But recently, I’ve learned that “Dora” has its uses. Namely, when trying to get Sasha to understand that we have a series of things to do, in a particular order, I fall back on one of the show’s tropes. On “Dora,” as the star and her companion, Boots, try to reach their goal, they look at a map and plan out the different stages of the journey. Bridge, Mountain, Field, for example. Or: River, Taxi, Total World Domination.
And so this is now what I do with Sasha. Last week, when I picked her up from school, I wanted to get her a snack, but needed to stop by the bank for some cash, and then we had a party to go to later. This became: Bank, Snack, Party. I said it, then Sasha repeated it. It made sense to her, and as we accomplished each task, we went through the list and talked about what was next. It was nice. And just yesterday, as I again picked her up from school and carted her to another party, she repeated the same list again—it had stuck in her tiny little mind.
So, Dora, I’m sorry. You have your uses. I just wish you weren’t so fucking annoying.
So, in this week’s New Yorker, Adam Gopnik learns how to draw. An art-historian by training, he bumps into a neo-realist (or “traditionalist realist revivalist” or something) artist at a dinner party and starts studying the basic art of drawing with him. At first, it does not go too well:
Why was I unable to do something so painfully simple? Whatever sense of professional competence we feel in adult life is less the sum of accomplishment than the absence of impossibility: it’s really our relief at no longer having to do things we were never any good at doing in the first place—relief at never again having to dissect a frog or memorize the periodic table.
Two things struck me about this: First, how did he know that dissecting a frog and memorizing the periodic table are the two prerequisites for becoming a DadWagon blogger? (Nathan only barely passed; work on those scalpel skills, dude!)
Second, has his kid, made famous in the book “Paris to the Moon,” never asked him to do something he was incapable of doing, or doing well? This is starting to happen to me with Sasha, and it tends to revolve around, of course, drawing. Which I am terrible at. The last drawing I made that I really liked was of a bunch of aliens in their space base. I was 7.
Boots, or something.
But the other day, Sasha handed me a crayon and a notepad and asked me to draw an elephant. And all of a sudden, I realized I could draw an elephant. I knew where the lines should basically start and end, and even if the crayon and the small page made certain bits of detail impossible to convey, I produced for her something that, I think, looked much like the animal itself, or at least a cartoonish version of one. (I am, after all, no traditionalist realist revivalist.)
Then, unfortunately, she asked me to draw Boots, the simian sidekick to every preschooler’s favorite explora, Dora. This presented a bigger problem. If Sasha had asked me for a monkey, I might’ve been able to do some approximation, but Boots is, first and foremost, a drawn character. And while my quick crayon sketch of a monkey might suffice, I felt the need to copy the lines of the actual Boots. I tried, I failed, I told Sasha to go ask her mom—who went to art school, dammit!—to draw it for her.
Dora, by Jean.
Which brings me back to Mr. Gopnik, a somewhat polarizing writer who I have to say I like but on whom I have to call bullshit. He doth protest too much—he can draw. The simple fact that he can keep up with a real artist in the artist’s studio is proof. If the guy drew like me, he would’ve been gently nudged out the door. But no, Gopnik holds his own and manages, in the end, to produce “a terrible drawing, I knew, but it was not a conceptual schema of an arm and shoulder. It was some recognizable pattern of light in front of me. … It was the best thing I had ever drawn, […]. I was drawing.”
Come on, New Yorker! Print his drawings! Let’s see what he’s come up with. It’s only fair. As the kids like to say: I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours.
JP has entered a strongly independent phase of late. He insists on washing his own hair in the bathtub, fixing his own breakfast (or at least assembling the cereal and milk mixture on his own), and choosing his own clothes. It is the clothing part that concerned me today, and not because of matching issues between shirt and shorts.
Some months back I took a trip to Israel to do research for my book on Jewish identity. Before I returned home I picked up some gifts for both JP and Ellie: a onesie for her, and for JP a green T-shirt with the logo of the Israel Defense Forces.
This was no sort of political statement, and I don’t think this is a forum to discuss my feelings about Israel, Jewish self-identification, issues relating to Palestine, or the Occupation. JP likes camo clothing and I bought the T-shirt without a second thought.
Then, today, JP decided to wear it to school. As soon as I saw him wearing it my heart sank a little. He’s very sensitive about his new independence, and I knew he would be angry and hurt that I didn’t trust him enough to let him select his own clothes. But the thought of him wearing it to school, in front of his very kind, but very Muslim, and quite possibly very Palestinian teachers, struck me as a pretty bad idea. I made him change out of it. Tears were shed.
It happened that today I brought Ellie with me to drop JP off at school. There was the usual chaos, the chitchat with other parents, a quick perusal of the classroom artwork. Also, the teachers, as they do with all the baby siblings, made a big deal about Ellie sitting in her stroller.
Walking out of the school, passing each smile educator in her hijab, cooing and smiling and making eyes at my half-Jewish baby, I couldn’t decide: had I acted out of sensitivity, cowardice, expedience, or all of them? Had I underestimated their character or accurately judged the limits of their tolerance?
The other day at Carroll Park, before Jean, Sasha, and I headed over to Gowanus Yacht Club, Sasha was running around the little-kids section of the playground. There were steps to climb, a wooden bridge to cross, a bar to hang from, a slide to slide down. And as she made the circuit of these obstacles, Sasha attracted a companion, a 4-year-old little girl in a swimsuit with a Band-Aid on her knee.
Sasha is only 2 and a half, so the interest this kid showed in her surprised me. But they ran around together, and Sasha asked about the girl’s boo-boo, and showed off her own boo-boo, a mostly healed scrape on her knee.
“You can’t call that a boo-boo!” said the other little girl.
It was all kind of cute. But the girl wasn’t just playing with Sasha, she was also speaking, frequently, to me. There was a long guessing game about her name, and she wanted help climbing on something, and she was basically addressing me, and vying for my attention, the way Sasha does. The difference being, Sasha is my kid, and I’d never seen this other one before in my life.
This is a not-uncommon occurrence: I’m out somewhere, with or without Sasha and Jean, and some child chooses me as a play pal, the adult who’s going to help build a castle out of blocks at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum or play catch in Prospect Park. I don’t mind this, exactly, but it’s disconcerting, and I’m trying to understand why.
On one level, of course, I wonder: Well, why me? Why not your own parents, kid? And then I look around and don’t see the parents, or see them (or the nanny) doing something else, on the phone or whatever, and it’s clear why I’m chosen: I’m available. Also, I’m pretty good at playing. I can be silly, I’m happy to jump and run and roll around, I can still sort of get myself into that frame of mind that seems irrational and erratic to adults but utterly natural to children.
Still I can’t shake this feeling that it’s weird to play with someone else’s kids. I don’t know what the ground rules are: Am I seen as an actual adult, or just a bigger kid? What responsibility do I have for the child? I try to remember my own childhood: Did I approach other, unknown adults to play?
In a way, this is a good thing in my little utopian yuppie child-bearing corner of Brooklyn. Kids play with everyone, and everyone watches out for each other’s kids. But I don’t know if this is happening on a widespread level, or if it’s just me? And if it’s not just me, if it’s you the kids are coming at, too, how do you deal with the situation?
I mostly think this is something I’ll just get more and more used to over the years. In fact, it’s almost becoming an instinct to spontaneously join in random kids’ games. Just yesterday, a half-dozen kids under the age of 5 came roaring down the street (trailed by a few parents), firing pretend guns from their fingertips, and I couldn’t help but get off a few shots at them myself. Then they moved on, and so did I, and I didn’t have to bandage boo-boos or buy anyone ice cream. Maybe it’s better that way.
Not long ago, I wrote a little about how much I hate “Dora the Explorer,” which was becoming Sasha’s favorite TV show. As I said back in May:
