Category Archives: Media

Crying Toddlers: Not Your Problem

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I’m a few days late to this, the latest controversy involving a toddler whose mother has a stripper-name (seriously, Google it: her name is Crystal Shores, which is also the name of some Marriott “club” on the west coast of Florida).

You’ve probably already heard the whole setup. If not, there’s a handy reference video below. At a Rangers game late last week, a foul ball was snagged on the field and then tossed into the expensive seats nearby (making this a one-percenter showdown). Either the ball was intentionally thrown in the direction of a tow-headed toddler, or the toddler—they are all such egotists!—imagined the ball being thrown to him. Either way, he didn’t get the ball—an older man with long arms and (presumably) full bladder control snared it, and didn’t notice his kid-competitor.

The kid, he cried. The man, there with his girlfriend/wife/secretary(?), exalted and cavorted. He and his girl took pictures with their phones, all while the kid was working up his best look of complete devastation and loss.

The television announcer, who should never ever be allowed to talk about anything besides the break on a curveball, immediately pronounced the couple The Worst People in the World for “taunting” this child that they clearly hadn’t even seen. Because I don’t get to use as many sports metaphors here as I would like, let’s just say that if this scenario was a 12 to 6 curveball, the announcer called it high heat. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The toddler’s parents (Crystal and Kyle Shores!) and the offenders have both done their time in front of the jury of national media arguing that this was all just a misunderstanding.

That is, however, beside the point. Regardless of intention, of taunting or not, there are some good lessons to be learned here. Jotting a few of them now:

1) Baseball announcers should be more quiet. Except for the guys who call my Giants games. They’re great. Really.

2) Toddler bawling-face means nothing to me or any other parent worth their salt. This starts from the earliest days of infancy, when you realize that tiny babies cry because of disappointment, angst, cynicism, or gas. Or all of the above. And neither you, nor they, will ever know the difference. It is no different as they age. My children cry out in terror/anger at least 500 times a day. I am beyond caring, except if some sort of new frequency is reached, something that intimates real, different pain. This kid’s bawl? Pure theater.

3) Someone else’s crying child is should not be this couple’s problem. This is important, and hard to understand, as a parent. But the fact is that parents shouldn’t even feel responsible for their own child’s happiness. Why should strangers? To argue otherwise is to buy into the bizarre concierge-reaction to children that we see all around us: we value these little people, so our impulse is to serve them, to please them, to feed their whims, buff their egos, and shield them from disappointment. DO NOT DO THIS. I have tried. In the end I have only learned that for all the advantages my children have that I did not, for every time I tried to craft a special experience or protect them from a hurtful thought, my children are still just themselves, little bags of rage and love and greed and beauty that will do what they are wont to do, unswayed by outside stimuli. The only thing they really seem to respond to is the sensation of being doted on, and rather than relaxing or feeling enveloped by love when they see that they are being doted on, they turn selfish: little Lohans under the klieg lights of attention. They rant and spit on their stage, they slug photographers and expose their genitals. They wear big sunglasses and smoke cigarettes. You get what I mean: the attention warps them. They turn gnarled and spiteful.

I’m not saying you can’t offer some sympathy for the kid. But that he should get your baseball? Screw that. Leave him disappointed. He’ll be better off for it.

Near Death: The biking experience

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Libel!

A word to the regular Dadwagon readers: I almost died a week ago. Here’s how: As is typical for me, I was riding my bike to work one Monday morning, from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Less typically, I was struck by a taxicab (I think; I have no memory of the accident whatsoever). Broke my arm, much of my face, earned myself a severe, memory-obliterating concussion. Fun!

Now I’m home, after several days in the hospital, resting, trying to get my body and mind back together. I’ll say a few things:

First, I was going into surgery on my arm, and what I wanted to know was who was going to pick my son up from school. That’s what you do. You think of your children. I’m very lucky to have children. They are what you think of before you die. Cliche and boring (except for me) but true. I love my wife, who is caring for me. I don’t deserve her. I’m lucky to be here. I feel great gratitude at my continued existence, which spared my wife and children a large measure of pain.

Mostly, though, I’m tired. Too tired to write. My head hurts and I still can’t remember everything and thinking is an exercise and a chore. I need more sleep and time. So, instead what I will do is publish this, which my father, Steven Ross, wrote while I was in the hospital. I haven’t read it through–my attention span is short right now and it was pretty disturbing for me. But he’s a good writer, and someone has to say something. Nature of the blog biz, or so Nathan says.

Shock and Awwww

It’s pretty dramatic to tell people, “My son was hit by a car”. The fact that it is a true statement doesn’t make it seem any less than that you’re trying to milk the sympathies of whomever you say it to. Now, the son in question looks as though he will escape the incident without lasting effects. I don’t want to write about him – he can do that perfectly well himself – but about me, about how a parent of a grown child feels in times of crisis. It is not only the young who can ride the Dad Wagon.

My first reaction on learning that Ted had been hit was denial. Of course, my daughter-in-law downplayed the damage in her phone call to me, but I should have jumped up immediately and run to the hospital. I didn’t. I stayed at work for a little more than an hour, had my lunch, and then left. Looking back on my reaction, I realize that I was simply putting aside feelings that I couldn’t quite handle yet and organizing my emotions. I can’t tell what I would have done if the news had been more dire and I hope I never have to find out, but remembering how I was when my dad died suddenly (my God, 40 years ago!) I think I would have just fallen to pieces.

When I finally did see my boy – yes, my boy – in the emergency room, I was so shocked by his scrapes, sutures and lack of comprehension that I did what I’ve found I do with grief: I focused on all the peripheral matters in order not to give full rein to my feelings just yet. So I focused on the lawyers that would be needed, insurance, my grandkids’ reactions and the police investigation of the incident, if there was one. I used my BlackBerry to send updates to my other son, my ex-wife and my brothers; it gave me something to do other than thinking.

I told myself that I was helping Tomoko, my daughter-in-law, by taking some of the burdens off her shoulders. She’s strong enough not to have needed my help but grant me some credit for thoughtfulness. I’m not sure I get much credit for gabbing away the afternoon and evening in various waiting rooms. Whatever came to my mind I said, again telling myself it was all for Tomoko’s sake but it was really for myself. I think my wife, Lucie, saw through me but was kind enough to let me rattle on.

Here is what I was really thinking: He’s going to die. Even though it was clear from the outset that he wasn’t going to, racial heritage takes over quickly.

All his organs were where they ought to be and the breaks and scrapes were in places that could be fixed, so I worried about other things. As we read in the sports pages these days, concussions are not good things to have and Ted had had a humdinger, emphasis on the ding. So he was incoherent, forgetting what had happened a few minutes before and oblivious to what had landed him in a hospital bed. I feared more than anything that my brilliant, witty son wouldn’t be himself anymore and I worried how I would ever be able to deal with that. I’m not as egotistical as I may make myself sound; I was deeply concerned for his welfare and that of his family. But the emotional impact comes from how you feel not how you think.

I realize now, nearly a week later, that clichés exist because there is a kernel of truth to them. You never do stop being a parent; no matter how old they get, you still worry. You really should tell your kids you love them more often. (At least I did remember to do that while Ted was lying in the emergency room, although I don’t know whether my words got through.) Blood is thicker than water and a lot stickier at that. Never run with scissors or ride without a helmet. Look on the bright side of life. The child is father to the man.

Ted, I love you.

A Meditation on the Mysteries of the Internet

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This post was sponsored by Linksys and the new Linksys E4200v2 router. For more information on sponsored posts, read the bottom of our About Page.

Of the three DadWagoners I am by far the least technically proficient. I had to be told, in fact, what a router is. I don’t know overly much about my computer, other than she works generally, makes occasional ominous beeping sounds, and houses all of the most important documents in my life. I know how to use my cellphone only marginally better than my mother. I do not think that Matt should break out his iPad in restaurants in Italy, although I would undoubtedly do the same if I owned an iPad and was fancy enough as a writer to travel to Italy. I don’t fear or loathe technology; I would simply prefer that it function without my having to notice it.

And yet where would I be without our new age toys? Consider my daily habits: I am an avid use of Twitter and Facebook; I have a Linkedin account, although I should find time to have someone explain to me why; I would use Pinterest and Google+ if the thought of having to get up to speed on a new form of social media didn’t make me faint with exhaustion; I don’t get foursquare and I never will. I have a blog, and in other writerly modes, I believe I have written, by this stage, more online than off. I am in the process of building a new website from which I will pimp the sale of my forthcoming book on strange Jews (myself included among them).

This blog, in particular, exemplifies the value I see in technology, which I tend to consider in its personal context. Despite the gracious ministrations of our current corporate sponsor, DadWagon has yet to prove even moderately lucrative venture for Matt, Nathan, and I. It is a hobby, one that at least I do as a way to make and maintain friendships with my co-bloggers. Matt and I were friends before we began this venture, but we are much better friends now. Writing for the site gives us a reason to be around each other, to hang out, to get to know each other’s offspring. I hadn’t met Nathan before DadWagon, and wouldn’t likely have if not for it–and I feel lucky that I did. Our electronic friendship has become a tangible one.

In my world, which is so tightly bounded by the demands of work and parenting, making connections to new, good people is nothing to take for granted, and since most of my contact with Nathan and Matt is of the router-mediated kind, then thank you router, whatever you are.

Who You Calling Daddy (Son), Revised and Improved

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I resemble this remark

Shortly after writing my last post about not wanting JP to call me Dad I got an email from my own father. He reminded me that at the very same age as JP–five and a half–I had gone to him one day after school and said that from now on no one would be allowed to refer to me by my name at the time, Teddy.

A couple of kids at school had apparently been teasing me, calling me “Teddy Bear,” a grievous insult in my estimation at that time. I think that my father, as with me and JP, enjoyed calling me by the diminutive, and at first, also as with me and JP, he resisted. Eventually, though, he gave in and he never called me Teddy again, although there are, to this day, members of my family who continue do so.

Now my father was considerate enough not to tell me what I should do with JP. He just reminded me, which, I should point out, is a pure and exquisite form of Jewish guilt. Regardless, I determined to do something to right this cosmic parenting wrong.

Earlier tonight I told JP that before he went to bed he could expect a “special story.” This is the sort of thing that he is still young enough to find inordinately exciting. When he was finally in bed, after the teeth brushing, the discussions about pooping, the final chores, and the reading of a book, I settled in to tell him the tale of how Teddy became Ted.

Once there was a little boy just about your age whose name was Teddy. And he liked his name, because it was his, until he went to school one day and a bunch of kids starting teasing him about it. They called him Teddy Bear, which he thought wasn’t very nice, mostly because stuffed animals were for kids, and he was five and a half and no sort of kid at all. So when he got home that day he told his father that henceforth and in perpetuity (Teddy wanted to be a lawyer at that age) he would be known as Ted instead of Teddy.

Teddy’s daddy, however, didn’t immediately accept this request. He liked the name Teddy, which he called to mind certain things about being a father that he wasn’t sure he was ready to let go of, at least not just yet. But Teddy was serious, and eventually he gave in and Teddy became Ted from then on.

Do you understand what I’m talking about, JP? I asked, and the answer was a rather frank and to the point, no. So I explained and I told him that I was that boy and that I had forgotten this story and that he could call me anything he liked, Daddy, or Dad, or father, or whatever he preferred.

How poignant is THAT? Surely some Daddy prize should be coming my way, right? JP would have to admit, now and in his dotage, that Daddy listened, he cared, he did the right thing…right?

Wrong. JP’s response: “That’s the story?! That’s not funny! Tell me another one.”

He can still call me what he likes.