Single Dad for a Week

This guy is apparently a single dad.

As I might have mentioned, my wife, Jean, is off in Bangalore this week, eating mangoes and wearing saris and lining up factory workers to abuse with bamboo canes. Which leaves me here in Brooklyn alone. With Sasha.

To be honest, I haven’t done this whole parenting-on-my-own thing in quite a while. The last time, actually, was when I took Sasha to San Francisco for a week (for work), but that was such a different kind of situation that it’s hard to compare.

Or, hm, maybe it wasn’t so different. Being entirely on my own as a parent, wherever I am, requires me to engage in a little self-discipline. When Jean is around, I know that if I linger a few extra minutes on the couch after dinner, she’ll clear the plates away and wash the milk bottles and do that cleaning-up shit I hate. And she’ll also maybe prepare Sasha’s school bag for the morning, and put clothes in the hamper, and whatever else happens behind the scenes that I usually fail to notice.

Which is not to say I don’t usually do much here. I’m the guy in charge of picking Sasha up from school, biking her home, playing with her, bathing her, and doing all the chores (tooth-brushing, etc.) that lead up to her going to bed. And frankly, much of this is easier to do when Jean’s not around—because with Jean around, Sasha thinks she can choose between parents, calling out “Mommy!” when it’s bath time, then rejecting her and calling for me when it’s time to brush teeth. If Mommy’s not there, Mommy’s not there, and Sasha just has to suck it up and deal with me.

Not that I want this to continue much longer. With Jean away, I can’t keep up my post-bedtime routine of going out to fabulous parties and getting massively drunk. Instead, I’m watching House on Hulu at home and getting massively drunk, which isn’t quite as much fun. Even worse, I have to empty the dishwasher. Come home soon, Jean, please!

Complexity: It’s all relative

I’ve passed many a satisfactory hour complaining about my ex-wife, bitching about the logistics of our shared custody, and congratulating myself with the thought that all our problems are her fault. And they are. Seriously.

One thing I’ve learned, though, is someone always has it tougher than me. This past weekend Tomoko and I drove down to D.C. to visit a friend of hers who had just had a baby. The friend’s husband had a teenage daughter from a previous marriage. They had a custody arrangement similar to mine, joint, with lots of moving the child back and forth over the course of each week.

What’s more, the teenage girl’s mother had only just remarried, to a man who had two boys from his previous marriage. They, too, had a complicated custody arrangement with much back and forth, only in their case, the girls mom and her new husband had chosen not to live together, because making the custody work–the boys live and go to school in Virginia, the girl lives and goes to school in Maryland–would have been impossible.

These are all teenagers and college isn’t that far off. But at least for the next several years this triangular, multi-state, multi-home, tri-divorced, tri-kid, mish-mish will hold. My ex-wife lives three blocks from me. My son goes to a school equidistant from both of our homes.

I’m still right and she’s still wrong. But it could definitely be worse.

DadWagon Q&A: Robert Sayegh, Children’s Book Author who Got Booted off his Flight for Swearing

The airline industry’s latest First Amendment martyr, Robert Sayegh, was victim this week of one of the more miserable little abuses of power on American airplanes. Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 5136, which was actually taxiing for takeoff, returned to the gate so that police could escort Sayegh off. His offense? Swearing out loud.

That Sayegh is also a children’s book author and a Brooklynite who told the Free Press that New Yorkers use F-bombs “like adjectives” only endeared him to us more. He was kind enough to chat with DadWagon about the incident, his upcoming book, and why he would prefer we clean up our language.

Thanks for chatting with mutherfucking DadWagon.

Haha, no worries, man. Is that the actual name of the site?

I think Mutherfuckingdadwagon.com was taken. So we went with just DadWagon. But we get traffic from lots of Google searches that involve mothers. And fucking.

Gotcha. What is it that you want to know? I’m really not trying to be known for cursing, so let’s keep it about what happened. And to be honest with you, I am coming out with a children’s book so I don’t think this is the best platform for me. You understand what I mean?

But that’s the genius of it all, right? ‘Go the F— to Sleep’ is the bestselling children’s book of the year. You might be on to something.

But I’m not trying to promote cursing. That’s not my style. The word slipped and it won’t happen again. I’ll answer a few questions for you because I promised I would. So ask, my man…

Alright: What exactly happened on the flight?

Well, it was operated by Delta, and we had been sitting on the runway for 45 minutes waiting for them to fix an overhead compartment that wasn’t staying closed. So I kind of just said out loud more to myself and the guy sitting next to me, “What the f#@# is taking so long?”

Then a guy came on the plane and fixed it. We were already halfway to the runway to take off. And the guy flight attendant was sitting only one row behind me in his jump seat. So he was easily able to hear me. People a few rows in front of me never heard a word.

Good lord. It was just one flight attendant who heard this?

Just one flight attendant right behind me. So when I was being escorted off, I saw people looking like “what happened, what’s going on?” My actions did not warrant being escorted off the plane by police. And when I asked the police and the representative from Delta to please go ask everyone around me if I was a disturbance, she came back and said, “Well, he might have over-reacted.”

So no charges were pressed, and Delta gave me another ticket for a later flight. That’s the story.  I was just so angry after that I called the Detroit Press and this has spread like wildfire.

I know why it spread: It’s absurd that it happened and yet totally believable. People seem to be getting escorted off of flights for all sorts of insane reasons. Were the police, um, courteous at least?

Hey, the Detroit Police were cool. The one guy just told me to keep my mouth shut in a way that he was helping me out. Because then they would have had to arrest me.

Ouch. You know it’s a bad day when the nicest thing someone can say to you is “keep your mouth shut.”

Really just an unfortunate incident that hopefully will help the airlines to train their flight attendants to differentiate someone who is a threat, and just someone who is talking out loud. There is a HUGE difference.

Indeed. Has anything like that happened to you before?

Never. I mean, being sent to the principal’s office is a little different. Being confronted by police is scary no matter what the reason.

So are you going to sue or still thinking it over?

I’m really still thinking about it. I don’t think I am going to, but I’ve been surprised by how many people who aren’t like that are telling me to. I’m leaning towards not just because I don’t want to be known for that. Try to take the higher road.

Let’s talk about what you DO want to be known for: your upcoming children’s book. What’s the title, and what’s it about?

It’s called “The Secret Origin Of Mirrors,” and it’s an educational book about how mirrors were created. Words within the book are highlighted and then defined so that the parents can teach their children. It’s being published by www.firstonepublishing.com and should be out in August.

I also published a government conspiracy novel, “The Dividing Line,” that I made into a screenplay. I just signed a LOI with a new studio (Watermark Studios) being built in Muskegon, Michigan (ironic).

Ah, the Michigan conspiracy.

Haha. It’s very ironic… right?

OK, last question: What IS the secret origin of mirrors?

That mirrors used to be Angels made from ice in an alternate world, and it wasn’t until a witch cursed the angels and froze them did she create mirrors. The witch goes over and looks at her ugly appearance and falls over a cliff and dies. But the villagers celebrate because they can now look at themselves everyday. So the witch’s curse backfired and created the story about The Secret Origin of Mirrors.

I like your brand of “educational book.” And you clearly are good with expressing yourself off the page. So we’ll link when the book is out, and badger our readers into buying it. Thanks so much for the time, Rob.

Thank you.

Dad vs. Toddler: An Evolving Dynamic

Getting a toddler to do what you want her to can be a complicated process. The kid is just learning the power of no, after all, and so the chances that she’ll do what you ask—brush her teeth, take a bath, for god’s sake put down the machete—are next to zero. You do everything you can to get the right outcome, deploying a commanding voice, threatening to take away beloved objects (the Dora doll, the Spongebob DVDs, Mom herself), and issuing timeout after timeout.

Lately, our house has seen a new and (to us, at least) fascinating twist in the struggle to accomplish basic daily chores. The other night, for example, I managed to brush Sasha’s without too much trouble, but then, when it came time for her to rinse, she refused. This was pretty frustrating. After all, if she refuses to brush (or be brushed) I know I can just make her cry, and then she’ll open her mouth, and then I can brush her teeth.

But rinsing her mouth out is something you can’t exactly force (at least, not till she’s, I don’t know, 10 years old). And so there was a standoff: yes, no, yes, no, YES, NO! I threatened to take away everything she loves—ice cream, Dora, her magic wand—but still she stood there on the verge of tears, until at last she whispered, “Timeout.” Yes, she wanted a timeout, and so I gave her one, and off she ran to her room, where she huddled up on her bed for a few minutes, then called my name. I opened the door, she came out, and she rinsed her mouth out, no problem.

Because of Sasha’s mother’s Chinese background, it’s hard for me not to see this as a proto-face-saving strategy. That is, Sasha actually wants to rinse her mouth out, but after her initial, instinctive no she can’t simply back down. But her experience with timeouts has taught her the ritual of punishment and reconciliation, after which a child habitually conforms to a parent’s desires. So now she requests the punishment, as her way out of this Gordian predicament. Either that or she knows that the timeout will give her the time and space to settle down enough not to care about rinsing her mouth out.

The amazing thing is, she’s already developed a twist on this strategy. I don’t remember what we were fighting over—probably bathtime—but it escalated to the point where she suggested a timeout for herself, but then, when I went to fetch her afterwards, she was still resistant, as if she thought the punishment ritual would be enough for me this time to forget about the clash. That was when I had to resort to traditional methods, dragging her kicking and screaming to the tub, pulling her clothes off and plopping her in. An old trick for this old dog, but I’m sure Sasha will find a way around it soon.