DADWAGON

My folks left yesterday after spending a week in town greeting the new baby. Many things to be said about this, of course, much of it good, some not so much. Among the good was the fact that my mother and step-father are neat freaks with a decidedly missionary flair … and Tomoko and I are not.

As such, I enjoyed a full week of parental cleaning! Some folks might find that annoying, a way for the aged parent to reassert his or her authority over the misbehaving child. I don’t feel that way. I like my floor mopped twice weekly, and I’m only about to do it twice yearly (which, by the way, is twice more than Tomoko).

These domestic predilections reminded me of one of my family’s stories, likely apocryphal. It involves my great-aunt Sonia, whom I never met. She moved to Mexico City in the 1930s, and died several years ago. Anyway, she was of a certain communistic political bent, which wasn’t all that unusual among Jews in New York in the Depression. She must have been rather committed to the cause, however—instead of selling out and moving to Secaucus, she bugged out for Mexico, where she married an archaeologist. Their son, Paul Leduc, has, apparently, directed one of the best biopics of Frida Kahlo.

My father went to visit his Aunt Sonia in Mexico when he was a teenager. He was a curious sort, so he asked her why she had moved to Mexico. Was it her dedication to communist causes and social justice? Was it a commentary on the debased American capitalist culture in which she’d been raised?

Not really, Aunt Sonia said, looking around her tidy and well-appointed living room. Perhaps, she admitted, it had been politics that inspired her to cross the southern border—but it wasn’t what had kept her there.

“It’s the servants, Stevie,” she said. “I love the servants.”

There’s a lesson in there somewhere I imagine, but I’m staying away from it.

This clip came via Lindy West (one of 20 under 40!), so I can’t take credit for unearthing it. But because this is a dad-blog, the big-monster-came-and-took-him-to-daddy-heaven line in the clip below seems a good tribute to Leslie Nielsen. The native of Regina (rhymes with ‘vagina’), Saskatchewan–a member of Canada’s Walk of Fame and would-be star of Lipshitz Saves the World (Who’s the Shitz, He’s the Shitz)—died yesterday at 84.

Godspeed, Saskatchewanian.

See you on Monday, folks. Gobble, gobble.

What in the hell kind of term is premature potty training? What kind of sadist thinks this stuff up in reference to boys? Are they trying to give the kids a fricking complex?

I came across this wonderfully ridiculous bit of kiddie jargon at Cafe Mom, a blog that makes more money than DadWagon. From a post entitled, “Kids Aren’t Dogs: Don’t Let Them Pee in Public”:

We’re still in diapers and, admittedly, I haven’t put much time, thought, or effort into potty training my 22-month-old. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about here, but seriously … isn’t it just a bit uncouth to lean your recently potty-trained toddler over curbs, shrubbery, and boutique shoe stores to pee? Yes, public peeing.

They’re toddlers, not street vagrants or dogs. What’s with this public urination trend that’s taking over my city? I’ve even seen some parents cradling their kids’ butts in such a way that they can poop in public!

Color me scandalized. I mean, why bring a plastic baggie when you could just bring an extra pair of pants?

Perhaps I’m a bit Victorian in my child-rearing, but I believe a good accident can go a long way in teaching proper elimination dos and don’ts and testing your child’s readiness for the responsibilities of a diaper-free lifestyle. I believe this whole public elimination thing is a result of premature potty training.

Gack! First, I’d like to point out that if you start a post by saying you don’t know what you’re talking about, you probably don’t. Not that I mean that too strongly–given that bit of writerly logic we wouldn’t have an internet. But it’s something to bear in mind.

But back to premature potty training. I don’t really understand this. Isn’t the trend in the other direction? Aren’t we keeping kids in diapers longer than we used to? According to my mother, both my brother and I were free and easy—and peeing in the park!—by age 2. JP was tenaciously clinging to his diaper past 3, and still needs a pull-up at night (any suggestions on how to break him of that would be greatly appreciated). I know some girls in JP’s cohort who are potty trained by 2, but mostly 3 is the new 2, no?

Let’s put that aside for the moment and address the post… uh, fuck that. Let’s make fun of the way the woman posting this apologizes for potentially being too Victorian… while writing about elimination… and referring to homeless people as street vagrants… and equating them with dogs!

Classic! She’s right, of course… It is Victorian to describe natural bodily functions as animalistic tendencies best supressed.

Query: What the fuck is a good accident? What is she talking about? Isn’t the idea to avoid accidents but if they happen not to make too much of them? Is she really suggesting shaming as a form of potty training… in reverse? Anti-potty training as in support of social decorum? Holy shit, I LOVE THIS WOMAN!

Last, and to be very clear, it kinda irks me when I see kids letting it fly in the park. But, hey, they’re kids, and when they gotta go, they let it flow (rhyming!). JP doesn’t it do it, and if he has to go in public I find a bathroom for him. It hasn’t really been an issue with him, though, as he’s pretty capable of holding it. But if he really had to and I had no other choice, I wouldn’t have him go in his pants to protect someone else’s feelings.

One of the interesting notions in this sort of post, and in the responses to it at the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, which is where I found it, is that parents are supposedly expressing a sense of entitlement by letting their children urinate in public. I don’t understand that. Parenting, at least in NYC, doesn’t strike me as a way to development entitlement. Everything here is stacked against you: schools, transportation, shopping, expenses—hell, the dogs, who we shouldn’t be allowing our children to emulate, have it better in this town. Everywhere is a bathroom for them.

Frankly, if I have a sense of entitlement, I would like someone to demonstrate what exactly I am getting for it. What are the benefits that redound to me as a parent? The fact that you might get your toes scraped by my stroller on a crowded sidewalk? That my kid might kick your chair on an airplane? Is that it? That’s all I get?