 wdevoe, Mon, June 16th, 2008 Howdy, and welcome to the greatness that is the blog edition of Pop Culture, America's No. 1 resource for parenting advice. As I'm new to the blogosphere, I figured I'd start off slow and post some old columns. That will allow you to familiarize yourself with me, and me to familiarize myself with my own blog. Ready? Here we go: Finding a happy medium When I was 6 or 7 years old, I asked my father if I was adopted. He put his hand on my shoulder, made his eyes wide as to almost envelope mine, and said, “Son, do you think that if me and your mother had our pick of all the kids in this world, we would’ve chosen you?” My dad’s a card. He’s got this Bob Dole-like, monotone delivery and the driest sense of humor I’ve encountered in any human being. Of course this was wasted on me for about the first 25 years of my life, but I’ve since come to appreciate it. I came into this parenting thing mid-stride — my (now) son was 14 months old when I began dating my wife. She had had Kevin out of a previous relationship and, I have to admit, even months after we became serious, I didn’t know if I was prepared to take on the responsibilities of fatherhood. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me. Even after we had become engaged, I would stay awake at night, worrying about what kind of father I would be, worrying about what kind of future Kevin would have, worrying about what people would think of our non-traditional family and generally just worrying about everything until I was curled up in the corner, biting my nails and rocking back and forth into the wee hours of the morning. I was never meant to be a parent. I’m lazy, immature, largely selfish and mostly clueless. I spent the majority of my adult life drifting from one dangerous, seedy occupation to the next: first combat arms in the Army, then a deck-hand in the Merchant Marine, then a manager in a department store. And I procrastinate — I only finish half the things I start, and usually they’re the things that I shouldn’t have begun in the first place. In my mind I had an image of Kevin, clothes in tatters and generally unwashed, wandering around a house strewn with half-built bicycles and dead goldfish, wondering why he couldn’t have had a better father. Then I remembered a phrase I’d heard in the Army: “Fake it ‘til you make it.” Sure, I had some work to do, and I may make some colossal mistakes, but being catatonic in the corner wasn’t exactly being the best dad I could be, either. So I decided to jump in with both feet. I changed diapers — first with a cologne-soaked T-shirt over my face, then a painter’s dust mask, then with no protection whatsoever. I watched the Wiggles (creepy), SpongeBob SquarePants (less creepy) and the Boobahs (even more creepy than Wiggles). I became a pillow, an artist’s canvas and a trampoline. I developed into a friend, role model, administrator and supervisor. I became involved in a life that was greater than my own. It made me a better person. I became a little less lazy, a bit more mature and somewhat less selfish. My wife still tells me I’m clueless, but I’m getting better. Now my wife and I have had our second son, and so far I haven’t succumbed to the waves of catatonia that the prospect of fatherhood initially brought on. At 5 months old, I’m fairly certain I haven’t done anything to him that would result in his being a mass murderer or a birthday-party magician. I don’t always know what’s right—the right thing to say, the right thing to do—but I can sense what I think is the wrong thing for my sons with a mercurial quickness. I’m finding that it may just be that a large portion of what constitutes wisdom isn’t knowing what is right or appropriate or even acceptable, but in knowing how to avoid what is wrong, wrong, wrong. I think it comes down to this: You just do your best to guide your little ones through an ideal, safe and pleasant life, but prepare them to cope with the adversity that comes when that ideal life goes to pot the second after they’re born. I think you aim for a good compromise between locking your children up until they’re 18 and dangling them in front of a live crocodile when they’re a year old. (For new fathers — alligators are OK, crocodiles are definitely not.) I have also come to realize that, above all else, fatherhood means one thing: vomit. Children can vomit up to 11times their body weight, so it seems, and they begin when they’re born and stop long after they’ve moved out of the house. I’ve been told that the decorations of a successful father are a sore back, callused hands and spit-up stains on the shoulders. We had another saying in the Army, that I heard when we made long, bumpy treks, stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder on a C-130 airplane: “If one person pukes in the plane, everybody pukes in the plane.” I’m finding this is also true in households with more than one child. On Easter morning, my 5-year-old woke up at 4:10 a.m. launching god-knows-what from his insides onto the floor. After he christened most rooms of our small apartment, he made it to the bathroom for one final heave. Before my wife and I could ask him how he was doing, he looked toward the dining room table and saw his Easter basket. “Can I have some candy?” he said. Which goes to show that kids are resilient, probably more so than we give them credit for. Love them, look out for them, and they’ll be all right. My boys are delicate creatures, sure, but I can’t possibly control everything that would cause adversity in their lives. I can, however, instill in them the character to deal with that adversity and be better people for it. I know that now that I’m a few years into this fatherhood thing. If only I’d known it before… A couple of years ago, when Kevin was about 3, he, my father and I were in my dad’s garden turning over some soil. This proved to be too boring for my son and soon he began chasing one of the neighborhood cats around the yard. We stopped and watched him for a while. “How do you think I’m doing so far?” I asked my dad. “You’re slow,” he said, pointing to the unturned part of the garden. “No, with Kevin. How do you think I’m doing as a dad?” My dad put his hand on my shoulder, made his eyes wide as to almost envelope mine, and said, “Hell, Bill, don’t ask me. I’ve been winging it since your older brother was born.” CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: Fatherhood, pop, culture, DeVoe, humor, parent, baby, son blog comments powered by Disqus  |
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