What a Difference a Day Makes.
I managed to shake off my stupefaction fast enough this morning to limit my exposure to the highly contagious theme song to “The Big Comfy Couch.” For those who haven’t heard it imagine a song as catchy as Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” or The Cardigans “Love Me,” but sung by children and you have an idea. I decided I needed a hair cut so I wouldn’t look like a dork in the photos that most certainly will be taken during Ella’s first birthday.
My local barber Illiana is from Russia and is so sweat and dear. Seeing her is like visiting a childless aunt who loves to take care of you. I guess I looked as bad as I thought I did because she offered to get me some coffee. I accepted and thanked her when she returned. I sat pushing Ella back and forth in her stroller waiting for my turn. I have had insomnia of late, or at least that is what I can figure out based on the untold hours of Lunesta ads I have watched in the past few months. As Chris Rock joked, “Do you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning? Oh Shit! I got that! I need that pill!” Not being able to sleep really sucks. It was easier when Ella took more than one nap a day but now she only sleeps for an hour or so a day which leaves me with a dilemma, eat, or nap? I usually eat.
After my hair cut and lots of love and encouragement from Illiana I decided to head up to Carroll Park for some time out with Ella. Illiana told me about having her boy when she lived in the Soviet Union. She was given a year off at full pay (not that that Rubles were worth anything) and her job back after that year. At work her child had day care on sight that cost 10 Rubles a month. This included a laundry, a kitchen, clean sheets on a bed for every child in the day care, a nurse, and a teacher. Illiana was just a working gal. Imagine what a facility like that would cost in the U.S.? She was shocked to see day care so second rate in America. Granted Illiana lives in the United States now and her son is in the Marine Corps serving in Japan, so no love lost, but, I have to say we are so worried about “family values” in the U.S. We blame Hollywood, the Liberals, the Conservatives, gangs, drugs, pornography, TV, and video games. People like Michael Medved rant about “Kill Bill” but don’t make a peep at the high cost of medical care in the U.S. How are people able to have a family with which to instill values if they can’t make ends meet? I know this seems like a liberal thing to say but I am a parent now. My wife and I are extremely lucky to live were we live and are able to live and save on one salary. How can a family stay together if both parents have to work, not chose to, have to. I know a lot goes into having a family and one shouldn’t jump to conclusions but we need to think about these things as a nation.
I reached Carroll Park smirking at a very old joke I have between my friend Larry and I. We used to make up scenes from a porno produced by a socialist Ministry of Pornography, “Eh…Alexi you blow me like tractor on glorious collective farm!”
The park was full and the day was beautiful. I got Ella to her usual place on the jungle gym in the shade. I was happy to see Nancy and her little girl Sue. I know Nancy from the dog run and we caught up since the last time we saw each other. I was satisfied to hear that she has the same feelings about Carroll Park and our hood in general. She told me that out mutual friend, my neighbor, Cathy, goes to a moms group in Park Slope, and that there is a very friendly play ground on the Promenade in the Heights. Apparently it’s true, Park Slopes is the place to be for parents in B’Klyn. I admit I haven’t been to many places and met to many people so I vow to get out more and see what B’Klyn has to offer my gal and me. Nancy said that she and Cathy and I should get together and go Prospect Park and so on. After yesterday this was just what I needed. When Nancy left I felt happy to have meet another B’Klyn parent who felt the same way I did, then you know what happened? I had a conversation, with a stranger. I had to say hello to any mother who put her child in a “It’s hard out here for a chimp” t-shirt. We chatted and I ended up giver her my dentist’s card.
I don’t think people a basically good or basically bad. People are people. I know I can find like minds if I look for them. I try and be flexable it isn’t always easy but I try. I know Yoda would say, “Do or do not. There is no try.” But Yoda was a puppet and I don’t recall him having to make friends wile pushing his daughter in her stroller with one hand and pounding a ice coffee with the other desperately trying to think of any song to block out “The Big Comfy Couch.”
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The First Day of School.
Three months ago our family dog Shifty died. Even though he was old we only had him for three years. He had brain cancer. It was tough but we put him down. With that lovable, lazy, sweet Chow mix went some of my social life. I used to take Shifty to the dog run on Hicks Street twice a day. In three years time you meet a lot of people. We stood in the cold, the snow, and rain, wishing our dogs would crap so we could go home. We talked about a lot of things and got to know each other. People loved Shifty and always asked why he was so laid back. I don’t know he was a dog.
I used to take my cutie pie of a daughter Ella to the run with me. In fact Ella went to the filthy dog run when she was only 7 days old. Over the months my dog friends watched Ella grow. They would smile and laugh with her and ask about her teeth. It was nice to see people light up when they saw Shifty, Ella, and I coming through the gate.
I started taking Ella to Carroll Park on Court Street to play when she was about six months old. After Shifty died I started taking Ella their every day. In many ways it’s a lot like the dog run only less friendly. Its odd entering the world of parents, or more accurately, care givers, nannies, au pairs, cool-dads, cell phone moms, and frazzled moms. I was dumb enough to believe that the lives my wife Persephone and I lead are an example of “women’s lib” or the “liberal 60’s,” or self definition free from the confines of the Victorian or post-war view of the nuclear family. But it isn’t. While the stay at home dad is more common it isn’t as accepted as I thought it would be. Even stranger is that the post-war generation love seeing me with Ella and tell me how great it must be to be able to be a full time father a pleasure and honor denied generations of American men.
I say not accepted in a general way but more specifically by the warring clans of women formed into impenetrable “mommy” phalanxes with their piles of stuff packed into their Bugaboo Frog bitching about how, “if my husband had to do this…” Hello? Ladies? I’m right here and I do do this every day. It’s like the first day of school every day. I am sized up by the au pairs, the nannies, the cool-dads, the mommies, by my stroller, how much and which stuff I have. I mention this because I see the same people every day, like the dog run, and still haven’t made an acquaintance. Being a stay at home parent can be isolating but you might as well be in Siberia if other parents aren’t going to help break that isolation.
A little boy, in a Sex Pistols t-shirt, rammed his plastic trike into Ella today. It’s my fault thinking that a line up of parents with kids about Ella’s age would be watching them the same way I watch Ella or used to watch Shifty. I scooped my girl up and soother her. The boy kept on doing his thing and no one blinked. I looked around for the boys care giver and no one came over to ask if Ella was OK. The nannies never stopped staring off whishing there was work in Trinidad or Haiti so they wouldn’t have to come here and put their kids into shitty day care to look after the spoiled white and Asian kids of South Brooklyn. The au pairs went right on thinking everyone wants to fuck them, and the cool-dads didn’t skip a beat trying to break the phalanxes with jokes and charm that used to get them laid.
I have always had a hard time with groups of men. Women seem to think we are all on the same team but we aren’t. There is a ladder that we have to climb. The difference is that we don’t subvert each other. You’re a dad I’m a dad. Fine, you’re “cooler” than I am which shouldn’t be a concern as we are all over 30 right? So don’t talk to me if I’m still JV and your Varsity. But the women I don’t get. See that ring? I’m married. See that little blond girl? She is my daughter. I am not after you and I am not a deveated-prevert. Not all men are the dip-shit, frat boy, thick neck, rat you married because you thought he had money but as it turned out that house on the Cape was his brothers, man you married. I’m a dad, I don’t care how expensive your stroller is, or at what age your baby started solid food or started to walk. Other woem worry about that. I just want to kill some time while Ella plays and maybe make a friend or two.
Parents worry about teaching their kids to share. Me? I’m going to teach Ella to be selfish. It seems that’s how we all turn out in the end anyway. Greedy, conceited, and self important.
Three months ago our family dog Shifty died. Even though he was old we only had him for three years. He had brain cancer. It was tough but we put him down. With that lovable, lazy, sweet Chow mix went some of my social life. I used to take Shifty to the dog run on Hicks Street twice a day. In three years time you meet a lot of people. We stood in the cold, the snow, and rain, wishing our dogs would crap so we could go home. We talked about a lot of things and got to know each other. People loved Shifty and always asked why he was so laid back. I don’t know he was a dog.
I used to take my cutie pie of a daughter Ella to the run with me. In fact Ella went to the filthy dog run when she was only 7 days old. Over the months my dog friends watched Ella grow. They would smile and laugh with her and ask about her teeth. It was nice to see people light up when they saw Shifty, Ella, and I coming through the gate.
I started taking Ella to Carroll Park on Court Street to play when she was about six months old. After Shifty died I started taking Ella their every day. In many ways it’s a lot like the dog run only less friendly. Its odd entering the world of parents, or more accurately, care givers, nannies, au pairs, cool-dads, cell phone moms, and frazzled moms. I was dumb enough to believe that the lives my wife Persephone and I lead are an example of “women’s lib” or the “liberal 60’s,” or self definition free from the confines of the Victorian or post-war view of the nuclear family. But it isn’t. While the stay at home dad is more common it isn’t as accepted as I thought it would be. Even stranger is that the post-war generation love seeing me with Ella and tell me how great it must be to be able to be a full time father a pleasure and honor denied generations of American men.
I say not accepted in a general way but more specifically by the warring clans of women formed into impenetrable “mommy” phalanxes with their piles of stuff packed into their Bugaboo Frog bitching about how, “if my husband had to do this…” Hello? Ladies? I’m right here and I do do this every day. It’s like the first day of school every day. I am sized up by the au pairs, the nannies, the cool-dads, the mommies, by my stroller, how much and which stuff I have. I mention this because I see the same people every day, like the dog run, and still haven’t made an acquaintance. Being a stay at home parent can be isolating but you might as well be in Siberia if other parents aren’t going to help break that isolation.
A little boy, in a Sex Pistols t-shirt, rammed his plastic trike into Ella today. It’s my fault thinking that a line up of parents with kids about Ella’s age would be watching them the same way I watch Ella or used to watch Shifty. I scooped my girl up and soother her. The boy kept on doing his thing and no one blinked. I looked around for the boys care giver and no one came over to ask if Ella was OK. The nannies never stopped staring off whishing there was work in Trinidad or Haiti so they wouldn’t have to come here and put their kids into shitty day care to look after the spoiled white and Asian kids of South Brooklyn. The au pairs went right on thinking everyone wants to fuck them, and the cool-dads didn’t skip a beat trying to break the phalanxes with jokes and charm that used to get them laid.
I have always had a hard time with groups of men. Women seem to think we are all on the same team but we aren’t. There is a ladder that we have to climb. The difference is that we don’t subvert each other. You’re a dad I’m a dad. Fine, you’re “cooler” than I am which shouldn’t be a concern as we are all over 30 right? So don’t talk to me if I’m still JV and your Varsity. But the women I don’t get. See that ring? I’m married. See that little blond girl? She is my daughter. I am not after you and I am not a deveated-prevert. Not all men are the dip-shit, frat boy, thick neck, rat you married because you thought he had money but as it turned out that house on the Cape was his brothers, man you married. I’m a dad, I don’t care how expensive your stroller is, or at what age your baby started solid food or started to walk. Other woem worry about that. I just want to kill some time while Ella plays and maybe make a friend or two.
Parents worry about teaching their kids to share. Me? I’m going to teach Ella to be selfish. It seems that’s how we all turn out in the end anyway. Greedy, conceited, and self important.
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