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Category Archives: Miscellany
Digital Sabbath
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As the least Jewish (yet still sorta Jewy!) member of DadWagon, Sabbath has never been my strength. So when I set out to write about the fourth annual National Day of Unplugging on March 1, which is a sort of Sabbath for the digital era, I realized that by writing about it March 1, I would actually be totally violating the premise (unless I was going to write it down with pencil and paper and just post it around the neighborhood).
And so, I present to you, on March 2 in the evening, a post about March 1.
There is a lot of scripture about the Sabbath and what it is and why God commanded it and such. But one of the best has to be this:
Exodus 23:12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day thou shall rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.
I like it, of course for the unintentional way that it talks to me in the vernacular—thine ass may rest!—and because it presumes I have a handmaid, which is nice and flattering. But this, like other scripture on Sabbath, says it should be a day of rest. The problem for a digital sabbath is that these days we tend to be doing the exact same thing whether at rest or at work. That is, we are still at our computers whether it’s the weekend or the week, whether we are looking to work through a to-do list or looking for cat porn for fun (or whatever your search habits are). About when the Book of Exodus would have been written, it was pretty clear if someone was in the fields working or at home Sabbathing. Now you would have to be close enough to see the screen—angry birds or angry email to investors?—to figure out whether this was work or rest.
That’s why I like the solution from the National Day of Unplugging people. Just unplug it all. Refresh your handmaid’s son (if you’re into that kink). Rest thine ox. And, of course, rest thine ass. Offline.
My Child Will Bother You Now
This past weekend, Jean, Sasha, and I made a courageous trip out to our local playground, two whole blocks away. Jean and I were tired, it was hot out, and while we wanted Sasha to get some running and playing in, we weren’t about to participate. Instead, we sat on a bench in the shade and watched as Sasha climbed ladders, slid down slides, and paid a surprising amount of attention to a year-old baby named Bea and her parents. She walked around with Bea, and ran and played and made sure to talk to Bea’s parents—she was performing for them, really, and checking in to see if they were watching.
As I observed this slightly weird dynamic—what did these parents think of this strange kid giving them so much attention?—I was reminded of a post I wrote almost exactly a year ago, in which I was on the other side of the line:
I’m out somewhere, with or without Sasha and Jean, and some child chooses me as a play pal, the adult who’s going to help build a castle out of blocks at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum or play catch in Prospect Park. I don’t mind this, exactly, but it’s disconcerting, and I’m trying to understand why.
On one level, of course, I wonder: Well, why me? Why not your own parents, kid? And then I look around and don’t see the parents, or see them (or the nanny) doing something else, on the phone or whatever, and it’s clear why I’m chosen: I’m available. Also, I’m pretty good at playing. I can be silly, I’m happy to jump and run and roll around, I can still sort of get myself into that frame of mind that seems irrational and erratic to adults but utterly natural to children.
Still I can’t shake this feeling that it’s weird to play with someone else’s kids. I don’t know what the ground rules are: Am I seen as an actual adult, or just a bigger kid? What responsibility do I have for the child? I try to remember my own childhood: Did I approach other, unknown adults to play?
Today, I think I understand this much better. Beyond our being exhausted the other day, we also wanted Sasha to learn to play on her own, to approach and speak to and make friends with other people, both big and small, without our chaperoning her through the process. Independence, I think it’s called.
Bea’s parents may have been wondering, Why us? Why not your own parents, kid? But in a year or two, when they start encouraging Bea to go off and develop her own social dynamics, they’ll get it, just as I get it now. Insight!*
*I promise: No more of this insight bullshit for a while, okay?
The Tantrum: Are Older Dads OK? Should Young Men Even Be Allowed to Breed?
(This is the Tantrum, in which Dadwagon’s writers debate one question over the course of a week. For previous Tantrums, click here.)
I feel old. That’s the long and short of it. Ever since Sasha came into my life, three and a half years ago, I’ve felt creaky and tired, increasingly inflexible in both body and mind. I am cranky and irritable. I’m curmudgeonly. I fart more. I am embarrassing. I am old.
Of course, I’m not really all that old. In two months, I’ll turn 38, which is neither particularly old nor particularly young (though I’m older than my parents were at this stage of child-having). I have friends who started earlier, and friends who started much later: One of Sasha’s preschool classmates has a dad who’s probably a dozen years my elder. And while he seems spry, I can’t quite imagine myself doing what he’s doing. As it is, I’m already looking ahead to landmarks in Sasha’s life—high-school graduation, college graduation, marriage, kids—and trying to calculate my age: 53, 57, 60-something, 70-something?!?
Mostly, it’s not a physical thing. I’m in good shape, and relatively energetic, and barring surprise injury or sickness I’ll stay that way for a couple more decades. It’s just the creeping inevitability of death that gets me. That is, I like Sasha (and presumably will also feel kindly toward her coming baby sister), and I want to be around for as much of her life as possible. Every year that I delayed having kids is a year I didn’t get to see them grow up, and that knowledge is like a knife in my guts: What will I miss? How will I be unable to help? Without me around, who will teach the kids (and grandkids) to mix cocktails?
Not that I could’ve started any earlier. From age 29 to 34, I was peripatetic to a fault, and before that unhappy and unstable (financially) enough that fatherhood would’ve been a miserable hardship. Could I have done it? Yes, probably. Although I am (I hope) a different person than I was a decade ago, I don’t think my fundamental approach to life and parenting have changed significantly. Sasha could be hitting 13 this year, and I’m reasonably sure I’d have done just as bad a job bringing her up as I’m doing right now. If there’s one thing that you take away from DadWagon, it’s this: we all suck. Also, Bill Murray was right in Meatballs:
Anyway, to get back to the fundamental issues of this Tantrum, are older dads OK? Yeah, but they won’t be around long, so be nice to them. And should younger men be allowed to breed? Sure, as long as we’re not talking about my colleague Theodore—that dude would’ve been a terrible dad if he’d started in his twenties, when he was a selfish prick. As it is, he’s graduated to being merely ridiculous, which is about the best any of us can hope for.