Did you know Playboy has a blog? Did you care? I mean, the men’s magazine hasn’t been relevant in either the pornographic world or the literary world for at least a decade, so when Hef’s crew launched The Smoking Jacket (recently? a while back? who knows?) no one really noticed.
But yesterday, the blog published “How to Use Your Two-Year-Old Child As a Drug Mule,” by the beautifully pseudonymic Deadbeat Dad, and I, at least, was thrilled. Not because I’m planning to, as the article suggests, hide my stash at the bottom of a canister of formula. No, I’m just happy that there are other dads out there with as warped a view of parenthood as we have here on Dadwagon. (Yes, it’s all about us. Surprised?) And his advice is useful: dump the bong and get a one-hitter; don’t drive stoned; and “Get as high as possible before any recital or school performance.”
More importantly, as he puts it, being a deadbeat dad is a:
state of mind, of suspended adolescence, rather, the inability to recognize the importance and responsibility that fatherhood was supposed to bestow. But it’s really more than that. In today’s child-centric, Baby Mozart universe, where our whole lives have been oriented around the supreme happiness of our little geniuses, being a Deadbeat Dad is a profoundly political act, a protest of the highest order, a statement of fact: “No, actually, I won’t get my act together.”
It’s a tough stance, and not for the faint of heart, as being a Deadbeat Dad is a little like being a bull rider. At some point, that 600-pound bull (no, I’m not calling your wife fat, I’m just making a point) is going to throw you off and gore you with its horns—i.e. words like “marriage counseling” and “trial separation.” See, then you’ve gone too far.
The key is balance, my friend, the ability to dance mid-air, to continue to do what you please without awaking the giant. Over the next few months I’m going to be giving you, dear reader, a road map to Deadbeatness. The how, what and where of being a full-time freak along with being a full-time parent. These are not mutually exclusive things in my world. Along the way, like Fight Club, you may find fellow travelers, but it’s usually a lonely road. Being a Deadbeat Dad is not easy. No one sets out to be the weirdest guy at the school picnic, or tries to take it two or seven steps too far at the Father’s Day barbecue. Hey, we’re just wired that way.
Of course, the best thing about Deadbeat Dad is that when you get tired of his stoner ravings, you can go look at pictures of boobies. They’re just one click away.
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