DADWAGON

Theodore just brought us word that diaper companies are starting to pay a bit more attention to the fact that dads, and not just moms, wipe shit off their kids’ butts. Now I want to ask a question not addressed by the Times article (written by my friend Andrew Adam “No, not that Andy Newman” Newman): Who makes diaper decisions at home, Mom or Dad?

Chez Gross, it’s definitely Jean, but not because I meekly demur to her wishes or because I can’t be bothered to do research. It’s because we started on Pampers, they fit well, and why should we change now? We’re lazy consumers in this case—which also means we’re ripe for being marketed to. But where are the ads persuading us to switch brands or upgrade our standards?

At best, the diaper industry improves its urine-and-fecal-matter-absorbing technology à la Dry Max, annoying some easily annoyed parents. At worst, we get faux-denim piss rags (seriously, that’s what they’re called in Chinese: niao bu) that annoy absolutely everyone.

And how are these marketed? I’d argue it’s done in a fairly gender-neutral way—babies are shown toddling happily and drily around, proving the diapers not only perform their primary function but fit well to boot. Does that appeal to women more than men? I don’t think so, but I also don’t think it’s as effective as it could be. In other words, all diaper ads look about the same—Pampers and Huggies are as interchangeable as Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb. You pick one because it’s the one you always picked, not necessarily because it’s better.

If the companies started a marketing gender war, however, then think how much fun we could have! But what would truly branded-and-gendered piss rags look like? Are mothers more interested in looks? Would fathers prefer detailed tech specs? Again, I have no idea, so we’ll have to wait for the diaper-industrial complex to tell us.

Luckily, it’s June (the month of Father’s Day, in case you didn’t know), so the marketeers may actually be reading this post. That’s assuming they know how to read, of course.

As I think I proved with some degree of mathematical precision in my installment of this week’s Tantrum, men are still relevant. Except apparently when it comes to marketing for diapers, according to the Times:

Fathers are changing more diapers than ever, but you would never guess that while walking down the diaper aisle, where packages feature mothers but never fathers. … As Pampers pays more attention to fathers, it is in stark contrast to what the brand has done in the past — and much of what it is doing now. A “Dry Max Fact Sheet” handed out to the media at the recent Manhattan event, for instance, was heavily skewed toward mothers. “For Mom:” one passage comparing the product with its rival, Huggies, begins. “They are 20 percent thinner than Huggies Little Snugglers/Movers so mom can carry or store more of them within less space. She can also be confident that she is getting a hard-working diaper for the same great price.”

I can’t speak for my fellow DadWagoners, but I certainly changed my fair share of diapers when JP still wore them. Not that his mother would necessarily agree:

In a recent survey of parents by Pampers, 69 percent of men responded that they changed diapers as often their wives, while 11 percent said they did so even more often. Although men’s perceptions differ from women’s (only 31 percent of mothers said fathers split diaper duties equally, and just 4 percent said fathers did more).

Now, does this mean I want to have diapers marketed to me, in a manly sort of way? Well, yes, I might not mind. I’m thinking of a box of Pampers with dear old Dad—me, or someone who looks like me but more handsome—seated comfortably on the porcelain throne, sipping scotch or maybe a Mai Tai, reading the Wall Street Journal with superior confidence, while Junior, about nine months old, already accepted into Harvard, changes his own damn diaper.

Now that’s a medium whose message I could get behind (pun intended).

(This is the Tantrum, in which Dadwagon’s writers debate one question over the course of a week. For previous Tantrums, click here.)

Oh god, am I actually going to have to read this long, probably boring Atlantic article by Hanna Rosin, about the “End of Men”? Yes? Okay, wait a second while I check it out.

[Forty-five minutes pass.]

All right, I made it halfway through, with a bit of skimming. That certainly was longer than a blog post, wasn’t it? Perhaps the title of this Tantrum should be: Are long magazine articles still necessary? (Answer: Only if we’re getting paid to write them!)

Actually, that parenthetical just about sums up my feelings on the so-called “end of men,” too. Which is: Yeah, I’m optional, but so what?

Let me backtrack a minute and explain my domestic situation. My wife, Jean, has a very good job in the fashion industry. It is this job that pays the mortgage and provides us with health insurance. Unless the economy really collapses, she’ll remain at the company as long as she wants to. And, it might be worth mentioning, it’s a company where lots of women work, at all levels.

My work, however, is ill-paid and unstable. I write about food and travel, which sounds glamorous, but if you’re planning to have a home in New York and raise a family, it’s a pretty poor business to get into. That covers all writing, I suppose, but remember: I do food and travel—not exactly the journalistic core that keeps our democracy functioning. The life I’ve created for myself revolves around the things that are optional—fun, certainly, and to some degree economic factors, but in the end unnecessary—in our world. And that’s fine. As Haruki Murakami might say, being a travel writer is as essential a component of advanced capitalism as shoveling snow was for a slightly earlier version of our society.

And frankly, you wouldn’t want me to be important to the smooth functioning of America. I get bored easily, am incapable of asserting my authority, drink too much at lunch, and just can’t take anything too seriously. If women really want to run the show, I say let them. It’s much more fun for me to focus on what doesn’t matter in the slightest, and leave the tough decisions to them.

If my vague recollection of feminist history is correct (and it’s probably not), there was once a time when we dominant men tried to put down the women’s rights movement by telling chicks (that’s the appropriate term, right?) that they didn’t know how good they had it—getting to stay at home, indulging in leisure pursuits paid for by a man’s generous salary, joyfully raising children. At the time, it seemed chauvinistic, but now I think those Masters of the Universe may have had a point. Men, let’s embrace our new uselessness! Let’s let women take over (not that we could do anything to stop it, anyway), focus our efforts on our families and hobbies, write our little articles about going to Tunisia or wherever, and enjoy a new golden age of peace, prosperity, and farmers’ market produce.

Besides, if in the end we decide we don’t like our new beside-the-point status, we can always take the world over again. That’s what our big muscles are for, right, fellas?

Our son usually demands that five or six books to be read to him before bed, and I’m happy to oblige him. He comes up to me, hands me a book, smiles and giggles, and then turns around and parks himself in my lap. It’s just about as sweet as daddytime gets. Most of the time we work our way through the usual board-book canon: Sandra Boynton, Dr. Seuss, a staple by Al Perkins. A newish (and excellent) book called Gossie, which is apparently a hit with the under-3 set. And the mid-century classic Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd. I don’t remember whether I was enamored of that one as a toddler, but I know my kid brother was. And after a few weeks of regular readings, I have discovered something new about it.

It’s really bad.

Not bad in a dangerous way: It’s not racist or sexist or cruel in the ways that older children’s books can be. It’s merely shapeless and pointless and, after the second or third reading, stunningly dull. Brown’s much-praised voice is stodgy and stiff. Nothing happens. There’s no story; nothing opens up to provide that sense of delight you get toward the end of, say, The Cat in the Hat. The rhythm is, to be charitable, irregular. The text refers to objects in the illustrations that are barely visible because of the faux-primitive skewed perspective. (Even the line-editing is poor. Like that line about “a little toyhouse.” What’s a “toyhouse”? Is it a dollhouse? A toy that is shaped like a house? A place where you store toys?) I know it’s meant to help get children to sleep, but I don’t think it’s meant to do it via boring them until they nod off. I cannot believe we all pretend to like this book. (For what it’s worth, my kid seems bored by it, too.)

Even the author’s heir didn’t do so well.