DADWAGON

With Thanksgiving just a day away and the whole gift-giving holidaymukas shebang rapidly encroaching approaching, I feel its necessary to give thanks where thanks are due. And so, to the Disney Corporation, I offer my most heartfelt gratitude. Why?

Because Disney is killing off the princess:

The studio’s Wednesday release of “Tangled,” a contemporary retelling of the Rapunzel story, will be the last fairy tale produced by Disney’s animation group for the foreseeable future.

“Films and genres do run a course,” said Pixar Animation Studios chief Ed Catmull, who along with director John Lasseter oversees Disney Animation. “They may come back later because someone has a fresh take on it … but we don’t have any other musicals or fairy tales lined up.” Indeed, Catmull and Lasseter killed two other fairy tale movies that had been in development, “The Snow Queen” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Wow. I mean, wow! Just in time, too. At 2 years of age, Sasha is almost ready to start demanding to watch full-on movies, and surely Disney’s princesses would’ve starred in many of them. Ariel, Belle, Snow White or whatever her name was—all would’ve surrounded me for the next decade at least. Now, though, I—and all of you with highly suggestible daughters—have been granted a reprieve.

Of course, this does nothing for the back catalog, nor does it wipe Barbie and her ilk from the shelves of Toys R Us, nor will it stop my wife, Jean, from occasionally dressing Sasha up in princess clothes purely because she herself wasn’t allowed to wear her own princess dresses as a child.

But it’s a first step, and maybe a sign? That our culture is changing? That kids—girls and boys alike—are ready to move on from the rigidly stereotypical roles and games that Big Media has prescribed for them for decades? In any case, if my thanking Disney with a big ol’ hug-and-kiss will help stave off the inevitable, then:

XOXOXO,

—Matt

By and large I’m gonna say, Hanna Rosin notwithstanding, that it’s still a pretty good deal being an hombre, even if we have to undergo certain fundamental religious procedures to ensure hygiene (while potentially losing sensitivity).

Yet from time to time here at DadWagon we seem to position ourselves as an aggrieved minority: no one cares about fathers; women rule the household like tyrants; men don’t get equal bonding leave; blah, blah, blah.

We know it’s not true. Men still have it easy. We still get to get drunk with our babies more than the ladies; we still get to punk out on household chore; we still get to have toys the ladies and the children aren’t allowed to touch. And you know what else?

WE DON’T HAVE TO JOIN MOMMY GROUPS. Thank god for that. I wonder who thought this whole practice up? It strikes me as more than slightly insane. Consider: women with newborns, hard up for sleep, neurotic over breastfeeding, in full panic about diaper rash, gather together in cafes to speak ill of their male partners. Fun!

Worse, it seems to bring out the part of the female personality that concerns itself with disliking other women. Tomoko’s stories about getting involved in a mother’s group sound like case studies in passive aggression, tribal resentment, and bald-faced, feeding-bra-ed, cut-throat competition.

If all the mothers in a mommy’s group hate all of the other mothers in the mommy’s group, why then is there a mommy’s group?

Riddle me that friends. Riddle me that.

Listen, I grew up riding my bike in NYC and back then (we’re talking the 70s and 80s, you whippersnappers) we didn’t have friggin’ bike lanes. We rolled the dice and took our damn chances. Beyond a broken thumb and a few dented car doors along the way, I never had a serious problem. It was more a matter of remembering my place in the greater food chain: The New York City street – like it or not – is ultimately the domain of the unpredictable and easily-riled automobile. Bicyclists are guests there, and should behave accordingly.
Fast forward a couple of decades and now we have bike lanes girdling Manhattan every which way you look. While I applaud the idea behind them, bike lanes have given rise to a new breed of urban traveler: The obstreperously entitled bicyclist. Now that they have their lanes, these snippy d-bags seem to believe that all traffic must dutifully clear their path with all haste — whether or not they themselves are moving with the traffic or against it.

I don’t actually own a car (I live in Manhattan … why would I?), but every now and again, we’ll rent one and leave the city. As fate has had it, there is now a bike lane that cuts down my very street, hugging the left hand side of the road (the right being reserved for busses, fire engines and the like). The problem here is that when I’m pulling around in my car to load or unload my kids, I have no other choice than to pull up close to the curb, thereby impeding the bike lane. There are no other options. Without fail when doing so, I am routinely accosted by one uptight pedal-pusher or another, intent on scolding me for blocking the bike lane. Being that my go-to instincts lean towards sarcasm and needless antagonism (as opposed to calmly making my case and pointing out the obvious limitations of the road), the confrontations usually get ugly quickly.

Okay, so you have your bike lanes now. Bully for you. Use them wisely. But having bike lanes doesn’t relieve you from using your basic street smarts and exercising some caution and consideration. The bike lanes are a privilege, not a Divine Right.

Just over seven months ago, Sasha sat for a set of class photos that, at the time, I deemed horrific:

Now, Sasha’s a pretty photogenic kid, but in these images, with their cheaply greenscreened backgrounds, she looks awful. Uncomfortable, awkward, unhappy. … Oh god, and her hair!

Well, the photographer her school inexplicably keeps hiring has done it again! It’s not so much the miserable expression on Sasha’s face—no one can keep her from looking like that—but the truly amateurish greenscreening of the backgrounds. What’s awesome is that Sasha’s dress had green elements in it, so the backgrounds get blended into her body as well. Wow. Next time we’re definitely dressing her in green, head to toe.

At least this time her hair’s not so awful.