A Dangerous Declaration

Lately, things have been easy.

There, I said it. After almost two years of taking care of Sasha—changing diapers, feeding, playing, you know, the whole enchilada—we’ve really settled into a good rhythm. Up at 6:45 without too much trouble, diaper change, bottle of milk, getting dressed, hugs and kisses and she’s off to preschool with her mom. I work all day, bike over the Manhattan Bridge to pick her up at 5:30, she points out some orange lights and the water of the East River, and when we get back into our neighborhood we sing the alphabet song or “Old MacDonald.” Playtime, bath, a little “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and then we brush teeth, read some books, and put Sasha to bed. It’s all so… normal.

I’m not saying there aren’t hiccups. Yesterday, on the way home, Sasha and I stopped to buy groceries for dinner, and she refused to get back on the bike. Frustrating, but eventually I got her in. What I’m saying is that these hiccups are just hiccups. They don’t make me question my ability to effectively parent, or drive me nuts with repressed rage.

Perhaps this is because I have never really had a daily rhythm in my life. I’ve spent most of the past 36 years improvising every single day, with virtually no set times for anything. I slept late, stayed up late, lived randomly. Constant travel doesn’t exactly regularie things. Now I’m getting up before 7 most days (sometimes, if Jean is feeling kind, I doze till 7:30), and it feels natural. I might even say I like it.

But I don’t count on it to continue forever. Sasha will get difficult again, and make us feel like we’re powerless to shape her personality and secure her future. And then that 6:45 wake-up will come to feel like a burden—a hiccup that won’t go away. But till then I’m trying to enjoy this strange and pleasant equilibrium. I just hope Sasha enjoys it too.

File Under: No Shit, Sherlock

From Melanie Kite of the London Spectator:

For those of us who don’t do it, parenting is a bit of a mystery. A strange, magical, glamorous mystery that we imagine is bedevilled by all sorts of complex and exciting challenges. What a mind-blowing experience it must be to manufacture another human being and steer him into the world, we think.

Which is why it was such a disappointment looking after a friend’s teenager for a week. I now realise that parenting involves only two things: persuading a child to eat and persuading a child to put on a coat. That’s it. There is nothing else involved. Which is not to say that it is a simple matter. Oh, no. I have discovered that there are few things more challenging, exhausting or dispiriting than trying to force another human being to put food in his mouth and a coat on his back. I have discovered that hell hath no fury like a young person who does not want to eat or wear a coat.

I have sat locked in the loo weeping in near suicidal despair during particularly savage bouts of eating and coat refusal. How do parents put up with this? I take my hat off to them for fighting this war of attrition for years. I’ve done it for seven days and I’m a basket case.

She forgot ass-wiping. As someone with a newborn, I can tell you, it’s largely about cleaning butt.

On the Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure

Almost as soon as the controversy began, it ended… with Amazon’s apparent capitulation. The controversy, of course, is about the bluntly named Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct by Philip R. Greaves II, which as fellow dad-blogger Ron Mattocks pointed out when he tipped us to it, had risen to #97 in Kindle sales, just above the Bible.

I would like to think that he didn’t just point it out to us because we are pederasts or because many of you fine readers only find our site through Googling child sex acts (for the record, we use lots of foul language, but this is a non-sexual, barely deviant blog, ok?)

There’s plenty to say about Mr. Greaves’ completely bizarre quest to show the orderly side of pedophilia, and more yet to say about the difficulties of censorship. But for now, because I have a parade to catch and some veterans to thank, I would like to say this: don’t gloat too much.

It may be a good thing that the blogosphere reared up on its hindlegs and showed some fang over this book. The backlash over the title had the desired effect on Amazon. But before everyone gives each other high-fives, remember that child abuse is primarily not learned from books. It is not the invention of anonymous Internet predators. It predates the Kindle by about 10,000 years, give or take.

What child abuse is: a crime of cowards, usually known to their victims, usually part of the family circle. A father, stepfather, boyfriend of the aunt. And that means that child abuse has to be combatted, really, the way Israel protects its airplanes. You can’t ban every book or shutter every NAMBLA meetup, just as Israel can’t stop every bomb from being assembled in some apartment somewhere. But you can do what their airport security does: interrogate. Get to know the men (and women) who will have time with your children alone. And teach your children to be their own best defenders. Let them know they always can say no, that they can always talk about anything with you, their parent.

You can’t keep Philip R. Greaves II and people like him off the Internet. But you can keep them out of your lives.

Bad Dads We Love: Pothead Edition

Partly because I’m a bit hungover, this appeals to me: An expectant dad somewhere in western Pennsylvania—okay, Fayette County, wherever that is—lit up a joint in the hospital smoking room. To celebrate or something. As Sasha has started saying, “Oh my God!” Quoth the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Uniontown police Sgt. Jonathan Grabiak said a Uniontown Hospital nurse noticed the distinctive odor of marijuana when she took a cigarette break in the facility’s designated smoking area early Tuesday morning. … Grabiak said both men had glassy eyes. One of the men admitted to smoking marijuana in the shed while awaiting the birth of his child.

“I’m having a baby and wanted to get a buzz,” the man told Grabiak.

Anyway, good for him. Cigars are disgusting, and getting drunk is inappropriate and leads to hangovers. Oh my god.

Alas, the paper declines to name said fellow, who we’d definitely interview if we could. Anyone got a lead? Or an Advil?