DADWAGON

Of all the foolish and speculative things said over the weekend about Tiger Woods, the worst was something I caught out of the corner of my eye on some cable network (Fox News? MSNBC? When it comes to the tabloid-type stories, all the cable networks seem about the same). Some pert nag of an image consultant was on as a guest, and essentially said this (I’m paraphrasing, because it was Spanksgiving weekend, dammit, not a good time to lurk around the TV with a notebook):

This whole episode is so contrary to Tiger’s image. He’s a father of a young girl… unless he was going on a diaper run, he doesn’t have any business leaving that house at that time in the morning.

I know better than to let talking heads get me out of sorts. I’ve contributed to the babble enough myself. But there’s something about the supposition that because Woods has a kid he shouldn’t have been going out late except to get diapers that really pissed me off.

Okay, so maybe I was just angry because I was sleep deprived (my 3-year-old was like a Harvard speedball monkey most of the weekend).

But here’s the deal: judge Woods, for whatever you think he did, based on him being a man, not a father. Spare us the pieties about what dads should or should not be doing in the middle of the night.

Of course, parents should aspire NOT to be smashing in the windows of each others’ Escalades in the middle of the night. But so should anyone. And holding Woods to a higher standard because he’s a father is about as nonsensical as expecting him to be a great guy because he can hit a ball into a tiny hole real good (Rich Lerner has a succinct debunking of that reasoning at GolfChannel.com).

I’ve been fortunate to avoid Woods’ kind of marital drama (unlike Woods, I’ve also avoided becoming a billionaire superstar). But should some crazy shit go down, and I’m getting thrashed by my wife with a nine iron in the middle of Columbus Avenue, rest assured that it will have nothing to do with whether or not I have kids.

In Slate, Michael Agger writes about how the “wooden-toy crowd” is embracing the iPhone as a device for toddlers:

Most parents try to walk a more subtle, self-serving path: seeking out “educational” apps. Developers are on to us—there is a lot of kiddie crap lurking in the iTunes store. You pay 99 cents for some “Farm” app that turns out to be six stock photographs and a much too realistic pig sound that makes your 1-year-old cry. The best apps should be aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, occupy your kid (but not in a glazed-eyeball way), and not so addicting that you start playing them yourself—every free moment, late at night, when you should be getting some sleep.

I’m not sure I have much to add except a “You are correct, sir!” My wife and I deploy the iPhone from time to time (okay, frequently), and Sasha seems to love the one app we give her: Koi Pond. It’s pretty simple: koi swimming in a lily pond, with trickly water sounds in the background. You can plink the water to scare the fish, or shake the phone to feed them.

Sasha will stare in amazement at the fish (and I’m not sure she actually knows they are fish, or what fish are anyway) and run her fingers tentatively over the screen. She’ll squeal and look up at me. And then she’ll pick up the phone and turn it over and stare at the shiny black back of the device. Boy does she love that silvery Apple logo! Thank you, Steve Jobs.

From aGeekSpot.com, a demo of what has Sasha so enthralled:

Nope–has nothing to with man-breasts. Flat Daddies are cardboard cutouts of photos of dear old dad, designed for military fathers posted abroad. Now, I have no interest in making a statement about the military, heroism, public service, terrorism, apple pie, counterinsurgency tactics, Iowa, SUVs, or any of the millions of other things I associate with this sort of idea. But think about it: cardboard daddies!

Does he take out the trash? No! Does he change a diaper? No! Does he fix a leaky sink? No! Shit, sounds like me.

Check out (the admittedly poignant) pictures here.

And from the faq:

Taking and Selecting a Photo
Does the photo need to be in uniform?

It is best for the photo to be taken in uniform, but we understand that you might not have a good quality photo of your loved one in uniform.
Do I need to send a full body photo?

No. A photo that is waist and up is preferable. The Flat Daddy is printed life size, waist and up.
Does the photo need to be of my loved one alone or can you crop him out?

It is best if the photo is of your loved one alone, but we are able to crop the photo if there are others in it.
How big is a Flat Daddy?

The material is 26″ x 36″, but the actual printed image may vary depending on the size of the photo provided.

Further sign that I’m going to daddy-hell: Think I could use one of these fucking things to babysit for JP next time I go out?

I guess the video is a year old, but Brooklyn writer Phil Campbell passed this along over the weekend, so for me it’s brand spanking new. It’s about a toddler named James who has a talking Elmo that glitched into saying Kill James.

Ha ha. But when I watched the thing, I got caught about 8 seconds in when they pan this family’s living room and show a freaking army of Elmo dolls that this toddler owns. It’s a ridiculous number of toys for one kid to own.

Look, I know children can be OCD about their favorite characters. Dalia would live in a world of Star Wars action figures if she could. But isn’t it our jobs to push back a little, and not just buy every single Elmo toy in the world simply because little James wants it?

So yes, James may well grow up twisted, but it will not be because Elmo says Kill. It’ll be because mom can’t say No.