping off the kid. The nurses are gonna clean the kid up anyway. You've gone 9 months without holding the kid. Two more minutes ain't gonna hurt. Let them earn their pay before they do the handoff. I mean, you might want to wear that shirt again.
Seventh, and most important, have a song ready to go to sing to your child, as you likely will be left alone with him/her in the 20-90 minute period after everything is taken care of, the child checks out as healthy (knock on wood), and they are getting ready to move you out of labor & delivery and onto the new mothers’ floor. This is the most important rule. Your wife will be exhausted. She’ll kind of want to hold the baby, and will do her best for a bit (and maybe try to breastfeed). But she’s actually absolutely exhausted and, to her, what’s important is that someone hold the baby, so if you do it, she feels OK resting.
If this is your first child, you will get to start to practice that ridiculous sing-songy voice (“how is baby doing today!”), but there’s no way to keep that shit up as a rookie father for more than 2 minutes without feeling like an idiot, even if you were to do it alone, in your basement with no one else in the house and all the lights off. Singing is marginally less painful than goo goo-ing (at least you’ve done that before in your life), so go ahead and sing. And you want your kid to be cool, so you gotta plan and have the right song ready to go. In the modern age, centuries after Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, you don’t want your child’s first cultural experience to be Mary Had a Little Lamb.
I figure there are a couple of styles of songs you can go with. Old, 1930-1950’s songs. Maybe some Sinatra. Little Richard. Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher. That kind of thing. Something common enough that they'll hear it later in life and think warmly of their old dad. Or you could pick a solid rock song that won’t stress your vocal chords. Something Eddie Vedder could handle. This is likely, however, to sound ridiculous to others that are listening to you sing, particularly if you are singing “Jeremy” or “Better Man” or something like that to a 20-minute old person. Also, remember that if you imprint a song on your child, you probably will have to break this song out in public from time to time in an effort to calm the child down. Accordingly, it may be safest to pick a nice ironic song that your friends will recognize as such. Singable metal works here. “No More Tears” by Ozzy Osborne. “More Than Words” by Extreme. Something like that. Something that once you start singing, your buddies will smile at you, your baby will smile at you, and you won’t feel bad about continuing.
Don’t brush this off.
This is not a joke.
This is the FIRST CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF YOUR OFFSPRING’S ENTIRE LIFETIME. Are you ready for it?
Do NOT underestimate the importance of this. I did not plan properly and sang a Broadway showtune to my son and now there’s a 50/50 shot he’s gay. I literally halved the boy’s testosterone with three minutes of singing. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
More about the birth here.
Getting Children to Eat Right: Part Two
Part Two of Getting Children to Eat Right.
(You should read Part One first. Part One is HERE)
While Mrs. Jerry’s book focuses largely on how to get younger children to eat their vegetables, anyone with teenagers at home knows that food battles don’t end at age 12! Here are some secrets to get your teens to eat their veggies too:
Milk Cubes. Soda, soda, soda pop! It seems that teens these days drink nothing but it! Begin storing soda on counter next to fridge instead of in fridge. When child complains that all of the pop is warm, say “Just put some ice in it. Sweetledee, relax. I’ll do it.” Put ice cubes made of pre-frozen milk into glass and fill with cola. When child says pop tastes funny, say it is “prolly just flat” (adult use of “prolly” to signal nonchalance will disorient teen). If child complains more, say “I think someone’s catchin’ some puberty!”
(Would be better recipe if milk was vegetable.)
Brewery Corner. Announce loudly to wife that you intend to brew your own beer and whiskey in basement. Wait until teen is watching you and take corn, wheat and barley into corner of basement, mash each, add pretend yeast and place into bottles along wall. Seal bottles. Check on bottles periodically. After few weeks, when teen asks if it is ready yet, do arm signals for “I dunno” and say to child “I’ll bet it’s totally ready. Why don’t you try it and we’ll find out!” Wait five seconds and say “SIKE! I was joking. You can’t. You are not age 21 yet.” Then leave room. Child will NO DOUBT eat up that corn, wheat and barley thinking it will get them hammered and super-smashed and give them a buzz for all time like McLovin and the fat kid in that movie! After child eats all that shit, come back into room and tell them that they were “Vegetable Punked!” If teen questions whether wheat is vegetable, then say “well, why do it grow on a farm if you’re so smart.”
(You should read Part One first. Part One is HERE)
While Mrs. Jerry’s book focuses largely on how to get younger children to eat their vegetables, anyone with teenagers at home knows that food battles don’t end at age 12! Here are some secrets to get your teens to eat their veggies too:
Milk Cubes. Soda, soda, soda pop! It seems that teens these days drink nothing but it! Begin storing soda on counter next to fridge instead of in fridge. When child complains that all of the pop is warm, say “Just put some ice in it. Sweetledee, relax. I’ll do it.” Put ice cubes made of pre-frozen milk into glass and fill with cola. When child says pop tastes funny, say it is “prolly just flat” (adult use of “prolly” to signal nonchalance will disorient teen). If child complains more, say “I think someone’s catchin’ some puberty!”
(Would be better recipe if milk was vegetable.)
Brewery Corner. Announce loudly to wife that you intend to brew your own beer and whiskey in basement. Wait until teen is watching you and take corn, wheat and barley into corner of basement, mash each, add pretend yeast and place into bottles along wall. Seal bottles. Check on bottles periodically. After few weeks, when teen asks if it is ready yet, do arm signals for “I dunno” and say to child “I’ll bet it’s totally ready. Why don’t you try it and we’ll find out!” Wait five seconds and say “SIKE! I was joking. You can’t. You are not age 21 yet.” Then leave room. Child will NO DOUBT eat up that corn, wheat and barley thinking it will get them hammered and super-smashed and give them a buzz for all time like McLovin and the fat kid in that movie! After child eats all that shit, come back into room and tell them that they were “Vegetable Punked!” If teen questions whether wheat is vegetable, then say “well, why do it grow on a farm if you’re so smart.”
January 14, 2008
Getting Children to Eat Right: Part One. (Got Your Back Missy Chase!)
[ed note: Post updated 1/15/08]
[ed note: Updated again 1/16/08!]
You may have read in the news about the recent lawsuit brought by Missy Chase Lapine against Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld for defamation and plagiarism. Lapine had written a cookbook about hiding vegetables in regular food in order to get kids to eat their veggies. Just a few months later, Mrs. Jerry published a similar book! I smell a rat!
Missy: Daddyfesto is with you 100%. I fear that the same thing is happening to me! While my wife and I had wondered who had broken into our house in mid-December, it is now clear. Seinfeld utilized his vast fortune to break into our household and steal the family computer that housed much of Daddyfesto.
We will be carefully scrutinzing Mrs. Jerry's book (and likely sequels) for the following recipe gems that were hidden on the hard drive:
Hot Blender-Nada Tube Salad Smoothie: Cut up assorted vegetables. Mix of beans, peas and carrots works best. Find men’s white tube sock, Size 10-13; stripe pattern red-blue-red (use red-green-red for festive occasion). Place vegetables in sock, add in assorted coins and tie top of sock. Have children beat filled sock against floor or wall for 3-4 minutes to soften up veggies. Microwave filled sock for 120 seconds. Instruct children to suck veggie goodness out of toe of filled sock. Sock obscures vegetables and children have no idea what they are eating! Coins add nice metallic tinge. Best for young children without teeth. Also best for dumb children.
Fresh Water Fish Poops: Buy assorted Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers (include pretzel kind to promote diversity). Place assorted crackers on plate. Take bean sprouts and place 1-3 strands of sprout behind each fish. Serve.
Variation: Mix in 3 tablespoons salt into 3 ounces of water and
splash over plate to make Salt Water Fish Poops.
Forest of Gummy Blood. Take one can diced tomatoes or permit fresh garden tomatoes to decompose on shelf for 12-14 days. Staple broccoli florets onto colorful construction paper. Choose child’s favorite color for personal touch! Spread tomatoes thinly over paper in between florets. Nibble pieces out of gummy bears strategically and place in assorted positions: drawn and quartered; severed head hanging by flap of skin; hanging from noose in tree (another use for sprouts!); with toothpick stake through heart. Identify recent poor behavior of child (for example, whining) and write message in jagged lettering on fringes of construction paper using tomato paste (i.e., “THESE BEARS WERE WHINEY BEARS”). Place at foot of child's bed after midnight, wake child and hide in closet.
San Juan Capistrano Peppermint Breakfast Hookah-Style Shake. Begin recipe at children's bedtime. Take quart of peppermint ice cream and place on counter. Allow ice cream to soften for three-four hour period. Dice carrots and green peppers and place into own mouth. Add carrots and peppers until full. Chew. Spit vegetable mixture into ice cream and mix with serving spoon. Place one straw for each child in carton. Place topless carton back in freezer before heading off to bed. In morning, put pillows on floor and place frozen carton in center in midst of gathered children.
Great for creating your own "Cosby and Chocolate Cake" breakfast moment! Ha! Don't let mom find out!
Salami Blunts. No one knows why kids love salami, but they do! Put that love to work for you. Take artisanal salami, 1.5 inches in diameter and cut in half. hollow out flat end of each salami-half to create salami tube. Liquify cauliflower/broccoli mix in blender. Pour mix into hollowed out end of salami and fill tube. Plug end with olive. Light and hand to child. (Also teaches smoking skills!)
pea-pac. Kids love dried fruit too. Why not dried vegetables! Give child pac of tic-tacs (kids love orange!) before bed "because I just love you so much." In night, while child is sleeping, empty tic-tacs from box and replace with dried peas. When child awakes in morning, tell them "Santa Claus must have done it." (If Jewish, tell child fact that Santa Claus did it "is completely wigging me out too.")
French Onion Bath. Good hygeine demands a bath at least every three weeks, but in our house we bathe every two weeks to keep kids extra clean. When child accidentally poops in tub [ed note: this actually does happen] run to kitchen and cut up one large semi-sweet Vidalia onion. As water browns, add onion to bath. Toss in fresh yellow sponges for "crouton-like" effect. (Not really a recipe per se.)
Gum Lumpy. Chew four-six large pieces of bubblegum. Blow large bubble, cordon off bubble and remove gum from mouth, keeping bubble inflated. Tear small hole in bubble with screwdriver and fill deflating gum bag with vegetables. Do it right and vegetables are totally hidden! Reseal hole with putty or other adhesive. Give vegetable gum pouch to child and tell them that you got them some Bigtime gum! If they ask what the lumps are, say “probably special awesome candy that you’ve never had before.”
Back away, ‘cuz you know that kids will always swallow their gum real fast!
Go On To Part Two.
[ed note: Updated again 1/16/08!]
You may have read in the news about the recent lawsuit brought by Missy Chase Lapine against Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld for defamation and plagiarism. Lapine had written a cookbook about hiding vegetables in regular food in order to get kids to eat their veggies. Just a few months later, Mrs. Jerry published a similar book! I smell a rat!
Missy: Daddyfesto is with you 100%. I fear that the same thing is happening to me! While my wife and I had wondered who had broken into our house in mid-December, it is now clear. Seinfeld utilized his vast fortune to break into our household and steal the family computer that housed much of Daddyfesto.
We will be carefully scrutinzing Mrs. Jerry's book (and likely sequels) for the following recipe gems that were hidden on the hard drive:
Hot Blender-Nada Tube Salad Smoothie: Cut up assorted vegetables. Mix of beans, peas and carrots works best. Find men’s white tube sock, Size 10-13; stripe pattern red-blue-red (use red-green-red for festive occasion). Place vegetables in sock, add in assorted coins and tie top of sock. Have children beat filled sock against floor or wall for 3-4 minutes to soften up veggies. Microwave filled sock for 120 seconds. Instruct children to suck veggie goodness out of toe of filled sock. Sock obscures vegetables and children have no idea what they are eating! Coins add nice metallic tinge. Best for young children without teeth. Also best for dumb children.
Fresh Water Fish Poops: Buy assorted Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers (include pretzel kind to promote diversity). Place assorted crackers on plate. Take bean sprouts and place 1-3 strands of sprout behind each fish. Serve.
Variation: Mix in 3 tablespoons salt into 3 ounces of water and
splash over plate to make Salt Water Fish Poops.
Forest of Gummy Blood. Take one can diced tomatoes or permit fresh garden tomatoes to decompose on shelf for 12-14 days. Staple broccoli florets onto colorful construction paper. Choose child’s favorite color for personal touch! Spread tomatoes thinly over paper in between florets. Nibble pieces out of gummy bears strategically and place in assorted positions: drawn and quartered; severed head hanging by flap of skin; hanging from noose in tree (another use for sprouts!); with toothpick stake through heart. Identify recent poor behavior of child (for example, whining) and write message in jagged lettering on fringes of construction paper using tomato paste (i.e., “THESE BEARS WERE WHINEY BEARS”). Place at foot of child's bed after midnight, wake child and hide in closet.
San Juan Capistrano Peppermint Breakfast Hookah-Style Shake. Begin recipe at children's bedtime. Take quart of peppermint ice cream and place on counter. Allow ice cream to soften for three-four hour period. Dice carrots and green peppers and place into own mouth. Add carrots and peppers until full. Chew. Spit vegetable mixture into ice cream and mix with serving spoon. Place one straw for each child in carton. Place topless carton back in freezer before heading off to bed. In morning, put pillows on floor and place frozen carton in center in midst of gathered children.
Great for creating your own "Cosby and Chocolate Cake" breakfast moment! Ha! Don't let mom find out!
Salami Blunts. No one knows why kids love salami, but they do! Put that love to work for you. Take artisanal salami, 1.5 inches in diameter and cut in half. hollow out flat end of each salami-half to create salami tube. Liquify cauliflower/broccoli mix in blender. Pour mix into hollowed out end of salami and fill tube. Plug end with olive. Light and hand to child. (Also teaches smoking skills!)
pea-pac. Kids love dried fruit too. Why not dried vegetables! Give child pac of tic-tacs (kids love orange!) before bed "because I just love you so much." In night, while child is sleeping, empty tic-tacs from box and replace with dried peas. When child awakes in morning, tell them "Santa Claus must have done it." (If Jewish, tell child fact that Santa Claus did it "is completely wigging me out too.")
French Onion Bath. Good hygeine demands a bath at least every three weeks, but in our house we bathe every two weeks to keep kids extra clean. When child accidentally poops in tub [ed note: this actually does happen] run to kitchen and cut up one large semi-sweet Vidalia onion. As water browns, add onion to bath. Toss in fresh yellow sponges for "crouton-like" effect. (Not really a recipe per se.)
Gum Lumpy. Chew four-six large pieces of bubblegum. Blow large bubble, cordon off bubble and remove gum from mouth, keeping bubble inflated. Tear small hole in bubble with screwdriver and fill deflating gum bag with vegetables. Do it right and vegetables are totally hidden! Reseal hole with putty or other adhesive. Give vegetable gum pouch to child and tell them that you got them some Bigtime gum! If they ask what the lumps are, say “probably special awesome candy that you’ve never had before.”
Back away, ‘cuz you know that kids will always swallow their gum real fast!
Go On To Part Two.
A Few Words of Advice on When to Have Kids (2)
If you haven't read my prior post on when to have kids, read this first
Most of you that read that realized that post's essential truths and probably rushed home to poke holes in your condoms or replace your wives' birth control pills with tic-tacs, which is unfortunate, because I was totally kidding. Hahaha! [one way you know that you've been a father for a while is when you see the words "hahaha" and you read them utilizing the voice of The Count from Sesame Street ... but I digress].
What the hell were you thinking? No matter what age you are, would you rather have a year of fun now or a year of fun 18 years or more years from now? Didn’t you learn about the concept of net present value in your college intro to economics class? Dude, you learn about NPV in the second week of the course! Fun now is worth a hell of a lot more than fun later.
If you’re 28 and have one child, then little Johnny will be home, living with you, from the time you’re 28 until little Johnny turns 18 and you’re 46. So years 28 through 46 are ruined for you. If you just waited one extra year, the only difference is that years 29 through 47 would be ruined for you. So by having a kid now, instead of next year, you essentially have traded a free year (i.e., unencumbered by children) at age 47 for a free unencumbered year at age 28. And you chose having the free year at 47!
This should be obvious, but let’s say this again, just to emphasize what a fucking idiot you are if you have kids in your 20's: you just traded a year of fun in your late twenties, when you’re fit, when you can go out and run around and have a few drinks without a body part breaking down or something leaking, when you’re still able to wake up with the clock reading "a.m." after those few drinks. You traded that away, and in exchange, you got an extra free year in your late forties or early fifties, when every aspect of your emotional and physical being will droop and you probably won’t have any friends left to go out with anyway. You could’ve spent your age 28 year with, I don't know, other women, or if you were married or engaged or whatever, you could have spent that year trying out new fancy restaurants with friends or going to shows (rock, not theatre), or taking advantage of movie specials every Monday or going to happy hours. Now, sure, you can do that when you’re 47 but, really, c’mon, you’ll be watching your blood pressure and cholesterol and, hell, you’ll probably be divorced and either have to do all that shit alone or with some old desperate hag you met on match.com.
But you made a bigger mistake. Even if you are still married at age 47, and even if at age 47 you can have a great night out and get a little tipsy with the wife, when you get home, you get to have sex with your wife’s 47-year old child-ravaged body instead of your young wife’s 28-year old body.
You really and truly are a dumbass.
Most of you that read that realized that post's essential truths and probably rushed home to poke holes in your condoms or replace your wives' birth control pills with tic-tacs, which is unfortunate, because I was totally kidding. Hahaha! [one way you know that you've been a father for a while is when you see the words "hahaha" and you read them utilizing the voice of The Count from Sesame Street ... but I digress].
What the hell were you thinking? No matter what age you are, would you rather have a year of fun now or a year of fun 18 years or more years from now? Didn’t you learn about the concept of net present value in your college intro to economics class? Dude, you learn about NPV in the second week of the course! Fun now is worth a hell of a lot more than fun later.
If you’re 28 and have one child, then little Johnny will be home, living with you, from the time you’re 28 until little Johnny turns 18 and you’re 46. So years 28 through 46 are ruined for you. If you just waited one extra year, the only difference is that years 29 through 47 would be ruined for you. So by having a kid now, instead of next year, you essentially have traded a free year (i.e., unencumbered by children) at age 47 for a free unencumbered year at age 28. And you chose having the free year at 47!
This should be obvious, but let’s say this again, just to emphasize what a fucking idiot you are if you have kids in your 20's: you just traded a year of fun in your late twenties, when you’re fit, when you can go out and run around and have a few drinks without a body part breaking down or something leaking, when you’re still able to wake up with the clock reading "a.m." after those few drinks. You traded that away, and in exchange, you got an extra free year in your late forties or early fifties, when every aspect of your emotional and physical being will droop and you probably won’t have any friends left to go out with anyway. You could’ve spent your age 28 year with, I don't know, other women, or if you were married or engaged or whatever, you could have spent that year trying out new fancy restaurants with friends or going to shows (rock, not theatre), or taking advantage of movie specials every Monday or going to happy hours. Now, sure, you can do that when you’re 47 but, really, c’mon, you’ll be watching your blood pressure and cholesterol and, hell, you’ll probably be divorced and either have to do all that shit alone or with some old desperate hag you met on match.com.
But you made a bigger mistake. Even if you are still married at age 47, and even if at age 47 you can have a great night out and get a little tipsy with the wife, when you get home, you get to have sex with your wife’s 47-year old child-ravaged body instead of your young wife’s 28-year old body.
You really and truly are a dumbass.
January 13, 2008
Assworthy Characters
I know that many new fathers, including myself, were afraid of having to change our newborns’ diapers. Most dads quickly realize that this proves to be a fear that was completely unwarranted. Diapers are simple. I mean, if you know enough not to leave poop on your kid’s privates (and if you can remember the extra “front to back” instruction for girls and know enough to dodge piss when it comes flying at you from boys), you pretty much have it.
So while changing diapers was easy, I would often screw up putting the fresh diaper down on the ground the wrong way, and then when I went to fasten it, I couldn’t figure out where the sticky tabs of the fresh diaper were. I’d be pulling and tugging until I realized that I put it down upside down. And then I’d have to readjust and flip the diaper mid-change, which just added an extra degree of difficulty.
If you’re changing the diaper alone, this isn’t really a problem. It's not like it ruins the process or anything. But if you are changing diapers in front of your mother-in-law, or in front of your wife’s friends, you have to impress. You have to demonstrate competency. You have to stand up for males everywhere and show that you know what the hell you’re doing, that you are a modern, well-mannered man in this decade of the Oughts. If you’re fumbling around, you’re letting all well-meaning men down, not to mention the entire female gender.
To avoid this, what I eventually figured out was that, because most diapers are branded with a cartoon character these days, for whatever reason the character that was highest in the food chain for that particular cartoon goes on the ass. The less noteworthy character goes on the front. I’m not sure how this hierarchy developed (and the consistency across brands of diapers makes me wonder if there is some kind of diaper summit amongst manufacturers where diaper treaties are signed), but the hierarchy certainly exists.
Thus, Huggies, with the Winnie-the-Pooh theme, has multiple potential frontal characters, but Pooh anchors the ass (although my wife reports that this may have changed to Tigger, which, if true, would really upset this theory). I have seen Luvs diapers with Blue (from Blue’s Clues) on the behind. And Pampers, with Sesame Street, which probably would have had Oscar on the ass in decades gone by (or maybe Snufflupagus on the inside of the diaper, where adults couldn’t see him?), but now has, of course, Elmo squarely "rear and center."
Why the top character goes on the ass and not on the front is a whole other topic that I have no interest in wading into.
UPDATE (2/3/08): It has been brought to my attention by numerous persons, largely Sticklers and other members of the No Fun Brigade, that the rule does not hold as well as I suggest it does above. I swear to Ggod this used to be true pretty much across the board, however.
So while changing diapers was easy, I would often screw up putting the fresh diaper down on the ground the wrong way, and then when I went to fasten it, I couldn’t figure out where the sticky tabs of the fresh diaper were. I’d be pulling and tugging until I realized that I put it down upside down. And then I’d have to readjust and flip the diaper mid-change, which just added an extra degree of difficulty.
If you’re changing the diaper alone, this isn’t really a problem. It's not like it ruins the process or anything. But if you are changing diapers in front of your mother-in-law, or in front of your wife’s friends, you have to impress. You have to demonstrate competency. You have to stand up for males everywhere and show that you know what the hell you’re doing, that you are a modern, well-mannered man in this decade of the Oughts. If you’re fumbling around, you’re letting all well-meaning men down, not to mention the entire female gender.
To avoid this, what I eventually figured out was that, because most diapers are branded with a cartoon character these days, for whatever reason the character that was highest in the food chain for that particular cartoon goes on the ass. The less noteworthy character goes on the front. I’m not sure how this hierarchy developed (and the consistency across brands of diapers makes me wonder if there is some kind of diaper summit amongst manufacturers where diaper treaties are signed), but the hierarchy certainly exists.
Thus, Huggies, with the Winnie-the-Pooh theme, has multiple potential frontal characters, but Pooh anchors the ass (although my wife reports that this may have changed to Tigger, which, if true, would really upset this theory). I have seen Luvs diapers with Blue (from Blue’s Clues) on the behind. And Pampers, with Sesame Street, which probably would have had Oscar on the ass in decades gone by (or maybe Snufflupagus on the inside of the diaper, where adults couldn’t see him?), but now has, of course, Elmo squarely "rear and center."
Why the top character goes on the ass and not on the front is a whole other topic that I have no interest in wading into.
UPDATE (2/3/08): It has been brought to my attention by numerous persons, largely Sticklers and other members of the No Fun Brigade, that the rule does not hold as well as I suggest it does above. I swear to Ggod this used to be true pretty much across the board, however.
A Few Words of Advice on When to Have Kids (1)
Right goddamn now.
From all of us current fathers, and I do speak for all of us here, we all say to you that, if you don’t presently have kids, you look like you are having way too much fun out there, and you have no children sucking all of the money out of your wallet and you are able to spend your cash on cool shit and we are jealous and we resent you and you need to be all ruined up like us. Even guys that seemed like losers to me when I didn’t have kids now seem cooler than me if they are still childless, and that just ain’t right. So have kids right goddamn now and cut that cool shit out.
If the personal preferences of other fathers aren’t sufficient to sway you, however, the key thing to keep in mind is GRANDCHILDREN. If you want to know them, if you want to see them graduate from college, you may wish to get “it” going. If you have a kid at age 40 and your child has their kid at age 40, then you will have to live to be 102 in order to see your grandchild finish college. But if you have a kid at 20 and your child has a kid at 20 then, hell, you’ll know that grandchild long enough to get completely sick and tired of her or him during your lifetime. Then when you die, you’ll be sufficiently bored with and tired of life instead of full of regret. Which is just how it’s supposed to be. And you’ll get to meet your great-grandchildren! (does anyone care about their greatgrandchildren?... actually, just ignore that last one)
Although there certainly many downsides to the fact that teenagers are having babies once again in modern society, there is a weird effect going on. The white, upper class 58-year old woman with 3 kids but no grandchildren has to look over at the 36 year-old Hispanic grandmother in the ‘hood, or the 38 year-old trailer-bound lady with 3 grandkids and be a bit jealous. And rightly so. As anyone who has watched my 58 year old mother-of-four with my three kids, and has seen the frazzled and grateful look on her face as I take them away from her house after a weekend, can attest, watching and interacting with kids in your 30’s is much, much easier than watching and interacting with kids in your 50’s and 60’s.
There are practical reasons to start having kids now as well. Many people say that they are waiting to have kids until they’ve saved up a certain amount of money. That’s thinking about it all wrong. If you have kids when you are relatively poor, your wife can’t spend so fucking much money on stupid shit for them, because the money just isn’t there. And so you end up doing things like sitting around coloring and going to parks for free and tackling each other in the living room and making up complex secret handshakes. Y’know, doing the shit that makes you a family. And then when you make money in your 40’s, your kids will be teenagers and won’t want to hang out with you, so you can spend your dough on cool shit like Alaskan or Irish vacations instead of wasting it on extra strollers that will get used seven times and pairs of shoes for your 3-year old that will fit for 60-90 days max. Have the kids before you’ve got the cash and more will be left for you.
From all of us current fathers, and I do speak for all of us here, we all say to you that, if you don’t presently have kids, you look like you are having way too much fun out there, and you have no children sucking all of the money out of your wallet and you are able to spend your cash on cool shit and we are jealous and we resent you and you need to be all ruined up like us. Even guys that seemed like losers to me when I didn’t have kids now seem cooler than me if they are still childless, and that just ain’t right. So have kids right goddamn now and cut that cool shit out.
If the personal preferences of other fathers aren’t sufficient to sway you, however, the key thing to keep in mind is GRANDCHILDREN. If you want to know them, if you want to see them graduate from college, you may wish to get “it” going. If you have a kid at age 40 and your child has their kid at age 40, then you will have to live to be 102 in order to see your grandchild finish college. But if you have a kid at 20 and your child has a kid at 20 then, hell, you’ll know that grandchild long enough to get completely sick and tired of her or him during your lifetime. Then when you die, you’ll be sufficiently bored with and tired of life instead of full of regret. Which is just how it’s supposed to be. And you’ll get to meet your great-grandchildren! (does anyone care about their greatgrandchildren?... actually, just ignore that last one)
Although there certainly many downsides to the fact that teenagers are having babies once again in modern society, there is a weird effect going on. The white, upper class 58-year old woman with 3 kids but no grandchildren has to look over at the 36 year-old Hispanic grandmother in the ‘hood, or the 38 year-old trailer-bound lady with 3 grandkids and be a bit jealous. And rightly so. As anyone who has watched my 58 year old mother-of-four with my three kids, and has seen the frazzled and grateful look on her face as I take them away from her house after a weekend, can attest, watching and interacting with kids in your 30’s is much, much easier than watching and interacting with kids in your 50’s and 60’s.
There are practical reasons to start having kids now as well. Many people say that they are waiting to have kids until they’ve saved up a certain amount of money. That’s thinking about it all wrong. If you have kids when you are relatively poor, your wife can’t spend so fucking much money on stupid shit for them, because the money just isn’t there. And so you end up doing things like sitting around coloring and going to parks for free and tackling each other in the living room and making up complex secret handshakes. Y’know, doing the shit that makes you a family. And then when you make money in your 40’s, your kids will be teenagers and won’t want to hang out with you, so you can spend your dough on cool shit like Alaskan or Irish vacations instead of wasting it on extra strollers that will get used seven times and pairs of shoes for your 3-year old that will fit for 60-90 days max. Have the kids before you’ve got the cash and more will be left for you.
Doing it Right
There is an incomparable kind of joy you feel in raising a child right.
On September 11th my daughter was one and a half years old. She doesn’t have any memory of that, thank God, but the subject came up a few years later and she asked me about some of the commemorative activities at one of the anniversaries. I was laboring hard, trying to explain to a 3 or 4 year old how the terrorists crashed the planes into buildings and how people died and it was sad. She asked if we knew the people and I said no, but tried to explain that we cared about all living beings, and particularly humans and particularly Americans and that when they died it made us feel bad and it should make us feel bad.
My daughter pondered this and then replied “unless they’re from Michigan, right daddy?”
Later in life, my daughter might not give a lick about football, might live on the East Coast or in South America, but when someone says the word Michigan, she will have a visceral, negative reaction. A feeling of dislike will fill her and she might not even know why.
It will be beautiful.
On September 11th my daughter was one and a half years old. She doesn’t have any memory of that, thank God, but the subject came up a few years later and she asked me about some of the commemorative activities at one of the anniversaries. I was laboring hard, trying to explain to a 3 or 4 year old how the terrorists crashed the planes into buildings and how people died and it was sad. She asked if we knew the people and I said no, but tried to explain that we cared about all living beings, and particularly humans and particularly Americans and that when they died it made us feel bad and it should make us feel bad.
My daughter pondered this and then replied “unless they’re from Michigan, right daddy?”
Later in life, my daughter might not give a lick about football, might live on the East Coast or in South America, but when someone says the word Michigan, she will have a visceral, negative reaction. A feeling of dislike will fill her and she might not even know why.
It will be beautiful.
"But I Don't Like Other People's Kids" You Say??
[ed note: post updated 1/14/08]
So you're thinking about having kids, but you don't like other people's kids? Don’t worry about it. That’s par for the course! Those kids suck! You’re only supposed to even have any interest at all in a kid if it is a blood relative. You can feel (probably at most) measured fondness toward your nieces and nephews – with full knowledge of their weaknesses oft in mind. Outside of blood relatives, as a man, you should have a healthy disdain for all other children. Thomas Hobbes may have been discussing life when he used the adjectives “nasty, brutish and short,” but it also could have been describing the second-grade class at the school down the road from me. Rest assured, your opinion of other people’s kids will not change once your own kids are born. You still won’t like other people’s kids. But you will probably like your own kids. That’s just how it goes.
In fact, this is a significant difference between men and women. Your wives’ friends will gather around your new baby, each as if it was their own, wanting to hold it, cooing at it. Your male friends will say things like “I’m not good at holding babies.” This is only in part because they’re uncomfortable; mostly it’s because they just don’t want to hold the boring fucking kid, but saying it that way seems rude.
Think back to your childhood. When you visited a friend’s house, how many of your friends’ mothers did you talk to pleasantly while growing up? How many of your friends’ dads?
Exactly. The dads didn’t fucking like you. Women like and care about each other’s kids; men don’t. Don’t let that fact that other peoples’ kids suck keep you from having your own.
UPDATE: To any of my friends who happen to be reading this post, I don't mean your kids, of course. Your kids are darlings and I love them to death. They are truly God's special creations, unique like snowflakes. I love your gorgeous interesting snowflake children-from-God. I really do.
So you're thinking about having kids, but you don't like other people's kids? Don’t worry about it. That’s par for the course! Those kids suck! You’re only supposed to even have any interest at all in a kid if it is a blood relative. You can feel (probably at most) measured fondness toward your nieces and nephews – with full knowledge of their weaknesses oft in mind. Outside of blood relatives, as a man, you should have a healthy disdain for all other children. Thomas Hobbes may have been discussing life when he used the adjectives “nasty, brutish and short,” but it also could have been describing the second-grade class at the school down the road from me. Rest assured, your opinion of other people’s kids will not change once your own kids are born. You still won’t like other people’s kids. But you will probably like your own kids. That’s just how it goes.
In fact, this is a significant difference between men and women. Your wives’ friends will gather around your new baby, each as if it was their own, wanting to hold it, cooing at it. Your male friends will say things like “I’m not good at holding babies.” This is only in part because they’re uncomfortable; mostly it’s because they just don’t want to hold the boring fucking kid, but saying it that way seems rude.
Think back to your childhood. When you visited a friend’s house, how many of your friends’ mothers did you talk to pleasantly while growing up? How many of your friends’ dads?
Exactly. The dads didn’t fucking like you. Women like and care about each other’s kids; men don’t. Don’t let that fact that other peoples’ kids suck keep you from having your own.
UPDATE: To any of my friends who happen to be reading this post, I don't mean your kids, of course. Your kids are darlings and I love them to death. They are truly God's special creations, unique like snowflakes. I love your gorgeous interesting snowflake children-from-God. I really do.
Advice on Why to Have Kids
If you don’t have kids yet, the first question is: Why Bother?
There are a lot of theoretical and philosophical kinds of reasons: perpetuation of the species; the ability to create a life; everyone needs someone to love, right?
Who needs those silly reasons!
The main reason to have kids is because life just gets plain fucking boring. As you enter your late twenties and early thirties, the exciting parts of your life are in decline. You get married, or at least engaged, so the hours spent obsessing over relationships are now freed up. There’s no reason to sit around thinking about what you’re going to be in life because, well, you’ve had your pick of jobs and your career is underway. No use analyzing your mate or your jobs until the end of time to determine whether they were the right ones. It’ll only piss you off (particularly if you chose the field of law).
Any late teens / early twenties obsession you had with movies or music or fashion or local sports teams starts to mature and fade. Rushing the field after a big college football win at age 30+ with all the kids really isn’t something you want to get yourself involved with.
Your friends get married and/or have kids, so they don’t have as much time for you. I had one friend explain that he thought he was too busy to have kids, but his opinion changed after he realized that his friends were no longer going to be available to him because they were minding their own young ones. With his newfound freetime, he realized that he did, in fact, have the time to have his own kids.
In some ways, it’s kind of the reverse of survival of the fittest. Those of us with boring lives fold first, until the actual interesting people are forced to go along and get married and have kids.
OK, really, I’m not saying that my life was actually boring when I was 27. But I could read the tea leaves and saw where this was all going. I could picture the 48-year old version of myself working hard through the week only to settle in on Saturday for yet another 7-hour afternoon session of college football. Just picturing that somewhat sad, lonely version of myself made me realize that without children, I might do something ridiculous and drastic like take up marathon running. Now really, these are some bored people, just running around for several hours for no apparent purpose. Without kids, I might start doing the crossword regularly. I might “make time” for Jeopardy several nights a week. Having kids saved me from that. At least for the 25 years they’d be puttering around the house.
But another reason to have kids is companionship. Companionship can be a very valuable thing. When I was a single white male sitting in my apartment alone drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon and my girlfriend came home, I was told I had a “problem” and looked “like an alcoholic” and such. Now that there are kids around, when I sit in my house drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon, I am “acting like a dad.” Now generally I’m only allowed to indulge like that in the afternoon if I first do something dad-ly like mow the lawn or something like that. If having access to an open bar for the late afternoon and early evening is the prize, I’m more than willing to put 45 minutes in on the yard. Even the 17-year old version of me could have seen what a good deal that is.
There are a lot of theoretical and philosophical kinds of reasons: perpetuation of the species; the ability to create a life; everyone needs someone to love, right?
Who needs those silly reasons!
The main reason to have kids is because life just gets plain fucking boring. As you enter your late twenties and early thirties, the exciting parts of your life are in decline. You get married, or at least engaged, so the hours spent obsessing over relationships are now freed up. There’s no reason to sit around thinking about what you’re going to be in life because, well, you’ve had your pick of jobs and your career is underway. No use analyzing your mate or your jobs until the end of time to determine whether they were the right ones. It’ll only piss you off (particularly if you chose the field of law).
Any late teens / early twenties obsession you had with movies or music or fashion or local sports teams starts to mature and fade. Rushing the field after a big college football win at age 30+ with all the kids really isn’t something you want to get yourself involved with.
Your friends get married and/or have kids, so they don’t have as much time for you. I had one friend explain that he thought he was too busy to have kids, but his opinion changed after he realized that his friends were no longer going to be available to him because they were minding their own young ones. With his newfound freetime, he realized that he did, in fact, have the time to have his own kids.
In some ways, it’s kind of the reverse of survival of the fittest. Those of us with boring lives fold first, until the actual interesting people are forced to go along and get married and have kids.
OK, really, I’m not saying that my life was actually boring when I was 27. But I could read the tea leaves and saw where this was all going. I could picture the 48-year old version of myself working hard through the week only to settle in on Saturday for yet another 7-hour afternoon session of college football. Just picturing that somewhat sad, lonely version of myself made me realize that without children, I might do something ridiculous and drastic like take up marathon running. Now really, these are some bored people, just running around for several hours for no apparent purpose. Without kids, I might start doing the crossword regularly. I might “make time” for Jeopardy several nights a week. Having kids saved me from that. At least for the 25 years they’d be puttering around the house.
But another reason to have kids is companionship. Companionship can be a very valuable thing. When I was a single white male sitting in my apartment alone drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon and my girlfriend came home, I was told I had a “problem” and looked “like an alcoholic” and such. Now that there are kids around, when I sit in my house drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon, I am “acting like a dad.” Now generally I’m only allowed to indulge like that in the afternoon if I first do something dad-ly like mow the lawn or something like that. If having access to an open bar for the late afternoon and early evening is the prize, I’m more than willing to put 45 minutes in on the yard. Even the 17-year old version of me could have seen what a good deal that is.
January 12, 2008
What is a Daddyfesto?
I've tinkered with writing about fatherhood in the past, but I've now written several pages and thought I would start blogging. For the stuff I wrote at home, I saved it to a WORD file and stuck the name the “Fatherhood Manifesto” at the top of it.
That sounded too horribly serious. In addition after reading it, I realized that there was nothing really "manifesto" about what I was writing. If anything it was about uncertainty.
I am generally a confident person that generally sees the world in black and white terms. But fatherhood is the one experience, more than any other in my life, that has taught me about the various shades of gray.
What might be right and proper for one kid isn’t for another. What was right for you might not be right for them. There is a vast middle ground between spoiling your child and giving them so little that their upbringing is similar to that of someone raised in a war zone.
I still think that there generally is a right way and a wrong way to do this fatherhood gig on a lot of questions; I’m just saying that others of the questions don't have yes or no answers that lend themselves to simple analysis.
Like this: Should you have kids? If you can, of course. Should you have five? No. Should you have only one if you can have more? No. But I’m not sure if two, three or four is the right number.
Or like this: Should you ever physically discipline your kid? Of course you should. When your 2-year old reaches for a hot pan on the stove, a light slap on the hand is going to get the message across 1,000 times better than another “no,” primarily because he’s heard the word “no” spoken to him about 10,000 times, but has only gotten his hand slapped, like 10 times (unless you're an ass). If the question is “how much should I physically discipline my child on a scale of 0 to 10,” I know that 8-10 and 0-3 are the wrong answers, but I’m not sure if the answer is 4, 5 or 6. And maybe even 7.
I can tell you a lot about what’s definitely wrong. But I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s right. So as much as I would have liked it to be a manifesto, it ain't.
But "Daddyfesto" seemed right to me. It's some opinionated thoughts on how this fatherhood schtick works, and how it doesn't. And it ain't quite a manifesto.
That sounded too horribly serious. In addition after reading it, I realized that there was nothing really "manifesto" about what I was writing. If anything it was about uncertainty.
I am generally a confident person that generally sees the world in black and white terms. But fatherhood is the one experience, more than any other in my life, that has taught me about the various shades of gray.
What might be right and proper for one kid isn’t for another. What was right for you might not be right for them. There is a vast middle ground between spoiling your child and giving them so little that their upbringing is similar to that of someone raised in a war zone.
I still think that there generally is a right way and a wrong way to do this fatherhood gig on a lot of questions; I’m just saying that others of the questions don't have yes or no answers that lend themselves to simple analysis.
Like this: Should you have kids? If you can, of course. Should you have five? No. Should you have only one if you can have more? No. But I’m not sure if two, three or four is the right number.
Or like this: Should you ever physically discipline your kid? Of course you should. When your 2-year old reaches for a hot pan on the stove, a light slap on the hand is going to get the message across 1,000 times better than another “no,” primarily because he’s heard the word “no” spoken to him about 10,000 times, but has only gotten his hand slapped, like 10 times (unless you're an ass). If the question is “how much should I physically discipline my child on a scale of 0 to 10,” I know that 8-10 and 0-3 are the wrong answers, but I’m not sure if the answer is 4, 5 or 6. And maybe even 7.
I can tell you a lot about what’s definitely wrong. But I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s right. So as much as I would have liked it to be a manifesto, it ain't.
But "Daddyfesto" seemed right to me. It's some opinionated thoughts on how this fatherhood schtick works, and how it doesn't. And it ain't quite a manifesto.
Fatherhood Will Change You and It Will Not All Be Good
There are many obvious truths about fatherhood but the most obvious one that’s obviousness somehow didn’t get through to me was that fatherhood turns you into the type of person that you’d never thought you’d be.
Fatherhood is certainly and truly a giant sacrifice. A rewarding endeavor, but a real, REAL big sacrifice. Some components of your life (e.g., the important components) are greatly enriched through fatherhood. But there are definite losses in other components in your life (e.g., the fun components).
I once had a fucking clue when I filled out a NCAA tournament bracket, but I left college basketball -- along with a peripheral interest in hockey and the right to watch regular season games in any sport not involving my favorite sports team -- at the hospital, in the maternity ward, when I exchanged my interests in those and countless other things for my daughter. I once actually attended movies in a movie theatre now and again and could thus converse with people about them instead of listening to them talk about a cool new movie and responding for the 72nd time with “sounds good … I’ll make sure that gets into my Netflix queue.” I once had sexual relations outside of the weekends. Really.
And while the pluses of fatherhood outweigh these minuses, the pluses you are gaining don't really replace what you’re losing, because they are in different areas of your life. One impact of this is that your life becomes more enriching and interesting in many ways. But, unfortunately, it only becomes more enriching and interesting to you. From your point of view, you have a lot more going on, but you also have just become immensely more boring to the rest of the world. It is not an illusion that people with kids seem less interesting. We really are less interesting, and thus it is a good thing that we can only get out to a bar with our buddies once a month (or twice at most), since we need that much time to gather up enough material to sustain the three hours of conversation that are necessary for a guys’ night out. We’re less interesting because the stuff we spend our time on is much less richer and intellectual than in our pre-child days, and we certainly don't get to continue to appreciate arty stuff (including literature, movies, music in this category) the way we once could. After your first kid is about a year old, while the kids are awake, watching movies or reading books long enough to get into a groove without interruption becomes close to impossible. And once they're asleep ... well, lots of the time you're just fuckin' tired. Even if you CAN watch a movie, you're often going to pick "Major League" on reruns TBS (or better yet, watch an edited-for-TV Gladiator on FX for the 10th time) over risking edification with the a classic movie that you haven’t seen before or recent Oscar candidate. The point is that, your life, while richer in many respects, is less rich in others, and you will miss your old life. You may not want your old life back, but that doesn't mean you don't miss parts of it. It’s almost exactly akin to breaking up with the sexy, psycho girlfriend. You’d never want to have to spend another second with her in your life, but there were times when…
In any event, you start to realize that you are working at a less-than-ideal job and spending a fair amount of your time reading Dr. Seuss books for the 12th time, long after they remain interesting to you (one thing about 1 and 2 year olds that you don't recognize until you have one is that they love repetition more than anything), and you’re doing this because you love and care about your kids. You realize that you haven't watched a syndicated Seinfeld or Simpsons episode at 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. for the last 5 years, and while that isn't necessarily important, it was nice when you used to do that. You realize "hey... I am giving up a lot of shit because I love them so that this fucker can have a good life." And then you think: "That fucker better turn out to be an interesting, worthwhile person, because I'm wasting a lot of freaking time and money on this kid."
And this is how it starts.
I think most new dads would think "I'm not going to super-schedule my child and be super-hands-on and take them to dumb shit like organized soccer for 3 year olds." And you think that the correct reaction to the growing concern you are starting to have about the importance of your child being "worthwhile" or "interesting" is... shit, maybe I need to NOT spend so much time/money on this kid. I mean, you can't live vicariously through your kids: you have to let them find their own way. And I, certainly, would have led that pack. And you figure that you need to back off a little bit.So you wake up Sunday morning (at 7 a.m., because it’s your turn because your wife woke up with them on Saturday morning) and you feed them and put their clothes on them and you play with them for an hour, and it’s 9 a.m. and then you say "now they need to play by themselves." And you try to read the paper but you notice that your child builds the same boring fucking tower with the blocks 18 times in a row. Let’s spend a little time and talk about this tower, because you may not get just how boring it was from my prior description: it was straight up... about 10 blocks until it fell... same size blocks every time, despite the multiple sizes at their disposal ... no variation in design from time to time ... it was fucking unbelievable how boring it was... and forget about color patterns; its like the color didn’t even exist; it was like they were colorblind. And you think "my god, there are much cooler possibilities,” and later on you watch them waste 90 minutes in a row on the most inane tv programs imaginable. And you think... "my god... I'm stuck in the house today and making my sacrifices in my life so that they can do this incredibly retarded shit like watch Clifford?... screw this backing off and not overscheduling their lives; I better read to them or teach my daughter football pass patterns or fucking something."
And so you find yourself in your living room shouting "No... down and IN... NOT down and OUT" at your 4-year old daughter. And she tells you that she only wants to run fly patterns. And you roll your eyes in disgust... the prima donna finds only fly patterns to be cool enough for her, the spoiled brat... I didn't know my daughter's name was Terrell Owens -- but not even your wife understands this joke. You’re just talking to no one, amusing yourself. And then you realize that you're playing “football” with a large spherical purple ball, and by large I mean real large, like 2 feet in diameter, because she can't consistently catch an actual football, and when she turns the wrong way and you nail her in the back of the head with even the mini-football, not even the genuine leather one that hasn’t otherwise been touched in the three years since her birth, the game ends suddenly and it is somehow your fault, according to your wife, which is really ridiculous when you think about it, because the pass was right there for the taking. And then you realize that your daughter is wearing a princess outfit – including a tutu, which I guess technically makes it not a princess outfit, but whatever - as you throw the football at her. And you realize that you might be going insane. And so you think... fuck... maybe I should take them to a freakin' kiddie class or something, because this football pattern game just isn't working out for either me or the princess. And so you end up driving them to "Art Class For Fours" and you know it's just ... not YOU, but ... well, what can you do?
And that's how that happens.
You start doing the weird shit you never thought you'd be doing. And you can actually sit in the periphery of the class with the other parents and read a magazine or book in peace and quiet while the kids do their thing. And you like it. And your kid actually seems to enjoy the class. And you take them to the class for a few weeks and ... and then you start to think. And you think unhelpful thoughts, thoughts that will disturb the peaceful state that you've achieved. Thoughts like: "Well, shit. Big Boring Bob the accountant from down the street can take his kid to 'Art Class For Fours.'" I mean, I'm now devoting a decent chunk of my life to working on this kid: caring for them, showing them cool stuff, and I am devoting my life to this and I'm doing no better than giving them approximately the same upbringing as Big Boring Bob the accountant?
And it is then that you realize that your conceptions of fatherhood have probably been all wrong, that your ideas that you could somehow merge your prior self seamlessly with your new self are a joke. That there are many more shades of gray within fatherhood than you ever imagined. That you should have been slapped for (at least most of) the quiet, unvoiced criticisms you made of other fathers when you saw what they did with their kids (you thought things like "my kids wouldn't be allowed to whine that much" HA!). And just right then you realize that if you are going to be a father, you are going to change, and you are going to change a lot, and you probably going to change in ways that the old you probably wouldn’t approve of, and you’re going to change in ways that you might not really have an opinion about because you’re just BUSY and don't have time for shit like opinions and you're also starting to realize that maybe you don’t have nearly as much control over your life and who you’re going to be as you did when you were just making decisions for you.
And here is the place where I feel like I should sum up and say "and that's fatherhood" but I think I'll just end now, because that seems way too silly.
Fatherhood is certainly and truly a giant sacrifice. A rewarding endeavor, but a real, REAL big sacrifice. Some components of your life (e.g., the important components) are greatly enriched through fatherhood. But there are definite losses in other components in your life (e.g., the fun components).
I once had a fucking clue when I filled out a NCAA tournament bracket, but I left college basketball -- along with a peripheral interest in hockey and the right to watch regular season games in any sport not involving my favorite sports team -- at the hospital, in the maternity ward, when I exchanged my interests in those and countless other things for my daughter. I once actually attended movies in a movie theatre now and again and could thus converse with people about them instead of listening to them talk about a cool new movie and responding for the 72nd time with “sounds good … I’ll make sure that gets into my Netflix queue.” I once had sexual relations outside of the weekends. Really.
And while the pluses of fatherhood outweigh these minuses, the pluses you are gaining don't really replace what you’re losing, because they are in different areas of your life. One impact of this is that your life becomes more enriching and interesting in many ways. But, unfortunately, it only becomes more enriching and interesting to you. From your point of view, you have a lot more going on, but you also have just become immensely more boring to the rest of the world. It is not an illusion that people with kids seem less interesting. We really are less interesting, and thus it is a good thing that we can only get out to a bar with our buddies once a month (or twice at most), since we need that much time to gather up enough material to sustain the three hours of conversation that are necessary for a guys’ night out. We’re less interesting because the stuff we spend our time on is much less richer and intellectual than in our pre-child days, and we certainly don't get to continue to appreciate arty stuff (including literature, movies, music in this category) the way we once could. After your first kid is about a year old, while the kids are awake, watching movies or reading books long enough to get into a groove without interruption becomes close to impossible. And once they're asleep ... well, lots of the time you're just fuckin' tired. Even if you CAN watch a movie, you're often going to pick "Major League" on reruns TBS (or better yet, watch an edited-for-TV Gladiator on FX for the 10th time) over risking edification with the a classic movie that you haven’t seen before or recent Oscar candidate. The point is that, your life, while richer in many respects, is less rich in others, and you will miss your old life. You may not want your old life back, but that doesn't mean you don't miss parts of it. It’s almost exactly akin to breaking up with the sexy, psycho girlfriend. You’d never want to have to spend another second with her in your life, but there were times when…
In any event, you start to realize that you are working at a less-than-ideal job and spending a fair amount of your time reading Dr. Seuss books for the 12th time, long after they remain interesting to you (one thing about 1 and 2 year olds that you don't recognize until you have one is that they love repetition more than anything), and you’re doing this because you love and care about your kids. You realize that you haven't watched a syndicated Seinfeld or Simpsons episode at 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. for the last 5 years, and while that isn't necessarily important, it was nice when you used to do that. You realize "hey... I am giving up a lot of shit because I love them so that this fucker can have a good life." And then you think: "That fucker better turn out to be an interesting, worthwhile person, because I'm wasting a lot of freaking time and money on this kid."
And this is how it starts.
I think most new dads would think "I'm not going to super-schedule my child and be super-hands-on and take them to dumb shit like organized soccer for 3 year olds." And you think that the correct reaction to the growing concern you are starting to have about the importance of your child being "worthwhile" or "interesting" is... shit, maybe I need to NOT spend so much time/money on this kid. I mean, you can't live vicariously through your kids: you have to let them find their own way. And I, certainly, would have led that pack. And you figure that you need to back off a little bit.So you wake up Sunday morning (at 7 a.m., because it’s your turn because your wife woke up with them on Saturday morning) and you feed them and put their clothes on them and you play with them for an hour, and it’s 9 a.m. and then you say "now they need to play by themselves." And you try to read the paper but you notice that your child builds the same boring fucking tower with the blocks 18 times in a row. Let’s spend a little time and talk about this tower, because you may not get just how boring it was from my prior description: it was straight up... about 10 blocks until it fell... same size blocks every time, despite the multiple sizes at their disposal ... no variation in design from time to time ... it was fucking unbelievable how boring it was... and forget about color patterns; its like the color didn’t even exist; it was like they were colorblind. And you think "my god, there are much cooler possibilities,” and later on you watch them waste 90 minutes in a row on the most inane tv programs imaginable. And you think... "my god... I'm stuck in the house today and making my sacrifices in my life so that they can do this incredibly retarded shit like watch Clifford?... screw this backing off and not overscheduling their lives; I better read to them or teach my daughter football pass patterns or fucking something."
And so you find yourself in your living room shouting "No... down and IN... NOT down and OUT" at your 4-year old daughter. And she tells you that she only wants to run fly patterns. And you roll your eyes in disgust... the prima donna finds only fly patterns to be cool enough for her, the spoiled brat... I didn't know my daughter's name was Terrell Owens -- but not even your wife understands this joke. You’re just talking to no one, amusing yourself. And then you realize that you're playing “football” with a large spherical purple ball, and by large I mean real large, like 2 feet in diameter, because she can't consistently catch an actual football, and when she turns the wrong way and you nail her in the back of the head with even the mini-football, not even the genuine leather one that hasn’t otherwise been touched in the three years since her birth, the game ends suddenly and it is somehow your fault, according to your wife, which is really ridiculous when you think about it, because the pass was right there for the taking. And then you realize that your daughter is wearing a princess outfit – including a tutu, which I guess technically makes it not a princess outfit, but whatever - as you throw the football at her. And you realize that you might be going insane. And so you think... fuck... maybe I should take them to a freakin' kiddie class or something, because this football pattern game just isn't working out for either me or the princess. And so you end up driving them to "Art Class For Fours" and you know it's just ... not YOU, but ... well, what can you do?
And that's how that happens.
You start doing the weird shit you never thought you'd be doing. And you can actually sit in the periphery of the class with the other parents and read a magazine or book in peace and quiet while the kids do their thing. And you like it. And your kid actually seems to enjoy the class. And you take them to the class for a few weeks and ... and then you start to think. And you think unhelpful thoughts, thoughts that will disturb the peaceful state that you've achieved. Thoughts like: "Well, shit. Big Boring Bob the accountant from down the street can take his kid to 'Art Class For Fours.'" I mean, I'm now devoting a decent chunk of my life to working on this kid: caring for them, showing them cool stuff, and I am devoting my life to this and I'm doing no better than giving them approximately the same upbringing as Big Boring Bob the accountant?
And it is then that you realize that your conceptions of fatherhood have probably been all wrong, that your ideas that you could somehow merge your prior self seamlessly with your new self are a joke. That there are many more shades of gray within fatherhood than you ever imagined. That you should have been slapped for (at least most of) the quiet, unvoiced criticisms you made of other fathers when you saw what they did with their kids (you thought things like "my kids wouldn't be allowed to whine that much" HA!). And just right then you realize that if you are going to be a father, you are going to change, and you are going to change a lot, and you probably going to change in ways that the old you probably wouldn’t approve of, and you’re going to change in ways that you might not really have an opinion about because you’re just BUSY and don't have time for shit like opinions and you're also starting to realize that maybe you don’t have nearly as much control over your life and who you’re going to be as you did when you were just making decisions for you.
And here is the place where I feel like I should sum up and say "and that's fatherhood" but I think I'll just end now, because that seems way too silly.
Dedication
To my brother Adam, who the other day made the mistake of saying: “Got any advice for me?”
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