For those out there who may wonder why a majority of DadWagon writers married partly or fully Asian women, let me now reveal the true reason. Asian women are, on average, smaller than Caucasian women, and we were just dreaming of glory in the Latvian wife-carrying Olympics.
Diddy (formerly Puffy, formerly Puff Daddy, formerly P. Diddy, formerly various other names) bought his kid a Maybach for a sixteenth-birthday present. List price is $360,000, though given the amount of press he’s getting, and given that it’ll pop up on an MTV show shortly, I wonder if he paid anything for it.
Of course this is a terrible idea–most kids wreck a car in their new-license days, and it’d be a shame to see this thing wrapped around a tree. (Unless the kid gets a driver in this deal?) But I refuse to argue against this birthday gift on children-are-starving-in-Africa grounds, or even he-didn’t-work-for-it grounds. If you live in a getting-and-spending culture (as I certainly do, and virtually every American does, except for a few scattered off-the-grid Kaczynski folks), then you can’t say that Diddy is crossing some invisible line of too-much-ness. Yes, the kid probably has a bent sense of values and a shortage of inner life; he was going to be that way from the get-go, given his upbringing, and only if he happens to become a certain type of thinking adult will he ever discover that. Odds are, he won’t. Crazy birthday presents are just the visible details.
The problem here is not excessive spending; the problem, such as it is, is being vulgar about it, and all that distinguishes vulgarity from actual elegance is a set of invisible class signifiers that function as secret handshakes. (You’re allowed to buy a massively expensive car, but add some chrome hubcaps and suddenly you’re Not Doing It Right.) It’s why arrivistes wear Oxfords with giant Ralph Lauren logos but old preppies get their shirts, sans trademark, at Brooks Brothers. The latter can be spotted by its cut and the roll of the collar, and you have to know what to look for, whereas the former is obviously spendy. Either way, it’s a brand name, just a more subtle one. I say, if we’re going to live this way–and I ruefully admire his lack of self-consciousness about the details of how he’ll be perceived–we have to just let the kid enjoy his awesome wheels.
Though it definitely screws up the curve for most of us in the birthday-present game. Fortunately, my wife and I have an out: we have no car, so we can’t very well be expected to buy our son one. He’s welcome to his very own MetroCard when he turns 16, though. That, and the sense of moral superiority that goes with it: It’s not that we’re broke, it’s that we’re pro-mass-transit, even when it’s a huge pain.
(Gabe Soria is joining DadWagon as a guest contributor this week, thereby breaking the delicate balance between Brooklynites and Manhattanites on this blog. Gabe is a Brooklynite; judge him accordingly. You can read more about him here.)
My son doesn’t look like me.
No, scratch that. He actually DOES look like me, but in subtle ways. His nose is pure Bingham, straight from Jackson, MS, and Bogalusa, LA. He carries himself like a miniature version of yours truly. He’s got brown eyes. But there’s one crucial difference between me and him – I’m dusky brown, a straight-up mixture of my Mexican dad and my Black mom. My boy? Not so much as a single kinky hair. The boy is WHITE. He tans well, though.
This is a downside to interracial parenting that you don’t often hear about. Oftentimes I get the feeling that… well, that we’re being watched. Most other mixed-race kids, you can just tell right off the bat that the dreadlocked brother is their dad. Their golden mocha complexion, that slightly nappy ‘fro… yep, that’s homeboy’s kid. That beatific little kind-of Asian girl walking around with the Nordic blonde? Her daughter, no doubt. My boy? Well, our relationship can be mysterious to the uninitiated, and since we spend so much time together, just the two of us, it sometimes leads to… awkward situations.
Case in point: A couple of weeks ago, the boy and I are riding the train back to Brooklyn from city, enjoying the slow creep of the Q as it makes its way over the Manhattan bridge. Near us there’s a slightly confused, maybe slightly crazy older white woman, trying to figure out how to travel back to the island. She’s twitchy, with a touch of an Eastern European accent. Naturally, she sits near us. And starts checking me and the boy out with interest. He eyes narrow.
“Are you babysitting?!”
I look at the boy, then back at the lady.
“Well, kind of. I’m his dad.”
“Very handsome boy.”
“Thank you.” (And it’s true. The boy’s pretty good-looking.)
She stares at us again, winding up, and finally…
“Your wife… is she white?!”
I glance around and can see other folks have heard the question. They’re either about to crack up or die of embarrassment. Sighing, I point at the boy and respond to the lady.
“What do YOU think?”
Dry Tortugas only played an indirect role on the Wagon this week, but it sure is funny to say out loud. Go ahead and try it. You’ll laugh, I promise. Don’t worry, I’ll wait…there–don’t you feel better? Refreshed?
On to blogging.
First, there was Warren, our trusty LA guest-blogger, who really should stop thinking about his wife as his mother. I don’t care how good looking she is–that’s wrong. In all seriousness, Warren, someone really should be paying you to write things this good. It just isn’t going to be us.
Speaking of guests, it felt as if some of our contributors decided this week to become them. Christopher popped in briefly, showing his face with a post complaining about having to leave his apartment with his child, and another wondering why the Times hates text messaging when he loves it so much (it allows him to ignore his wife and child simultaneously).
Matt went off somewhere tropical, returned to New York City, and was greeted by his wife like a traveling salesman. Maybe he should move to Sweden where he can wear an Ikea-electronic-baby Bjorn-while-hunting-and-penning-food stories. That might make him feel like a man.
And Nathan? It’s all lesbians, dick injuries, and DRY TORTUGAS!!!!!. Write when you learn how, brother.
Typical week for me, though–child molestation paranoia, work avoidance, bulletproof babies, and fine art.
See you on Monday, folks.
