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.