As a parent, there's a thing that I think a lot of us secretly enjoy, even though we absolutely know we shouldn't. I don't know, maybe it's just me.
When we go away from our families for a few days, we find it guiltily satisfying when our kids freak out at our absence. I know, that's awful. But with apologies to Julie and my family and friends, there is only one person in my world who both gives and receives unconditional love.
I missed Schuyler like mad. Apparently she felt likewise, judging from the reports I got from Julie while I was away and also from the hug/tackle/leech-cling I experienced at the airport when I got back.
I did have a moment of genuine, real guilt concerning my trip to California, and it actually came yesterday, while I was at work. Schuyler's on Spring Break, and instead of hitting the beach and getting conned into appearing in some Mute Girls Gone Wild video, she has been at home with Julie. I get the impression that while their love for each other is as strong as ever, they have nevertheless had enough quality time together for a while.
Anyway, yesterday I got a call from Julie.
"You have to talk to Schuyler," she said. "She's crying hysterically."
"Huh?" I said with my usual eloquence. "Why, what's up?"
"She thinks you're not coming home again."
Well. Hello, I'm an asshole. Nice to meet you.
Anyway, I managed to calm her fears, and later today we're going to pile into Beelzebug, just the two of us. After I do a few things at the office, we're going to take a road trip.
Neal Pollack, author of the new book Alternadad, is going to be doing a signing/reading at Book People in Austin. I'm reading the book right now and enjoying it immensely. He's taken some heat for some aspects of the book, including an editorial in the New York Times by David Brooks that reads like an old man standing on the porch in his boxers and black socks, yelling at the neighbor's kids to stay off his goddamn lawn. I think Neal's being criticized not so much for the book that he's written, but for either the book he didn't write or the one that people like to think he's written. Taken on its own merits, Alternadad is an excellent read.
So if you're an Austinite and you're not doing anything tonight, check out Neal Pollack at Book People, and watch the crowd. You never know who might be lurking.
Hint, hint.
(Schuyler and I will be there. I'm subtle like a blow to the head.)
UPDATE: We drove to the office to take care of some business, and got delayed, and then it got warm outside, which is nice for a day of hanging out together but not so much for a three hour drive. Schuyler and I decided to stay in town and have a free day instead. So change of plans. No Austin trip for us today; stalkers will have to wait for the book to come out and kill me at a signing instead. (Buy my book first, please.)
So I'm just back from the HEB where I went to purchase a cake in celebration of my two-year-old who has, for the first time, pooped! in! the! potty!...and also pureed prunes for the baby, who, after three days of mashed banana has not pooped at all, anywhere.
ReplyDeleteThis is parenting for me today. Poop, tedium, poop, and aerosol icing.
It's not terribly alterna-.
I suppose I'm just a little fatigued by all the "trappings" of alterna-dads and the like (I just read Beth Lisick's book and felt like the girl was just trying too hard to prove her hipster cred). Most of Pollack's worldview I can completely support -- no suprise, as I'm a 30-something Austinite mom -- but the window-dressing and snottiness towards other parents who may like the occasional Barney or can of Spaghetti-Os is what bothers me.
"Mainstream" culture is not the enemy. Like icing in a can, I feel like it can be carefully indulged in while still keeping your good parent cred.
Wrongheaded wars, poverty, unrestrained corporate greed, treating the environment like your personal toilet (again with the poop) are the enemy. Not the "less-cool" parents, or even David Brooks, with his cranky old man self.
Cute Pic :)
ReplyDeleteI agree, but my point is that I don't think Pollack is railing against uncool, mainstream parents. When he does, it is for things like the chicken nugget culture of what we feed our kids (a sin that Julie and I are profoundly guilty of). He and especially his wife have taken a speecial interest in feeding their son healthy foods, and developing good eating habits for him.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of it, like the music, etc.? I get the feeling he's doing it because it's fun and a way for him to bond on another level with his son. I think that's what rubs people the wrong way, but honestly, I do the same thing (my musical tastes just aren't as hip as Pollack's), and I'm hardly unusual in that.
If anything, I think I probably feel more hostility towards mainstream kid culture than he does. Lately, I have reached my breaking point with Disney and Barbie and books that are little more than marketing for The Product, whatever it is. The Purge has begun in the Rummel-Hudson home.
Well, I am childless. But I am a Rob groupie, that's a well-known fact. Sadly, I will be trying not to look stupid among the chi-chi rich folks inaugurating Austin's new Neiman Marcus. Can you think of anything more different than, on the one hand, Book People and, on the other, Neiman Marcus.
ReplyDeleteHave fun in Austin. Pretty day today.
It's nice to be loved like that, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I haven't read Pollack's book, but I have always been troubled by memoirs (usually by men) whose theme seems to be "Nobody knew ANYTHING about parenting before ME, ME, ME!"
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't think I'd characterize his book as being a reinvention of parenting, although I keep seeing it written about in those terms. If anything, I think the opposite, in the same way that I also write about being unprepared for the job of fatherhood and having to make it up as I go along.
ReplyDeleteI also think the circumcision chapter has been mischaracterized. It wasn't just the objection of his parents and his inability to stand up to them. Their objections were based on their Jewish beliefs, and not just an arbitrary objection. We're not talking about being too lazy to defy one's parents. We're talking about avoiding a real schism.
I'm not sure I agree with the choice he eventually made; I don't actually know what I myself would have chosen to do if we'd had a boy, and I'm thankful that I didn't have to face that choice. But I suspect that many of the people who have criticized Neal for that chapter and have minimized it as "a guy too lazy to stand up to his parents" are bringing their own agendas or issues to the table.
It's a tough issue. It's not one that I would feel comfortable judging any parent's decision for.
I haven't read the book, I circumsized my son because his father is and that made sense to us, I was raised on Neiman Marcus and found Book People on my own so they both have meaning for me, I like music my son can't listen to cause it contains words I'd rather he didn't use quite yet, and like it or not he is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and I'm not gonna crush that no matter how strongly I feel for or against it.
ReplyDeleteNow that all that is outta the way! I love when the only thing that can calm my son is when he sees me walk through the door. It is so worth the guilt and knowledge that it makes me a giant selfish ass.
The Pollack book is hilarious! There were moments when I was laughing out loud because I could relate to what he was describing. His rants againt mainstream get a bit soap box'ish, but they make sense because he just wants to be a good parent. Our motto is everything in moderation.
ReplyDeleteYou probaby never wished for a smoke alarm to go off, and one hasn't around here in quite a while, but when my first son was younger, if one did, he would run to me and wrap himself up in me in a way that shouted, "YOU CAN SAVE ME, I BELIEVE THAT 100%." It was the most incredible parenting moment. I *love* smoke alarms.
ReplyDeletebrilliant as always!! :)
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