In yesterday’s cri du père about the fascism of New York playgrounds, I quoted (as pretentious bastards do) some Thomas Mann, from his famous short story about visiting fascist Italy. Later in the day, I set aside my raw grievance against helicopter parenting just long enough to read the rest of the story, which is …
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Death: A DadWagon Outing
Sunday, as some of you may know, is Father’s Day, and in honor of that blessed event, Nathan and I are taking our kids to Citi Field for a baseball game [insert joke here about whether or not the 2011 Mets are actually playing something recognizable as baseball]. Anyway, JP recently went to his first …
Battlefield Playground
“Ought we to have foreseen the outburst of anger and resentment which her conduct, and thus our conduct, called forth?” –Mario and the Magician, Thomas Mann, 1929 It was, perhaps, a mistake to go to the playground on my first full day back in the country. In the previous two weeks I’d become accustomed to …
Single Dad for a Week
As I might have mentioned, my wife, Jean, is off in Bangalore this week, eating mangoes and wearing saris and lining up factory workers to abuse with bamboo canes. Which leaves me here in Brooklyn alone. With Sasha. To be honest, I haven’t done this whole parenting-on-my-own thing in quite a while. The last time, …