DADWAGON

City Mouse and Country Mouse: that’s how my friend Kevin put the differences between my son and his (both are closing in on two years old) when we visited them over the weekend in their beautiful little town on Tomales Bay in Northern California.

I had commented on our cultural differences before after our last visit. I was particularly concerned because my son Nico seemed terrified… of grass. Seriously. Their yard is pretty well maintained, and the lawn is hardly feral at six inches high. But that’s a lot higher than our green-suited friends keep the grass in Central Park. And judging by his response, Nico seemed to think the lawn might swallow him whole.

Unlike me, my kids don’t pretend to be anything other than city kids. When we went camping along the Appalachian Trail last year with the same family, Dalia–then 3 years old–woke up, walked out of her tent and smiled: “let’s go for a walk around the block!” This delighted the assorted Virginians, of course, because that’s exactly the kind of rube-ness they frequently get accused of.

But there’s more than just kids saying the darndest things. As the woman who married me pointed out on the drive down to LA yesterday, traveling is important in part because it reminds us of other ways of living, other lives we might be leading. We never intended to be New Yorkers. My wife, despite not being white, had a dream to own a horse and live an upscale ranch life straight out of a J. Crew catalog. I had a dream to raise my kids, as two generations before me have done, on the sun-blasted rock known as Key West. It was a dream that involved a lot more weed and noontime beer than currently populates my life.

So we got a little misty about the idea of living rural this weekend. We went to beaches. We breathed some remarkably fresh ocean air. I nearly rented a board and got surfing again. Who needs rats the size of kittens, gray snowbanks pocked with mastiff turds, screeching killer subway cars?

Besides, don’t country mice turn out haler and more grounded? Perhaps. Kevin is a stay-at-home dad these days, and an incredible one at that. He used to work with horses, and you can tell he’s a kid-whisperer too. He took Dalia through the ice plant to pick the purple flowers. He helped Nico climb a sandstone rock. If this were a democracy, my kids might have voted him Dad at the end of the weekend.

But not every small-town kid has a Kevin. On our long drive, we stopped for pizza in Paso Robles, a lovely California town, with aggie roots and a boost from wine dollars. But as we were leaving the pizzeria, I had to wait for a very long time in line at the restroom for a young junkie to finish doing his thing (to all our junkie/former junkie readers, can someone tell me why it takes so very, very long–do you have to wait out the whole frigging high in the can?).

Instantly, I remembered something I had forgotten this weekend: some of the most desperate souls I’ve ever known have been country mice. City mice aren’t the only ones with problems.

And the opposite is also true: Raise ’em right, and good things could happen (though they don’t always). That’s true no matter where you are.

Enlightening article in the Times last week about the wonderful–and crazy lucrative–world of Mommy Blogging. “Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand,” is a classic example of reportorial undermining. Starts out like a boring little trend piece (thank you, Chris–I can’t get them out of my head now): loads of Moms are blogging, venturing out into the “blogosphere,” sharing feelings, dishing dirt, being sensitive, and generally making the world safe for anxious maternalism. God that’s boring.

But, wait, there’s more! You see, the article isn’t really about the advent of parental blogging at all. It’s really about evil mothers forgoing writing to make a quick Internet buckaroo:

Last summer, one blogger organized a weeklong public relations blackout in which bloggers were urged to eschew contests, product reviews and giveaways and instead get “back to basics” by writing about their lives. Another blogger replied that she couldn’t do so because the blackout fell the week of her daughter’s first birthday party, which she was promoting on her blog. With sponsors and giveaways.

Horrors! Don’t these women know the first rule of journalism, either in print or on the Web: Thou Shalt Make No Dough.

I mean, come on. What became of the Mommy Blogger’s sense of isolation, cynicism, and total rejection by mainstream culture? Who knows–maybe she lost it here:

According to eMarketer, advertising on blogs will top $746 million by 2012, more than twice the figure for 2007. There are perks, too. In just the last month alone, popular mommy bloggers have been sent to the Olympics, courtesy of Procter & Gamble, and to the Oscars, courtesy of Kodak; and road-tripped to Disney World in a Chevy Traverse, courtesy of G. M. Canada, to help raise awareness about Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy.

For those of you who think I’m just jealous of these successful women-bloggers, you’re right. Point me in the direction of the Internet gravy train, and I will be a considerably happier man. Why, you ask? Isn’t just finding an honorable forum in which to express my deepest feelings (and put out my best bad jokes) enough?

No.

Or to borrow a line from Robert Townsend, inventor of the Winky Dinky Dog, and famed director of The Hollywood Shuffle: “Ho’ gotta eat too.”

Getting ready for bathtime tonight, and I set down my son just outside the bathroom door as I prepped the tub. Once it had filled, I bent over to turn off the tap, then stepped back to regain my balance. What I didn’t know was that my tiny son had silently crawled up behind me, so he could grab hold of my leg and pull himself up. And as I stepped backward, I felt a dull thud against my heel, and then a moment’s silence and a loud cry.

That’s right, people. I kicked my baby in the face.

Okay, little guy, here’s my penance. At some point, deep in the future, when you’re 10 or 12 or 15 years old, you will be poking around the Internet, presumably on the flat-panel eight-foot Minority Report screen that we’ll all own by then. You will, using the GoogleMicrosoftNewsCorp 3-D megasearch engine, run across the archives of this site called Dadwagon, long since absorbed into (and likely run into the ground by) a giant media conglomerate. And you, my son, will read this very post, and head into the bedroom to find my collapsed and weary self, and ask, “Did you really kick me in the face when I was an infant, Dad?”

At that point, son, you are granted one clean father-vanquishing sucker-punch. No questions asked.