DADWAGON

So, true story: I know these parents who have a teenage girl who racked about a $1,000 cell phone bill—all to one number! And when the curious parents dialed the number to see who it was, it was some “Yo yo, wassup!” type of loser. Who, once the parents hacked their daughter’s Facebook account, turned out to be her boyfriend, whom she’d kept secret for weeks. Can you believe?!?

Well, I don’t need you to believe, just to suspend your disbelief for an hour or so every Tuesday night, when a mildly idiotic dramedy called “Parenthood”—whose most recent episode contained the “cell phone & secret boyfriend” subplot—airs on NBC.

I’d been meaning to watch “Parenthood,” which is loosely based on the 1989 movie starring Steve Martin and Dianne Wiest, for some time now, but since it usually runs opposite “Lost,” and since I kept forgetting I could watch it on Hulu, I didn’t get to catch an episode until Saturday, when NBC was showing it to people who don’t get out on weekend nights—i.e., parents like me.

The premise is complicated: “Parenthood” follows the travails of the extended Braverman clan—paterfamilias Zeek (Craig T. Nelson), his wife, Camille (Bonnie Bedelia), and four or so adult children in their 30s (Peter Krause, Erika Christensen, Dax Shepard) who have their own kids crotchfruit as well. They all live together in the Braverman family compound, several million dollars’ worth of acreage in Berkeley, California. And, you know, they just try to survive.

Among many, many plot points: Adam (Krause), the eldest son, is beset by responsibility and trying to keep his temper under control, none of which is made easier by his son Max being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. There’s Sarah (Lauren Graham), who’s broke, divorced from a rock star with a drug habit, has two rebellious teenagers, and has just moved back in with her family. And there’s Julia (Christensen), a driven lawyer who worries that her daughter prefers her SAHD husband.

And actually, those aren’t even plot points—just the background material. Every week, tons of shit happens: Sarah hooks up with an old flame, her brother Crosby (Dax Shepard) finds out he’s the father of a 5-year-old boy, and Julia and her hubby attempt to have a date night.

Is it any good? Of course not, but not for the reasons you might be thinking. Yes, it’s annoyingly modern, with references to Facebook and bong hits and lots of people talking on cell phones all the time. And yes, the actors are all just awful, particularly Peter Krause, who seems not to have shed the beatific-idiot look he mastered on “Six Feet Under.”

What I really hate about “Parenthood” is just that so much happens on the show. As I’ve learned over the past few months of blogging about my life as a father, parenthood is often quite—well, not boring exactly, but not exciting either. You don’t have an entertaining crisis every week, let alone enough TV-worthy events to fill a Bay Area family compound. Mostly, you’re just trying to get through every day, and hoping that actually nothing unusual will happen at all, that the kid will take her bath and eat her dinner and go to sleep at the appointed hour without discovering a new way to turn all of your lives upside-down.

I know, I know: Who expects reality from TV? Not me, certainly, but there is one thing I do want—when you name your NBC family “Braverman,” aren’t they supposed to be fucking Jewish? Hello, NBC?

I just came across this intriguing post over at Trix and her Kids, a mother’s defense of her boy in school. One bit grabbed me in particular:

I have issues with the all female staff at the school not taking the time to learn how to deal with the over-active boys, because they are too busy coddling the girls. Maybe that’s harsh. Perhaps they aren’t coddling the girls, maybe they are just more in tune to how they learn.

It’s a side of the issue I haven’t really thought about in, say, 30 years, since this time around, my older kid–the one who is in preschool–is a girl. And from our perspective now, it’s the boys who are the disruptors, the pushers and the pishers.

And who knows–Trix and her hubby are standout parent-bloggers, but I don’t know them or their kids. Maybe their boys are little terrors. Maybe not. But she’s got a great point about the teachers: they’re almost all women. That’s as true at my daughter’s boutique-y Upper West Side school as it was at the preschool I went to in Florida. The 2004 numbers released by the census showed that 79% of all elementary and middle school teachers were women. Early childhood education is likewise dominated by female teachers, and yet, as Trix pointed out, that’s the time that boys are least able to deal with their emotions, and possibly least suited for a classroom environment.

Now, I know that teachers are professionals. They can overcome their own gender in the same way that I, an apostate, can write about evangelicals from time to time. And I know there’s a bit of a vicious irony questioning women for being teachers, when historically that’s all they were allowed to do (and even today, with the way the U.S. pits career against family, teaching’s attractiveness to women is due in part to factors beyond their control). But with all the studies showing that boys get behind early in school and stay behind, it’s an important question to ask: Are boys just misunderstood? Is teacher gender part of the problem?

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

Last Friday I sat down at my desk and wrote out a few checks. Actually, a lot of checks. Or rather, a few checks that added up to more than I’ve ever disbursed at one time. To be really, really specific, I paid out roughly $13,000—some of it to the government, most of it to a retirement account (so that it won’t go to the gubmint). And, of course, my accountant, the renowned Ronald MacDonald (yes, Ronald MacDonald), got a bit of it—which I’ll deduct come March 2011.

As much as it hurt, I felt weirdly proud. For one, while this gargantuan payment hurt, it won’t break me. I’ll have enough left in the bank to buy groceries for a month or two, but I may have to change my drinking strategy. Second, it’s evidence of my independence, which at the age of 35 should already be clearly established, but somehow always feels in doubt. If I was desperate, there would be people to ask—my wife, my parents, the people streaming out of the Bergen Street F-train stop at 6 p.m. But I didn’t have to—I’m my own man, at least for the remainder of 2010.

I also, of course, have to thank Sasha. Without her, we would’ve been hit harder. How much, I can’t really say (though I’m sure Ronald MacDonald knows). I love the fact that just having a kid gets you a deduction, now matter how late in the year the kid was born. Sasha arrived in December 2008, which was good for our balance sheet. (I pity parents of kids born January 1st!) If I were a bit more technically minded, I might work out exactly how much she’s saved us versus how much she cost us, but I know the ultimate answer: Cute as she is, my daughter is a lousy short-term investment.

If things were different, though, Sasha might make better economic sense. Take child care, for instance. This year, despite having paid thousands and thousands of dollars to various nannies, we can’t deduct any of it, since [explanation deleted for fear of incurring the wrath of the IRS]. Next year we may be better off, although the maximum child care credit we can claim is $3,000, which is only about a quarter of her annual tuition. Yes, we neglected to put a bundle in our Flexible Spending Account, a mistake we’ll remedy in 2011, but even that maxes out at $5,000.

Should things be different? Um, sure, why not! I’d love to deduct Bugaboo maintenance, shredded-book repair, educational field trips to the local bar, and the alarmingly high percentage of food that lands not in Sasha’s mouth but on the floor. Add that all up and the government would owe us money. Awesome.

Seriously, there are good reasons the government should do everything it can to offer families at all economic levels (and especially the lowest) as many kid-related rebates, deductions and tax credits as possible.

First, I’ll address the liberal side of our readership: Actually, there’s nothing to tell you here, since you already agree with me. Oh, but maybe you’ve only recently been indoctrinated? So let me clue you in: Families should get tax breaks because, you know, kids are cute, and organic groceries, bilingual preschools, and non-constricting baby-slings are hella expensive.

Now, the conservatives: If the government makes it too financially difficult, taxpayers will have fewer kids. Which means we’ll end up with a labor shortage, which means we’ll have to import more immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, and those immigrants WILL have kids, especially because there’s no way you’ll let the government provide family-planning advice in English, let alone in Mexican or whatever those people speak. In other words, make having children economically desirable and you take care of a host of other related issues.

Finally, people in the child-free movement: One day you will be old, and dependent on the care of younger people who aren’t related to you. If those people grew up poor because of a punitive tax scheme (okay, a not-friendly-enough tax scheme), who knows what they’ll put in your Metamucil, or whatever it is that old people eat?

You know, I just realized something. As a dadblogger, I should be able to deduct all associated business expenses, which pretty much covers … everything Sasha-related! Oh, wait, except first this blogging thing would have to make some money. Maybe next year…

It’s Spring! And its arrival did perk up the Dadwagoners, with the promise of warm weather, flowers, and babies (though we already have the latter).

Enticed by the bright candy colors (both of the store and of SoCal in general) Nathan reconsidered his longstanding anti-Bugaboo position. He spent way too much time watching the indeterminately creepy cuteness of My Milk Toof.   (Then again, he also found a video devoted to face-kicking, and not my own benign everyday kind, either.) Maybe it was the promise of universal health care that made him so chipper. That, or the fact that he’s eating pretty well.

Theodore, too, seemed to be enjoying himself: talking pre-K basketball, mocking his pickled Dadwagon colleague, and attempting to remind us all of quite how icky Michael Jackson was. That last one, especially, should count as a public service. I’d say Ted deserves a better meal than he’s been getting.

Speaking of a guy who’s eating well: Matt, this week, admitted that he’s fed up with restaurants in general (strange for a travel-and-food writer to say that, but I won’t tell your editor, man) and settled down in front of the TV to veg out–not long before he actually appeared on said TV.  (Oh, and by the way: Japanese robot babies! It has nothing to do with anything else I’m saying here, but I just like saying: Japanese robot babies!)

That leaves me, and I guess I’m the odd man out, because I was a total grump. Don’t go out to eat. Remember the war dead. And if you want to have a kid, don’t come crying to me about it.

We’ll be back Monday, when (one hopes) my mood catches up to everyone else’s.