Archive for June, 2008

All the Other Dads

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

Suddenly, I was surrounded by dads.

Usually I’m the only guy in a sea of mothers. While the dads of the world head off to work, the stay-at-home moms take their early-morning infants and toddlers to parks, cafes, and the bike path, the very same places I borrow as escape-from-the-house office space. But on Saturday this week, while Siena was with my wife at a birthday party, I took Oren for a boys’ morning out. We ate burgers and fries, rode the bus, and searched for pennies in the plaza.

It was almost 100% dads out there. First I thought it was the burger thing — a stereotypical assumption that only men like burger joints — but I’ve often seen women “circle the wagons” at the long front table near the window: six women, six strollers. But then I remembered it was Saturday. Men were making up for lost time, taking their daughters and sons for daddy dates, renewing their relationships at the fresh start of the weekend.

I fit right in, sitting back as Oren climbed all over the booth and splashed ketchup on his forehead, and yet I felt oddly misplaced. After three years I relate more to the moms, who are both my environment and my admirers, unafraid to smile at the lone XY in an XX pool. But here I was just another guy. There was no camaraderie, no nods, and no knowing looks. My comfortable amusement at Oren looked too much like the stoic patience of everyone else. That’s not me, I thought; I’m not like all these other dads.

We need to believe our children are special and unique, somehow different from the others we see. Maybe we need to believe that of ourselves, too.

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Toddler-Level Trust

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

My kids are old enough that they’re trustworthy. Well, toddler-level trustworthy.

I’m not allowed to gasp when they walk down stairs or climb a stool. I’m not supposed to freak out when they drink from a regular cup, sans lid. I like to think I’m a proactive parent when it comes to avoiding potential disasters – part neurotic parent, part controlling parent – but as the kids get older, I’m expected to turn off these anxieties so they can grow into independent beings. Sure, it might stain, spill, scratch, spear, ruin, break, tear, and hurt, but that doesn’t mean I should automatically interrupt. No, I’m supposed to let it happen, with unobtrusive supervision. It’s like pretending to cover your eyes at a scary movie. Watching and not watching at the same time.

Some of the time, I would have been right. Every gouge in the hardwood floor, every crack in a toy, every puddle, and every Band-Aid gives me full parental rights to say I-told-you-so. But sometimes letting the kids be themselves turns out okay.

It’s gambling, really. Maybe this time Oren will surprise me by selecting and putting on a shirt himself without pinching his fingers in the drawer, losing his balance into the dresser, or just getting tangled in the wrong holes. And maybe Siena will actually carry that stepstool through all of the house’s doorways without chipping paint, smashing her toes, or clobbering Oren. Maybe this time my paperwork won’t get mangled, and my stomach won’t throw punches at my heart.

The funniest thing about this whole process of letting go, however, is that all the other adults have it harder than I. I’m the one with visions of emergency rooms dancing in my head, but they hate it when I let Oren go down the stairs. He walked down three concrete steps to retrieve a fallen toy, while almost every adult within range said uh-uh-uh-uh and I-I-I-I, extending their hands just a little bit. Reaching and not reaching at the same time.

We risk everything when we let toddlers be toddlers. Trusting them is trusting ourselves.

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Keeping Up Miraculous Appearances

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

As every father of young chlidren knows, perfoming miracles is part of the job.

The miracles themselves aren’t as important as how miraculous they appear. One favorite is the “always-find-a-treat” trick. When my kids ask for a snack I always manage to have something quickly available. Another is the “blanket-behind-my-back” illusion, where I pretend to look for the lovey, only to have it sticking out of my back waistband like a tail.

In the memoir Touching the Rock, sightless author John M. Hull writes about how his young children misunderstood his blindness. Since he didn’t need the light to navigate a room or read a book, they misattributed to him a super-human power: seeing in the dark. After all, at the point adults are capable of overcoming the weight of heavy objects, the height of top shelves, the complexity of machines, and the heat of the kitchen, why would darkness be a barrier?

But today, Siena needed a more pedestrian miracle. She asked me to fix her book. “Look, the bug is upside-down,” she said. She showed me the drawing of a spider-like bug, which was decending head-first down a line. Compared to the bug on the opposite page, this bug was upside-down. It took me a long time to understand what she meant. She wanted me to right the spider. “The book is broken,” she explained.

Instead of trying to explain, I chose to perform a miracle. I simply rotated the book. “But what about this bug?” she complained. I rotated the book again. Super-Daddy strikes again.

We dads all have our reputations to consider.

Posted in being a good dad, what kids think | 1 Comment »

Three Muffin Discs, Please

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

This guy at the diner where I’m sitting (working) has been complaining for five minutes now about how the staff doesn’t seem to know how he wants his muffin sliced.

It started when the waitress, apologizing for the cook, explained how they would be unable able to prepare his muffin as requested. Here’s the ridiculously goofy sentence that grabbed my attention: “Since we can’t cut the muffin into three pieces, would you be okay with two pieces instead?”

The customer — I dare not turn around to see what he looks like — responded by first explaining he didn’t want the curved part. Then he suggested an exacting compromise: to cut the muffin in half, and then to cut one of the halves in half again. In this way, he could have those three pieces. The waitress brought these new instructions to the cook. But, following her delivery of this triplicate treat, he complains to his companion that he very clearly asked for horizontal cuts, not vertical.

How exactly is anyone going to cut a muffin into three horizontal slices? And why? Seriously. He wants a topless muffin base cut into three thin discs? WHY?? (And couldn’t he have done this himself in the first place?)

He gets the server’s attention, waves her over, and in incongruently friendly tones begins to lecture her. “How did I ask you to slice this? … No, that’s not what I said. I asked you to slice it horizontal. So next time, and the next hundred times I come in….”

Egad. Apparently kids who complain about their food — “I only eat square-shaped cheese” — may never outgrow it.

Posted in being a kid | No Comments »