DADWAGON

One day last week, Sasha and I got a ride home from her preschool, thanks to one of the other fathers, the Shanghai-born father of Sasha’s classmate Caterina. While it was very nice not to have to brave the subway that day, it was surprising to hear the reason the other dad gave for driving into Manhattan from Brooklyn every day and parking at a not-inexpensive lot: kidnapping.

Or rather, the fear of kidnapping. But not his fear—it was his parents, both from Shanghai, who worried that Caterina might be snatched away on the F train home. Because, of course, that kind of thing happens all the time.

In the movies.

I’ve written here before about all the many reasons parents should just chill out about such things, but today I happened on an NPR story listing the top 5 things parents shouldn’t worry about. Kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers, and drugs are pointless wastes of your anxious brainpower, people!

But the article doesn’t stop there. No, it goes on to list the ways most children die—i.e., the things we should worry about:

1. Car accidents
2. Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
3. Abuse
4. Suicide
5. Drowning

So, hm. This isn’t good. In the past month, I’ve taken Sasha in a car (the Shanghai dad’s!) without a carseat, brought her to an un-lifeguarded lake, let her play with dangly necklaces and long computer cables, and maybe even slapped her (lightly) on the wrist when she was being naughty.

But at least she hasn’t spent any time lately with our murderous ‘wagoneer Nathan, a.k.a. “a person who knows the child.” See Sasha? Daddy loves you!

So, perhaps our loyal DadWagon readers thought that now, with the NYC school year underway, that the Universal Pre-K bitching was finally at end, one way or another. Please, I would hope you folks know us better than that by now. We simply do not stop complaining here at DadWagon. We like to complain. We live to complain.

JP was officially rejected by his local public school in both rounds of lottery applications. I’m trying not to feel too bad. According to the New York Daily News, his school received 499 applications for just 36 spots. Combine those odds with the fact the lottery system is weighted towards children with siblings already in the school, and JP’s chances of getting in were basically non-existent.

To protect ourselves we enrolled JP in a local private preschool, which costs about $14,000 per year for four full days a week. We had to put down $1000 as a non-refundable deposit, along with another $3000 payment due yesterday, the first day of school. The only problem is that we are still on the waiting list at the public school. If not enough kids who were accepted at the public school register (their family moved, they decided to go to private school), then JP could conceivably still get in. What this meant was we showed up for the first day minus our check, and the good folks at the school were so kind as not to ask for it.

Then this morning another, closer, cheaper private pre-school where JP was on a wait list called and asked if were still interested in a spot. Presumably we will have to give them some non-refundable deposit money, which we are likely to do, given the location and the fact that it’s five days a week instead of four. Of course, we could lose this money, too, if the public school calls us and offers JP a spot. For those of you counting at home, that’s a potential couple thousand dollar loss at two schools that JP might never attend.

Someone please shoot me. Please.

Really, though, does it even need to be said? Do not allow people to hook your son up to a car battery and shock him until he turns straight.

Actor Glenn Shadix–whom I remembered as Seinfeld’s landlord and the intensely swish interior designer from Beetle Juice–died yesterday in Alabama. He was young, just 58, but old enough that when he had come out to his father in 1970, his dad told him straighten up or he wouldn’t be allowed to see his younger brothers and sisters. So he voluntarily signed up for electroshock aversion therapy, at the age of 17.

This did not end well. After the therapy, Shadix tried to kill himself using his (very moral) parents’ supply of uppers. He almost didn’t survive coming out.

They don’t use electroshock so much anymore for ex-gay therapy, but there’s no shortage of mentally and emotionally abusive programs out there dedicated to the proposition that you can “pray away the gay”. And gay teens are still killing themselves all over the country, just like Shadix tried to do.

My old Stranger colleague Sean Nelson pointed out this video of Shadix talking about his experience. The sound quality is lousy, but it’s worth a watch. It’s a quiet testimony, but an important one.