The first time my daughter clutched her stomach and told me she wasn’t feeling well, I patted her on the head and told her she’d be fine. And she was fine -- eventually. But she no longer owns the clothes she was wearing that day. Nor can I divulge in polite society what happened to the roll of Bounty I was carrying. And then there are the good folks at the Barnes & Noble cafe, who are down several dozen napkins. Though that, I suppose, depends on how you define ‘several.‘ I know that 2 is a couple, and 3 is a few, but is 9 really a several? Or 17?
Let’s just say that in some landfill in the tri-state area there is ample evidence of what transpired that day at Barnes & Noble. I’ve heard that landfill waste eventually turns to methane, which can be used to create energy. But I doubt that anything positive will ever result from what my daughter did -- and what I saw.
I call it the Vomit Comet.
As a kid, I was a big NASA space nerd, preparing for my life-in-space career. In the course of my home astronaut schooling, I read about this plane they used to train would-be space-goers. It would climb and dive in steep arcs and when it reached the top of those arcs, everyone in the plane would float for a few seconds, just as they would in outer space. Sometimes folks threw up when this happened. Hence, the plane was called the Vomit Comet.
One day I read a bit too much about life in outer space -- namely, how one went to the bathroom; another subject, at least during those Skylab years, not for public discourse -- and decided to ground myself. It was a disappointing moment, to be sure, but the one upside was that I would never have to experience the vomit part of the Vomit Comet.
Then I had kids.
I’ll admit, I fared pretty well for a while when it came to kids throwing up. Mine spit up here and there, but there were never any gushers.
Until, at least, that day at Barnes & Noble. And when it happened, I realized why it was so important that those astronaut trainees went up in that plane. They had to learn, had to prepare, had to experience new sensations and figure out how to deal with them.
I became complacent with my vomit-less kids. I never learned how to handle an eruption. What was the best technique for cleaning up the kid -- and everything around her? What were some soothing words I could say to the child as she spewed? How should I handle onlookers and passerby?
Two kids, three years, and all I had experienced were little drops of spit-up I wiped clean with a Pampers wipe. Some training. If we sent people into space with this kind of readiness we’d be charged with gross negligence.
If I had been prepared, I would have known something was not right with the macaroni and cheese I placed before my daughter at Whole Foods. I would have been on the lookout for vomit triggers around me. I would have seen that there was something fishy about the color of the cheese and the odor of the macaroni. Or the color of the macaroni and the odor of the cheese. I would have known that mac and cheese is a veritable poo-poo platter of vomit triggers.
Instead all I saw was my kid eating. And quiet. And letting me check my Facebook e-mail in peace.
And she ate it all.
When Isabella finished her meal, she hopped into the stroller for a trip over to Barnes & Noble. But when we got there, she didn’t -- as she usually did -- start tugging at the stroller straps, wanting to get right to the books. Instead she remained seated. And quiet. And, in hindsight, lethargic, too. Like the mac-and-cheese, Isabella was a bit off. But again, I didn’t pick up on the signs.
I pushed Isabella around the store, but she wasn’t into the books -- another warning that didn’t register. Finally, she clutched her stomach and said she didn’t feel right. I patted her on the head and said she’d be fine. Isabella -- who is in the early years of her own training and has yet to master the be-skeptical-of-what-dad-says-he-means-well-but-is-mostly-clueless phase, nodded her head. And then nodded off.
Forget what the so-called ‘experts’ tell you: When a child nods off in a stroller, it is a special moment. I want to use the word magical, even. I won’t use it, because I’ll get nasty comments, but I’ll think it. Because it is magical. A kid sleeping in a stroller means I can take a seat myself and have a cup of coffee. Maybe read a book. Or get back to my Facebook correspondence. I don’t feel bad about this one bit, because kids need their rest and I’m only helping the child’s development by encouraging her to sleep all she can. Indeed, what kind of parent would I be if I forced my kid to interact with me in stimulating activity 24/7? She’ll be all worn out when it’s time to take the SAT in 2023. That’s not doing her any favors.
I never thought it was possible for a kid to throw up while sleeping. I’m not sure how, exactly, I expected this all to work, but at the very least there I figured there would be a little bit of pre-vomit ceremony. Maybe she’d stir, groan a bit, bow her head a little, and then erupt. But Isabella, I realized, is like a stealth aircraft vomiter. She just drops her load quietly over the Barnes and Noble cafe. All over the Barnes and Noble cafe.
I’m not sure what made me look up from my email. Maybe I sensed the twenty people around me staring in horror. What I saw was terrifying: Isabella fast asleep, a continuous stream of what could only be partly digested mac-and-cheese pouring forth from her mouth. I was frozen solid. I had no idea what to do. And everyone was watching.
When my thought center re-activated a moment later, my first concern was that Isabella would choke on the vomit. Wasn’t that the big worry with astronauts who got sick in space? Then I came to my senses. That only happened when you were wearing a space helmet. And while, yes, I was a neurotic dad, I hadn’t yet sunk to the point where I had James Cameron dress my kids for our outdoor excursions.
The next thing that hit me was that the vomit just wouldn’t stop. Sure, Isabella had eaten a lot of the mac and cheese, but there was far more coming out than had gone in. How was that possible? I mean, if I put $10 in a jar and take a look five days later I will still have $10. But vomit? Oh, no problem -- eat one Kit Kat and spew 18. That just seems wrong. And how does that work, exactly? Is bonus vomit created at some point during the digestive process? I should have paid more attention when I learned about this in high school biology class. On second thought, maybe it was better I didn’t.
After a half minute or so, Isabella’s gusher stopped, and she and her stroller were covered in what had to be six days worth of meals. I made a mental note to tell my gastroenterologist about the unfairness of this. There should be a statute of limitations on vomit; if you ate it four days ago, it can no longer be thrown up. This just seemed like spite vomit.
Meanwhile, Isabella had started to awaken. She was groggy and confused, but at some point she would undoubtedly ask me what happened. I realized that I had no good answer. I realized, too, that she would probably ask to be cleaned up.
That triggered something of a panic attack in me. Indeed, what do I do about all this vomit? I can’t bring her home like this. I can’t even take her in the street. Unfortunately, sitting like this in the Barnes & Noble cafe until the end of our natural lives -- my preferred strategy -- was impossible. The well-meaning patron at the next table handed me a napkin. I know his intentions were good, but by God, that would be like cleaning Mr. Ed’s stall with a Kleenex. Think, man, think!
I realized I had a roll of Bounty in the stroller (from a shopping trip earlier in the day). One by one I tore off the sheets and cleaned up a bit of vomit here, a bit of vomit there. I put the used sheets in the bag the Bounty came in. I don’t know where that bag is today, but if you ever see a museum exhibit titled “world’s biggest bag of vomit-soaked Bounty,” that would be it. By the way, I would recommend not paying the suggested admission price to see that exhibit.
After about 15 minutes I could make out Isabella’s form under the vomit. People were still watching us, which seemed weird, as the only possible conclusion to a vomit-cleaning exercise is less vomit, so I’m not really sure what they were expecting to see. It was at this point that I decided an apology was due to Isabella, even though she had been the one to vomit. It just seemed like good PR. Plus I didn’t want her to be traumatized forever. Better her to think this was all my fault. And in a way, it was: I, after all, had placed the mac-and-cheese before her. Of course, she had decided to eat it.
I realized that I could have this back-and-forth all day on just who was responsible, and I still had some serious clean-up to do. So I decided to blame myself publicly for the vomit debacle, but in my own mind, blame Isabella. Somehow this made me feel better. Though I made a mental note that a gastroenterologist may not be the only medical professional whose advice I might want to seek.
Now that Isabella was somewhat presentable -- albeit in that same way someone who has been buried alive and wipes their face with a Handi-wipe is presentable -- I rushed her to the men’s room and cleaned her up more. I stripped her down, went over her with a few Pamper’s wipes, and cleaned her hands with some Purell. In short: I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily, I had an extra set of clothes. I dressed Isabella and asked her to stand next to me while I took the 9 -- or 17 -- dozen napkins I had from the cafe and tried my best to clean out the stroller.
The stroller was a disaster. Nothing would make that stroller right again. It stank even in the Barnes & Noble men’s room, a place where something truly needs to smell atrocious to get on the nose’s radar. So I held Isabella’s hand as we walked home and I pushed her doomed McClaren.
When we got home, I had an epiphany. My sister had sired an entire brood of high-volume vomiters. She knew everything that was to know about the vomit business. What luck! So I let Isabella watch some TV while I called my sister and asked her if there was anyway to save the stroller. I don’t remember exactly what she told me, but I do remember the glee -- that evil freaking glee -- in her voice as she advised me on what to do. Welcome to the club, that gleeful voice taunted me. Very glad to have you.
My kids have each thrown up since that day in Barnes & Noble. And now I am prepared. Indeed, I am a well trained professional, just like those moon-walkers. I can look at an eruption and know if it’s a three-sheet-Bounty or a half-a-roll job. I can get the fabric off my stroller and into the washing machine as fast as any pit crew. Well, at least a pit crew dealing with strollers and vomit.
I don’t know where those cafe patrons at Barnes & Noble are now, but I want them to know that next time, I’ll clean it all up with speed and confidence. Oh -- and that I’m sorry for traumatizing them forever.
Mr. Mom
7/8/10
It may be a new world, but some old ideas remain. Among them: A man pushing a stroller has no idea what he’s doing. And its corollary: Quick, someone save that kid!
Sure, there used to be some truth to that old chestnut. Neighbors could always tell when my dad was taking care of my siblings and me by the smoke pouring out the window. “No, no, everything is fine, firefighters. Dad’s just been cooking again.” Watching my father struggle so with his Mr. Mom duties, I was filled with love for the man. I developed a love, too, for charred hamburgers. The waiters who make faces when I order today have no idea of the history behind that grotesquery.
But times have changed, and I’m a different sort of father than my dad was. That’s not to knock him; he went to an office each day and worked his rear off - or so the theory went - to provide for us. Fathers like me have a new way of doing that. It’s called The Wife. My wife has an MBA and a far better selection of business casual attire than I do. She also revels in the idea of working hard and getting promoted, while I think it’s all a scam to enrich other people and bother me on vacations. In short: She’s the one with the ‘real’ job. I’m the ‘creative’ with the ‘flexible hours.’
So I pull my weight by taking a far greater role in child-rearing than my own dad did. I do the school drop-offs, pack the lunches, coordinate play dates. In the process, I like to think that I’ve become maybe not an expert on kids, but at least someone who knows the ropes.
Now to convince everyone else. Too many folks, you see, still have that notion that when it comes to kids, dads are clueless. I see it all the time in the looks I get - the slight shake of the head disproving of my headgear choices for the girls - and sometimes, in muttered, or loudly articulated, commentary.
There are a lot of things in life that bother me. I take a deep breath each time my wife asks me to switch the TV from cable to DVD (it’s two buttons on a remote we’ve now had for six years). I bite my tongue when my mother calls my cell phone when I’m five minutes late to a restaurant to see “if there’s been some sort of accident.” For these and most other annoyances, I try to take the low-stress, healthy approach: Say nothing and just tuck away all my hostility for some future blow-out.
But when it comes to questioning my parenting skills, the gloves come off. My rage - over the injustice and unfairness of it all - doesn’t get pent up, it gets vented.
Take the lady over at the Marriott hotel near my apartment. I had been walking with my older daughter when we got caught in the rain. No problem, of course; as a quick-thinking modern Dad, I was prepared, whipping the rain cover from the bottom of the stroller and putting it in place. But as we took a shortcut through the hotel, a young woman muttered something to her companion. She said it softly, but I caught the words: “I thought you were never supposed to put plastic over a child.”
Anyone who has ever used a stroller knows how ridiculous her comment was. We’re not exactly keeping the kids dry by putting Glad bags over their heads. The rain guards are designed to keep the rain out and the air flowing. Its Stroller 101. I should have brushed her comment off as ignorance and moved on. But her tone - that voice of disapproval - pushed a button.
So I stopped. And I turned around. And contrary to a lifelong habit of avoiding all manner of confrontation, I said: “I’m sorry, you have a concern?” I didn’t like my tone, either. But I couldn’t help myself.
I caught the woman off guard. She hesitated a moment, but then she answered. “I just thought they always said never to put plastic over a child.”
“It’s a rain guard,” I said. I pointed to the plastic and to the gaps between it and the stroller. “It’s safe.”
The lady nodded and walked on. I felt vindicated.
I felt silly.
Was I trying to prove to her that I wasn’t clueless about kids - or trying to prove it to myself?
A week later I was walking with my younger daughter when the kid had a sudden meltdown. It was the usual stuff: She wanted something she couldn’t have, and no calm explanation was going to persuade her. She screamed, she kicked, she stretched out on the ground and refused to get up. We’ve all been there.
I didn’t yell, I didn’t freak out. I picked up my daughter and started to carry her home. She didn’t give up, of course, and began pounding and hammering at me. An elderly couple on a bench stared at us. Glared at me. There was that look of concern again. There were whispers. I could feel the finger on the button. Tempting me. Testing me.
I stopped - partly because my daughter now had my face in a Hannibal Lector-like death grip, but partly because I wanted to explain that I wasn’t an unfit parent; quite the opposite, actually. For this is how it goes with little kids. The couple could put back their phones and skip the call to Social Services.
I could feel the anger, the sense of injustice, the need to confront tugging at me once again.
Instead, I did what I had been desperately trying to get my daughter to do. I controlled myself. Turning from the couple, I pried what was left of my face from the daughter’s grip and walked on, holding her like a football to protect both myself and passerby. She kept kicking and screaming and lunging, of course.
Then I passed a group of moms wheeling strollers.
And a minute later it dawned on me: They hadn’t even looked up.
The moms weren’t passing judgment on me. Because they knew that, yes, this is how it goes. They’ve been there, done that, could see that I was doing only what they would do, too, in the same situation. I wasn’t clueless. I was one of them. By completely ignoring me, the moms had given me the professional recognition I so badly craved.
My daughter threw her tantrum for another 20 minutes, but I hadn’t felt so good in a long time.
Well, aside from the nose, ears, mouth and chin.
To TV or Not to TV?
5/5/10
I can appreciate a good temper tantrum as much as the next dad, but seriously, a meltdown because I can’t find Mary Poppins in French on YouTube? My daughter — the one bawling — is 3 years old. What is she thinking? And more troubling: What am I doing? I’m tapping out letters on an iPod Touch as fast as I can, knowing that the sooner I find Monsieur Dick Van Dyke, the sooner things will be calm once again.
Who am I kidding?
The iPod belongs to my daughter. My 2-year-old has one, too. They’re low-end models and I bought them refurbished, but still, that’s $300 I spent for one reason only: To keep my girls happy (or more accurately: happily quiet) on an eight-hour flight to South America earlier this year (wife’s family). You might think that’s an extravagant, frivolous expense (and trust me, I could use the money elsewhere).
But I’ve flown with them before. And if you’re still shaking your head, let me ask you this: How much would you pay to get out of a Turkish prison? A night trapped in an elevator? A shark tank? Yes, it’s that bad.
My bigger mistake was letting the girls keep the iPods after the trip. But they were so cute navigating the interface, running the apps — aren’t they smart, figuring out electronic devices all by themselves? Look, everyone, at what geniuses I’ve got here. Yup, I fell into that old trap.
I know that television and computers are a hot-button topic among parents. I’ve heard both sides of the argument and I can see some merit in each. Should my kids be watching ten hours of The Flintstones each day? Of course not. But frankly, I always thought that TV was OK — even beneficial — in moderation, just like drugs and booze and extramarital sex (kidding!). There is good programming for kids, where they pick up words and concepts that help them develop, and not-so-good programming, full of things children don’t need to be exposed to.
And let’s face it: Sometimes parents just need a break. So, here, watch Dora while I go sit in the corner and contemplate how I ruined my life — er, I mean, while I think up creative new recipes for dinner.
But as I watch my daughter scream about Mary Poppins, I wonder if maybe I’ve gone too far. For one thing, if you watch Mary Poppins closely, she’s one lousy babysitter. She does whatever she pleases, never tells the parents where she’s going and lets the children while away the time with chimney sweeps and horse races. I know my toddler isn’t picking up on this, but it raises the question: Do any of us really understand what our children are or aren’t getting out of this stuff — even when it’s done in moderation?
I’m not sure the so-called experts know, either. When she was a little more than a year old, we took my older daughter to a pediatric neurologist (for an issue that quickly, thankfully, resolved). At the meet-and-greet, my wife asked the doctor for his take on TV. His response was so quick, so nearly violent in its hatefulness that I just knew he had a rejected screenplay in his desk drawer.
“No!” he said. “Television is pointless and garbage and I strongly recommend you don’t let her watch.” Then he reigned himself in. “But I suppose a half hour wouldn’t hurt. In that case, I’d advise Barney. It’s the best of the lot.”
Barney! Of all the shows — Barney! I was livid. This man might have gone to medical school, but he knew nothing about television. Barney required viewers to suspend disbelief on multiple levels. Talking dinosaur. Purple dinosaur. Dinosaur that’s a small inanimate object one minute and a giant moving beast the next. How do I explain all that to my kid? Look at Mickey Mouse. One level of disbelief: talking mouse. Walt Disney kept things simple. That’s why he was a genius with a theme park. Where’s Barneyland?
I like to tell my friends that I grew up planted in front of a television — drinking sweetened fruit juice, to boot — and I turned out fine. Last week a friend called me on this, asking if I ever wondered how much further I might have gone had I not been watching the tube and drinking the Hi-C. Maybe I’d be president by now. What a shame.
I replied that I never wanted to be president. But it got me thinking: Was it because not wanting to be president was just in my DNA , or because watching all that television had somehow dulled my ambition? I concluded that we were all better off with me not being president, so it was OK that I watched TV. I felt better — and so should you.
But still I worry. By giving my kids their iPods, have I expanded their opportunities, diminished them or made no difference at all? The answer, I suppose, will come years from now. And I know what I’ll be sitting in front of when it does.
Defriended on Facebook
4/13/10
Last night I discovered that I had been defriended on Facebook. I only noticed because I had been at 99 friends for weeks — I know, I should have been more outgoing in junior high — and had been vigilantly watching that number, planning to welcome Friend 100 to my feed with a $25 Amazon gift certificate (no, it doesn’t get better than virtual friendship with me). Instead I saw, with shock and horror, that the tally had dropped to 98. Huh? What? That couldn’t be.
It was. I double checked. Someone had jumped ship.
My first impulse was to find out who would do such a thing. Keeping friends had never been a problem for me (making them had been), and now, in my fourth decade, someone had finally decided they’d had enough. The nerve.
Who was the backstabber? Solving that riddle took hours. I thought of all the people I really didn’t know but accepted friend requests from because I didn’t want problems. Nope. Still there. I thought of the three or four longtime friends I secretly despised and figured that maybe the feeling was mutual and they had, at last, acted on it. No dice. There they were, phony smiles and oh-so-witty status updates (“... is chillin’”).
Then I got really anal and went through year-old emails, checking every “so-and-so-has-added-you-as-a-friend” and “so-and-so-has-confirmed-you-as-a-friend” message to see who now was missing.
There — found her. The culprit was surprising: a work acquaintance from years ago, someone I wouldn’t exactly call a pal, but with whom I had always gotten along. We had mutual friends, so when I joined Facebook she quickly sent me a friend request and I accepted. We never exchanged words again, but presumably she saw some of my updates. I never gave our relationship another thought.
Until last night. Evidently I had done something to upset her. Given our complete lack of contact off Facebook, it had to be something I did on the site. Was it my sarcastic posts about the circus (sorry, but if you’re going to charge me $5 for a water, the least you can do is walk the tightrope without a net)? Or my commentary about celebrity adultery scandals? Maybe the links to those New York Post articles I was always plugging?
Or was it my kids? I paused at this thought. Come on, I told myself, that’s what you really think, isn’t it? You’ve been waiting for this. And, yes, I have been. You see, each time I post a photo of my girls or write about them in my status, I can’t help but think: Does anyone care? I have plenty of friends without kids, for all sorts of reasons. Am I unintentionally upsetting anyone with all the pics and commentary?
I’ve often wondered about this. Facebook, after all, is a place for me to bond with my 10 true friends and the 89 (well, 88) people I sorta, kinda like, too. Or at least vaguely remember from AP Chemistry. I don’t want to spark any hard feelings.
But let’s face it: These days my life consists of work and kids. And no one wants to hear how I interviewed the world’s foremost expert in foodservices outsourcing. That doesn’t leave much. So: Here’s my kid on the monkey bars. And here’s my other kid eating ice cream. Sorry. It’s the best I can do.
In my defense, I’ve developed strategies to soften the blow a barrage of kid-fueled updates can cause. I comment on Hollywood gossip and link to weird-but-true newspaper stories so that when I bring up my kids it looks like my “classy stuff.”
When it comes to posting photos, I try to balance the professional-quality portraits with the toilet shots and the drooling-in-the-stroller candids, so for every angry “that bastard and his perfect kids” reaction, there’s an “Oh good, his kids are freaks.” Because that’s what a true friend does: help you think you’re better than he is. Even if you’re not.
So, if you’re reading this, my former Facebook friend, do know that I tried to keep you satisfied. I haven’t thought about you in 15 years, but if it’s any consolation, you’ll now haunt me for the rest of my life.
Alan Cohen … is hoping you’re happy.
Mr. Business Class
3/22/10
I knew it the moment I saw him: This guy was going to be trouble.
As a parent, you quickly learn to spot the people who are going to give you grief when you’re out and about with your kids. They give you a certain look, make tell-tale noises. You know, the click of the mouth that says: “Don’t you know that the Starbucks reading room is for adults?”
Some are extreme, like the man who told me that “having children is bad for the environment.” (I know, how selfish of me.) Or the woman who complained, as I chased my wandering toddler to the front of a line, that it was “a clever way to cut ahead” of her. She was clearly enraged. And deranged.
But then there are the people who aren’t so much crazy as nasty. They’ll say something to you not because they are paranoid, or bitter, or feel like they’ve been treated unfairly (again, I apologize, crazy waiting-in-line lady), but because they are, simply, annoyed. Your child’s prancing or singing or scooter maneuvering skills has put them out, and it’s time to call a foul. No holds barred.
The guy in the dermatologist’s waiting room was clearly one of this breed.
While everyone else was scrunched into tiny pockets of personal space, there he was, in suit and tie, splayed out like this was business class on British Airways. I had both of my daughters with me, as my younger girl had a mysterious mark on her leg (likely nothing, but enough to rattle my wife and spur yet another “quick, get the kids scanned” outing).
Of course, the only empty seats were across from this man, who saw us coming and flashed that unmistakable “Go back to Epcot” look. I had him pegged immediately, so it was no surprise when my older daughter nearly tripped over the feet he declined to tuck in when she tried to pass (the resulting sigh — from him — was no shock, either).
I settled in and the kids got to business, working the room like a Vegas act. Normally, I’d stop them, but they weren’t out of hand, and no one was bothered — except for you know who, who had it coming. My 3-year-old asked everyone if they, too, had The Nutcracker on their iPod. My 18-month-old guided down the aisles going “hi, hi, hi” to the waiting patients and getting “hi, hi, hi” in return.
I knew that Mr. Business Class — already shaking his head in disgust — wasn’t going to give up a “hi, hi, hi” so easily and I think my daughter sensed that, too, because she stopped in front of him and waited him out. “Hi, hi, hi,” she repeated. “Hi, hi, hi.” Hmmm, he grunted, flashing me what I like to call a Stage Two look — a.k.a. the Maybe You Should Take Them Outside look.
My daughter didn’t budge. It was as if she was challenging the man. I’m not leaving until I get a hi, hi, hi. More bizarrely, it was like he was challenging her. You can stand there all day, with your hippie Dora shirt, you’re not getting a hi, hi, hi. I wanted to warn him it was futile. She can outlast you. Because you’ll have to go to the bathroom at some point, and she craps in the diaper.
The kid never got her hi. The nurse called us, and I hustled the girls toward the exam room. As we passed the man, I thought I heard him say something. It sounded like, “I’ll miss you.” After debating a split second, I turned around and said, “I’m sorry ... excuse me?” Slowly, so there would be no mistake, he replied: “I said, ‘I’ll miss you.’” Then he opened a newspaper.
But not before I saw the icy smile. Mr. Business Class was quite proud of himself. It seemed, too, that he was now challenging me. Daring me to make something out of this.
I stood still, this time for more than a split second. Like that wacky lady on line, I felt that I had been wronged — in front of my kids yet — and that needed to be addressed. But something else gnawed at me, too. Would he have challenged a mom like this? Maybe — but I don’t think so. Sure, he might have given a dirty look, but the way he watched me as he spoke his nasty goodbye, it was if we were the T-Birds and the Scorpions ready to rumble, man-to-man (yes, I watch way too much Grease with the girls). And I have to confess, I almost took the bait.
But that’s when it hit me: When I’m with my kids, it’s not about manhood; it’s about parenthood. My girls were little, but already they watched — they studied — everything I did. I had to set an example, do the right thing. It didn’t matter how I felt about that, but it mattered very much how they did. So I took a breath and walked on.
I was tempted, of course, to give the man a dirty look of my own. But then I looked at my kids, instead. And maybe, in the end, that was the nastiest thing I could have done to him. Because it was the one look, I knew, that he’d never understand.
Potty Training Dad
3/2/10
Everyone has heard of the absentee dad, but far less known is the absentee potty dad. This is a modern-day father who plays an integral role in early-years child-rearing and then — as a reward to himself — makes himself scarce during potty training. An absentee potty dad was always my aspiration.
And really, who earned it more? I changed diapers from Day One. Did the 11 p.m. Infant Tylenol runs to Rite-Aid. Tested the most God-awful vegetable purees with my own slow-to-forgive tongue. Sat through tirades from Stressed-Out Neighbor Moms. Listened to all the “suggestions” from my best friend’s wife — who didn’t have kids but often held them in synagogue, and thus “knew everything.”
When my older daughter was 16 months, her babysitter asked if I could buy a potty seat. We had to act fast. I brushed her off, explaining that I was still working out potty kinks at 5 and managed to get into an Ivy League school. But she didn’t let it go. A few days later, when she left the kid unattended in the tub, the one upside was that I could now fire her for negligence and not “aggressive potty training.”
When my daughter was 19 months, we had another child. Our pediatrician told us to hold off on potty training the older girl until she was 3. I don’t recall his exact reasoning — something about her seeing diapers in the house and getting confused, maybe? Whatever. I was too busy startling myself with a deep and profound love I never thought I’d feel for another man.
I still think fondly of him today, though the rest of my absentee potty dad plan has gone to, well, you know the word that fits. My daughter eventually turned 3, and started a new year in preschool. I was instructed to buy pull-ups and underwear and hope for the best. After a couple of weeks, the school began telling me how well my daughter was doing. I should bring her there in underwear, and take her home in underwear.
They might as well have told me I’d be defusing bombs. Every walk home is now an adventure. A very fast adventure. We no longer dawdle. We have places to go and toilets to be close to. We’ve had accidents. If you happened to have been in the bathroom at the Marriott Financial District hotel wondering who that man in the next stall was going, “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” I do apologize.
Last week I was in Barnes & Noble with my kids, my wife and my mother-in-law when my daughter approached me — as if I had been personally selected for the honor — and said she had to “go potty.”
Unfortunately, she disapproved of the public facilities (how quickly they go from doing in their pants to not doing it just anywhere). She said, firmly, she no longer had to go. Five minutes later in the DVD section, she looked at me and said, “Oh no.” If you haven’t guessed by now, this is family code for “There’s poop somewhere it shouldn’t be.” We raced to the toilet. By now, neither of us cared that it was not the women’s lounge at Bergdorf Goodman.
Too late.
Our former babysitter used to call it a “present.” Unfortunately, as I helped my daughter remove her underwear, the present tumbled out and rolled toward the adjacent stall, which, of course, was occupied. Frantically, I grabbed some wipes and intercepted the moving package, holding in my breath and what was left of my dignity.
My daughter began laughing. I didn’t have that luxury. I hustled her out of that men’s room as fast as humanly possible. Alas, what I needed so desperately at that moment, Barnes & Noble wasn’t selling.
That night, as I was brushing my teeth, pondering where my absentee potty dad plans went wrong, my younger daughter wandered in and sat on the small portable toilet someone bought us long ago. She was fully clothed. You know: just trying it out. “The second one always starts earlier,” my friend’s know-it-all wife had told me.
Oh no, indeed.
Brave New World
1/6/2010
Being a dad is sort of like being Secretary of the Interior: Everyone knows you exist; no one quite knows what you do. That was true in my father’s time, when the dads in the neighborhood were all baseball and mystery, showing us how to lob a ball around and then retreating into private worlds of jazz albums, undershirts and the sports section.
I don’t have a den or retreat or “cave,” as one of my childhood friends calls it on his Facebook updates. I live in a cramped New York apartment (or as real estate brokers call it, a spacious two-bedroom) with my wife and two young daughters. I’m lucky to have a place to stick the laptop I’m writing on.
Like a lot of my friends, I’m far more hands-on than my father was. I do the preschool drop-offs, I make lunches, I change diapers as efficiently as any baby nurse in the city. I know all the tricks to get a kid to lie still for a second.
You might think that new-era dads like me would take a lot of the mystery out of fatherhood. Hey, we’re just like the moms now — except we make less money. But three-plus-years into dad’dom, I think we’re actually more unfathomable than ever.
Everyone talks about this brave new world of stay-at-home dads and partnership parenting and fathers who do more than pop into the kid’s bedroom at 9 p.m. to ask how the day was. But when you’re a grown man pushing a stroller into a playground at 3 in the afternoon, you get noticed, and you get a vibe.
The moms, the nannies, the grandmothers (especially the grandmas) are all trying to decide what to make of you. Yes, even in 2009.
I work from home and I don’t keep traditional hours, so I do the 3 p.m. thing a lot. Most of the moms, nannies and grandmothers I run into are terrific, and they’ll wave and chat when they see me.
But not everyone is well versed in Today’s Dad, and sometimes things get awkward. Like the time I forgot to close the gate to the local playground and a mom I had never seen before sternly warned me not to do it again. Her tone was off — far too harsh for the sin I committed — and so, too, was her manner.
She approached me gingerly, hesitantly. And then she just let me have it. It was as if she sensed danger, and then once she decided to act, she committed with full force. That may be a sound strategy for hunting boar, but it’s a strange way to talk to a dad.
The trick is to make Today’s Dad a little less mysterious, by sharing some stories from Fatherhood 2.0. And if I’m lucky, maybe some insight, too.
And if I’m really lucky, one thing will go back to the way it used to be: The only woman to scream at me in public will be my wife.
