DADWAGON

Via Annie at PhD in Parenting, the studious Canadian momblogger, we came to know this article about how the next UK election is shaping up as the Mumsnet election. That is, the women of Mumsnet, the leading momblog in the UK, will be the next soccer moms or values voters or teabaggers or whatever the “it” constituency is.

A few things worth pointing out here. First, as Annie noted, the article has a somewhat remarkable aside about how Mumsnet doesn’t accept advertising from McDonald’s or Nestle, or allow any formula or cosmetic surgery ads. That’s remarkable because in DadWagon’s brief experience as part of the parent-blogging crowd, it seems that there are many, many more bloggers who will gladly shill (yay #DisneyMoms!) than people who will take a principled stand. Not a coincidence: Annie is one of those who has taken such a stand, notably against #nestlefamily, whose acolytes would probably have no idea there is even such thing as a Nestle boycott without her ministry.

Of course, it must feel a bit like shouting into the wind. I don’t begrudge people trying to make a living, but I get the sense that for a free plane ticket to someplace warm and a swag bag or two, a fair number of mom- and dad-bloggers would start tweeting enthusiastically about being #GitmoMoms or #alQaedaDads.

Another point brought up in the article that’s worth a look: women have long had outsize influence in UK politics. Middle-aged, middle-class women especially vote in disproportionately high numbers. They do so because, depending on how they vote, their government might actually make a difference in their lives on issues of child care, child safety, maternity leave. It’s all different here in the States. Even in the golden era of Soccer Moms, much of their votes coalesced around social wedge issues. But who can blame them? Neither party offers a coherent platform that would make child care actually affordable, or mandate decent maternity leave. The GOP lacks that ambition, and the Dems lack the will. It doesn’t help anyone that political journalism largely remains the same as Michael Kelly described it in the early Clinton years, all about the image and not about the action.

One of the arguments used against the Nestle boycott (and presumably against Annie) is that mom- and dad-blogs should enjoy being courted by corporations like Nestle. It’s a sign of bloggers’ growing importance. But really, it’s not that impressive that corporations take us seriously as consumers. Despite the promises, a better Swiffer won’t change your life. But political power could. You need to take it to the next level.

So congratulations to Mumsnet for being the swing bloc in the next UK election. I just don’t think we’ll see anything like that happening on our side of the pond, not for a very long time. Mom- and dad-bloggers act too much like an Oprah audience looking under their chair for prizes to actually organize around issues. And Washington isn’t really giving them any choices anyway.

Ugh. Sign me up for #depresseddads. Maybe throw in a junket to Flint, Mich., and a swagbag full of generic dilaudid.

A very strange thing started happening once we sent Dalia to preschool for the first time last fall: she made friends. With the cool kids.

This is somewhat unprecedented. My family hasn’t had a serious brush with coolness since some long-ago relative was (allegedly) something of a mob lawyer in 1930’s Chicago. And even then, he was just the attorney for Cool, maybe more Kleinfeld than Carlito.

How can you tell when a 4-year-old girl is in with the cool crowd? Well, the parents of the other girls and boys in her set seem cooler than us. They are fashion designers and self-possessed civil rights lawyers and comely theater people.

Also, by consensus, there are some kids who are already consistently referred to as the “poo-poo-heads.” And Dalia is not among them. Which is a relief, because I recently Googled the boy (a friend of mine, of course) who was most often called poo-poo-head when I was growing up. I couldn’t find out much about him except that he’s got a tidy rap sheet of lesser criminal convictions. “Poo-poo-head” is real, and it is a major predictor of life outcomes.

Another sign that Dalia may be part of the cool crowd is that she has mastered, at such a tender age, the sort of icy rejection that was so often used on me. The school suggested–as many progressive schools on the Upper Breast Side do–that kids have playdates even with the kids they aren’t friends with at school. But Dalia will have no part of it. She wants to play with the carefree girls with pigtails, not the troubled corner-dwellers, and she’ll say so  to anybody who wants to hear it. It’s like high school, except there’s no political calculation, just preschool honesty.

This is a major problem. Because if the poo-poo-heads wind up as petty convicts, the cool kids don’t end up much better. I just joined the Key West High School Memorial – for those we have lost too soon page on Facebook, and I have to say, a lot of the cool kids in high school died young. Yes, some of them died from cancer, which really doesn’t care if you’re cool or geek. But others died from guns and drugs or other bad choices that you might expect from people whose glory days crested in high school.

The upshot: I feel compelled to steer Dalia toward a happy medium. Step it down a notch. Find the slightly less-attractive kids, and geek out with them.

But who am I kidding? I can hardly break her will enough to get her dressed in the morning. She’s going to do what she’s going to do, and I just have to trust that she’s got enough dork-DNA to keep her from flaming out too early.

This conversation between Gail Collins and David Brooks hits on so many vital DadWagon issues—stay-at-home dads, marrying women who make more money than you, expressing emotions—but clearly one topic, brought up by Mr. Brooks, is the most important. Of course, I’m talking about armpits:

Scientists took a bunch of research subjects and taped pads to their underarms and asked them to watch a funny or scary movie. Then they got another group of subjects to sniff the pads and predict whether the pads were from the scary movie group or the funny movie group. Both men and women could give the right answer most of the time, but women were much, much more accurate. The empathy thing.

Now, I’m not really sure what armpit-smelling has to do with child-rearing, but as David Brooks would no doubt say, “Evolutionary psychology, dude!”

Which reminds me that back when Sasha was around six months old, I learned something big about evolutionary biology and modern culture. It must have been a lazy Sunday morning, and the three of us were half-dozing in bed, when I felt a sudden, acute pain in my left armpit—a pain that did not go away. It was little Sasha, grasping and yanking a fat handful of my ‘pit hair, a drooling smile creeping across her chubby face. This, my dear friends, is why women shave their armpits. (In fact, Jean is getting hers permanently lased.)

And this is also why I doubt Mr. Brooks’s conclusion that women are more empathetic than men. Sure, they may know exactly what you’re feeling, but that won’t stop them from using it against you, with hearts as cold as ice and smiles as warm and giggly as a newborn baby’s.

Must admit, of the four Dadwagoneers on this site, I’m most likely the least committed daddy-shopper. Now, I’m not entirely unaffected by the rigorous ministrations of the ad-monkeys running this planet. I, like everyone else, am deeply moved at the sight of a girl doll with a “willie na na” (a technical term); and who doesn’t see the obvious charm of a smellable truck made from “Sprigwood,” which apparently, according to Celebrity Babies, is “a blend of recycled plastic and wood” that smells like “sawdust.” Nice!

But some products just strike me as wrong in rather subtle ways. First: I have no particular animal-rights inclinations, although I do have a dog and a cat (Frankie and Henry). If someone wants to wear the hair-covering of the cute, fuzzy animal trapped in a metal cage as shown above, please do. There are worse things.

But a napmink? Let me explain. Here we have a nap mat to be used on the floor, designed to be reminiscent of a mink throw. Yes, it’s only produced with “minky” substances and not the real stuff (for that I have a guy in the business; let me know, I’ll give him a ring-a-ding. NOTE: to be read with kitsch Yiddish accent), and yes they do provide “the plushest experience in napping.”

But still. That just ain’t right. It’s enough to make me want to turn vegetarian and start buying only expensive cheap self-congratulatory envirotoys.

Well, not quite.