DADWAGON

I’ll say from the start that this is not one of those vortexes I sometimes get caught in, where a trip to fresh-aired yonderlands (in this case, Colorado) makes me rethink why I ever decided to live in New York. No. I love New York in all its fecal glory. I am no Cliff Lee. I am not saying no.

But, for Chrissakes, New York, can you please try rolling out a better Welcome Home mat? I’m not looking for bonbons and backrubs, but it’s hard enough traveling alone with two kids under the age of 5. We don’t need to be thrown into the shouting cesspool so quickly.

It started with NYC air traffic delays that trapped us in transit for four hours at Denver airport (which, by the way, has removed its children’s play area altogether, in favor of a dozen or so oversized pleather chairs meant “for business travelers,” by which they mean the airport equivalent of the sleep-people who usually haunt Greyhound terminals). That’s fine, I get that: we’ve all heard that NYC has crowded skies, with tons of angry cabbie-pilots leaning out of the windows of their 737s, honking madly, and yelling Bengali obscenities at each other.

But arriving near midnight at a grimy, forlorn LaGuardia terminal, having to take both kids into the men’s room, a tiny, hideously scented affair that seemed to have about 40 flatulent travelers in there. Changing my son’s diaper while his sister shouts “I can see your penis!” and then having the boy lurch around me to touch the toilet, which is about two inches away: that’s fun.

Then the sensory assault started in earnest.

Whirring, clacking, screeching, wingeing: that was the near-busted luggage conveyor belt. Then jackets on both squirming kids, plus scarves and gloves and hats because it was 20 degrees outside. And though the terminal may have been empty (except for the hypercrowded bathroom), as soon as we stepped outside it was like Times Square. Honking, idling, shouting, black cars, town cars, taxicabs and then, as a final aural insult, police cars sweeping the waiting area, with lights bleeming, and loudspeaker blaring: Move your car. Move. Now! Move it!

I rolled our two pieces of luggage and made my kids hold each others’ hands and follow me closely. But on the narrow median, with cars double and triple parked, police barking, there was no room for meandering children. They nearly got run over by other pedestrians about five times, everyone trying to roll their bags quickly, too cold to look down at child-level and see what they might be bumping into. The horns never ceased. I nearly had a nervous breakdown in the five minutes it took to find the kids’ mother waiting in the car.

There is, in general, a problem with children and car horns, which I only realized from talking to a ConEd worker a few weeks ago. I was at the street corner, 88th and Amsterdam, I think, waiting for the light, when someone honked his horn for absolutely no reason, and this ConEd guy, on bended knee fiddling with some manhole cover, flinched noticeably. I started chatting with him and he said that people have no idea what it’s like having your head three feet off the ground, the exact height of a car horn, all day, bombarded by random blasts of existential cab-fury.

Three feet happens to be exactly what my daughter clocks these days, so there you have it: from the big quiet white of Colorado mountains to the obliterative noise attack that is New York at three feet above sidewalk level. May you forgive my life choices, children.

Last Wednesday, Jean and I ran into a little problem. That night, I had a long-scheduled dinner date with an editor in midtown—Totto Ramen, at last!—and had even arranged to meet the editor there at 9 p.m., just so Jean would have plenty of time to come home from work.

Alas, lately Jean’s had to stay at the office well beyond her usual 6:30, and she didn’t make it back to Brooklyn till, oh, let’s say 8:53 p.m. Meaning I couldn’t be in midtown by 9, meaning my editor decided to cancel the dinner. All in all, not a huge problem, but still a disappointment.

Still, it got me thinking: What if I’d just left the apartment at 8:30? Sasha, my 2-year-old, was already asleep in bed, and when she’s asleep, she’s very asleep. Jean would be home soon, so we’re talking about a 23-minute window of neglect. And even if Sasha did wake up crying, if either parent was home we’d almost certainly—99.9% of the time—just let her cry it out and go back to sleep. So, what was there for me to do in those 23 minutes except to simply BE there in case the apartment caught on fire? I’m not doing anything. Indeed, we’ve had a few babysitters who seemed totally disappointed when they learned that they’d be sitting more than babying. Well, at least we have cable. Why, I wondered last Wednesday, why couldn’t I just leave?

Let me be clear: I’m not going to leave Sasha alone at home. First of all, my wife would kill me. Second of all, my downstairs neighbors are total pyros.

Really, what I want to know is why I won’t leave Sasha alone. Is it because I have an irrational fear that the apartment will burn down in those 23 minutes? Or because I have a totally rational fear of prosecution for neglect?

To get an answer, I called up the Child Welfare Information Gateway, a kind of government clearninghouse (under HHS) for information about how to—and how not to—take care of kids. I put my question to a woman named Sandy: If my 2-year-old is asleep in a crib at night, is it illegal for me to go out for a drink, or just a terrible idea?

This, she said, is “a very, very gray area.” It’s not just that each state has different laws defining neglect. Most state laws look not only at actions but at intent. That is, did the parent intend to harm the child by neglecting it? This has a lot to do with class and poverty, so that poor families can’t be prosecuted if they can’t afford warm winter clothes or if a mother has to work nights while a kid is asleep at home.

So, if I—sorry, if some father wanted to leave the toddler alone asleep in a high-sided crib for a while, that probably wouldn’t land him in court.

Just to be sure, I looked up the New York State laws regarding abuse and neglect. Here’s the relevant part:

Neglect

Citation: Soc. Serv. Law § 371

Neglected child means a child younger than age 18 whose physical, mental, or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his or her parent or other person legally responsible for his or her care to exercise a minimum degree of care:

In supplying the child with adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, or medical or surgical care, although financially able to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so

In providing the child with proper supervision or guardianship

By unreasonably inflicting or allowing harm to be inflicted, or a substantial risk thereof, including the infliction of excessive corporal punishment

By misusing drugs or alcoholic beverages to the extent that he or she loses self-control of his or her actions

By any other acts of a similarly serious nature requiring the aid of the court

So, does ducking out put a sleeping toddler’s “physical, mental, or emotional condition” in “imminent danger”? Is ducking out a failure to exercise a minimum degree of care in providing supervision? I’m no lawyer, but I’d bet that as long as the house didn’t burn down, it would be hard to convince a jury of neglect.

It’s still a bad idea, though, so don’t do it. Jerk.

Not that I really have anything for or against the military, but I am concerned that if they start making any more videos like the one below, which I found via the cheery folks at Gawker, JP might just join. But I’ll let you decide. With no further ado, I give you Count Spirochete, a vampire that eats your penis if you have unprotected sex: