I am roughly three times the size of my son, so I began to picture myself as a full-grown man being held by a comic book-like, giant version of myself as I tried to nestle into his over hairy arms for an afternoon nap.  The visual is disturbing!  Did that person really think about what she was saying?  I wouldn’t sleep better if being held by giant me, I’d be inclined to feel violated, making sleep impossible.

One good thing that has come of this disturbing and recurring nightmare is that I now think I know how to humble my son in his teenage years.  When he is being especially disrespectful and showing disdain for his father–as teenage boys will do–I’ll break out the old “remember when I held you tight” routine.

He will make a snide comment and I’ll say “you obviously don’t remember when you were an infant and I’d hold you in these arms” (at this point I’ll extend my aging, hairy arms) “while you slept for hours.  There was no place on Earth that you’d rather be.”

I’ll watch him recoil, a pit forming in his stomach as he looks at my outstretched arms and wonders how he ever found comfort in them.  While still grappling with this feeling of self-doubt, he’ll also realize how much love I’ve expressed to him through those arms and feel just a teeny tinge of regret for his snide comment.  This combination of guilt and shame will nearly cripple his pubescent mind.  I’ll give him a big hug and send him off to try to cleanse his mind of those disturbing thoughts.  I’ll have him in my pocket again; at least for another hour or two.

Let’s examine what are perhaps the two most popular nursery rhymes of all time.

Rock-a-Bye-Baby

Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all

<Those are soothing words sung to a baby?  As if the murderous tale isn’t  bad enough, left completely unexplained are the engineering feat that got the cradle to the tree top in the first place and why it was then left unattended.  Why do parents continue to torment their children with this rubbish?>

Hush Little Baby

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word.
Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird

<Really?  You’re trying to get your child to calm down and you come out of the gate with a promise to buy her a bird?  And one that is most certainly unknown to the child, unless she received a bird spotting kit for her three-month birthday.>

And if that mockingbird won’t sing,
Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring

<Wow, Papa, way to up the ante!  You go from an annoying worm eater to diamonds.  I doubt, however, that your little girl is yet shallow enough to be pacified by a rare gem, no matter how much blood was let to procure it.>

And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Papa’s gonna buy you a looking glass

<Now how would a diamond turn to brass?  And to compensate for a botched attempt at buying a diamond, you’re buying the poor kid a mirror?  I thought we were trading up here.>

And if that looking glass gets broke,
Papa’s gonna buy you a billy goat

<Right, we’ve gone off the reservation here.  What is an infant going to do with a billy goat?  You can’t very well put it in the crib to distract her from her mad crying.>

And if that billy goat won’t pull,
Papa’s gonna buy you a cart and bull

<Now we’ve just given up trying to make sense.>

And if that cart and bull turn over,
Papa’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover

<Papa, we probably should have started with the dog.  I can’t come up with a single reason that a cart and bull would mollify your child.  I’m sure the specter of watching them turn over has permanently damaged your little girl.  I know it’s early in the child’s life, but you should probably go ahead and accept that you’ll disappoint her so often that she’ll both loathe and pity you before her seventh birthday.>

And if that dog named Rover won’t bark
Papa’s gonna buy you a horse and cart

<OK, Papa, where are we buying all of this defective merchandise?  Did you check that even one thing worked properly before you bought it?  Your hookup for this stuff clearly isn’t reliable.  Good job, also, going back to the large animal pulling a cart.  If your sweet little Angel is still having nightmares from watching the bull and cart topple, this latest purchase couldn’t possibly push her over the edge.  I don’t see this as a calming gesture.>

And if that horse and cart fall down,
You’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

<As feared, we’ve re-introduced the trauma of watching a large animal meet it’s demise in your child’s room–perhaps next to her changing table.   The last line troubles me.  It appears as though you’re blaming all of your poor purchase decisions on your baby, but then re-assuring her that it’s OK, because you still love her.  Papa, you’re an awful person; I’m glad this song is over. >

The lady of appalling hygiene was the tour guide at the first daycare facility I ever visited.  She would later tell my wife and me that she had fourteen years of experience in daycare.  That is a long time to have not copped onto the fact that she could go a long way toward allaying parent’s fears about leaving their precious bundles with strangers if she would simply step through the shower occasionally and rummage through a drawer to find her toothbrush at least once a week.

My wife, child and I followed greasy girl into the infant room, which reminded my wife of documentary footage she had seen of Chinese orphanages.  The soviet style cribs that crowded the room, each with prison issue mattresses, brought to my mind some particularly grim episodes of Locked Up Abroad.  Amidst the cacophony of cries crowding the room, I spotted what appeared to be one happy child.  He stood grasping the bars of his crib and smiling a hopeful smile in my direction, but the poor lad’s cries soon joined those of his inmates when he realized that I wasn’t there to liberate him.  When I left the room, his eyes followed me the whole way, clearly wondering why I was abandoning him in his time of need.

Our tour concluded in the director’s office, which was two overcrowded rooms in complete disarray.  The director herself sat at a folding card table in the first room, eating a fast food lunch and licking her fingers after each bite.  After greasy girl provided us a flyer that was modified from its original form to have the increased fee amounts handwritten over the original values, the director had the last word for us.  ”I always tell people to look around, but you’ll be back,” she said unconvincingly.  ”Only if your girl here cleans herself and you reform this gulag,” I said.  Actually, I only thought that, I really just thanked her and we left as fast as we could.

I was on constant guard for these sick baby touchers as we roamed Babies “R” Us.  Every time I stopped the shopping cart and prepared to take a step to the side to look at an item, I’d flash a menacing look for 360 degrees.  I wanted it to be clear that approaching this baby for a quick little cheek tug and an old-fashioned “goochie goo” wasn’t something any patron at the store wanted to dare.  The tactic worked.  We were in and out of the store without a single person approaching my boy.

Flush with our success from the store visit and drunk with the power of our new freedom, we went for a walk around the neighborhood after returning from the store.  Soon after we started, we ran into some neighbors that we barely know–which is the appropriate level of friendship for all neighbors.  After a few minutes of conversation to welcome my son to the neighborhood and the obligatory “how cute is he?!?” comments, a guy (we’ll call him Kevin, mostly because I don’t know his name) started to touch my son.  Kevin has a child of his own and was clearly reluctant to make the move, thinking better of it twice and pulling his hand back down to his side.  Finally, however, the temptation proved too great; Kevin extended his right hand and patted my son square on the belly, once.

If my son gets sick any time soon, I hope Kevin knows that, unlike his name, I do know where he lives.

Perhaps this lack of appreciation isn’t present in homes across the country, but it’s very evident in the public arena.  Enfamil continues to inform me of my son’s formula needs with emails that begin something like this; “Mr. Roger Starkey, we know that you’re a very busy mom…”  The local NBC affiliate proudly promotes their Moms Like Me club, with no equivalent for the fathers to be found.  Commercials for childcare products unashamedly promote the super mom persona, with the father usually treated like another child rather than an equal partner.

I’ve grown weary of waiting for someone else to remedy this injustice.  I am starting my very own Dads Like Me club.  My club will be so inclusive that we will not discriminate against men without children.  The only requirement to join the Dads Like Me club is that you, like me, have male genitalia.  You don’t even need all of the equipment; if for some reason you have only one testicle, you are not only welcome, you are strongly encouraged to join (especially if you have a good sense of humor about your condition).

To welcome everyone to the club, we will have a Dads Like Me retreat on 2 April.  We will begin the day at 8:00 AM on a local golf course.  We will then proceed directly to an afternoon baseball game, followed by several stops at local strip clubs.  The bus will deposit everyone back at their homes in time to tuck their children into bed–like the good fathers we are (please note that children are not allowed on any part of this retreat, they should be left at home with their mothers).

Please contact me if you’d like to join, membership is free.

Before I start, I’d like to lay out one simple ground rule: mothers are still involved with child-rearing in my hypothetical world, they are just reduced to a subservient role, just like fathers are in the real world.

Clothing:

Lions, tigers and bears remain a staple of infant and toddler male clothing; but not in the current paisley, cutsie fashion.  In the new world order, these animals are replaced by the team logos for the football and baseball teams sharing the name.

Monkeys will remain a staple of male baby clothes, but the most common depiction will be of the monkeys throwing poo at each other and howling in laughter.

Clothing bearing the logos of sports teams  goes from niche and expensive to commonplace on the $7.99 racks at Target.

Mothers are allowed to shop to their heart’s content for their girls, but boys are allowed only seven changes of clothes, to better prepare them for college life.

Powder blue is removed from the male clothing color palette and returned to female attire, as it was always meant to be.  The lone exception being made for anything related to San Diego Charger throw-back uniforms; although the sanity of that color choice for a football team should be questioned more persistently.

Overprotective Fathering:

Insertion of GPS tracking devices into baby girls at birth would be required at all hospitals before patient discharge.

First Words:

All boy’s first words would be of the four letter variety; probably “damn,” because infants make the “da” sound most easily.

Each girl’s first word would be daddy.

Education:

Male kindergarten students cannot be promoted to the first grade until they can successfully demonstrate the proper grip for a two-seam fastball.

Sports history offered as an elective in every high school.

Father’s Day

Father’s Day as an annual event becomes an antiquated notion.  The new list of Father’s Days are:

• Opening day of baseball season for the father’s favorite team
• The first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament
• The day after the first Sunday of the NFL season
• The day of the release of any new Nick Hornby book (this one might only be for me)

A lot of times I wake up in the middle of the night and start crying just to get my parents in the room.  I’ve got nothing going on, I’m just bored and figure that if I can’t sleep, my servants shouldn’t sleep either.  Oh, you don’t think they’re my servants?  Then why are they constantly running around cleaning up my shit?  I don’t even have to ask or give instructions, they’re just tripping over themselves to wipe my butt.  It’s like they think if they rub it enough, pearls are going to start popping out my sphincter.

Now, I’m not saying they like cleaning the filthy diapers, they actually seem to hate it, which makes their servitude all the more astonishing.  But I really love screwing with my parents fear of changing the poop diapers.  Sometimes when I don’t have to shit at all, I’ll lay on back and hold my breath until my face turns ladybug red.  Then I’ll start kicking my legs violently, like I’m kicking some five-week old’s ass.  I throw in a few grunts and the next thing you know dad’s in a tizzy either peering into my diaper or making some lame-ass excuse to get my mom over to check for fecal damage.  Those moments of hysteria are why are I smile, it has nothing to do with gas.

When I really do have a big one brewing, I sit silently and let it flow like a lava field.  Damn I love the look on their faces when the smell of destruction fills the room.

Another way I like to screw with the servants is to wriggle away from the burp cloth to see how much spit-up I can get on them.  That might sound mean, but those people are sadists; no matter what I throw at them, they say they love me, kiss me and come back for more.

• Spit up on the neck: goochie goo, I love you.
• Pee in the face: goochie goo, I love you
• Poop on the fingers: goochie goo, I love you

And in three years time they’ll be wondering why I don’t respect them.

1. Holding my pee until the next diaper change, hoping to get it on dad this time.  If I miss the old man, again, I hope to at least go higher on the wall than any previous shots
2. Balding (do they make infant Rogaine?)
3. Waiting for my parents to get some girls up into this place
4. First Tunisia, then Egypt, now Yemen and Bahrain are on the precipice.  What a crazy eight weeks!
5. Just farted on mom while she was eating.  LOVED the look on her face when she pushed her plate aside
6. Got a big one brewing, hope mom has plenty of diaper wipes
7. Getting sleepy
8. Pinching a loaf
9. Peeing
10. Eating
11. Staring at nothing
12. In daddy’s arms, crop dusting the room
13. Wishing dad would stop singing, I’m not even two months old and I know that guy is tone-deaf
14. Hungry
15. Looking so damn cute it should be illegal
16. Lamenting the fact that I’ll have to go my entire first Cardinal baseball season not knowing if Pujols will return

This experience made me think hard about the pacifier.  How arrogant was the person who first dubbed this thing a pacifier, implying that all children can be soothed in all circumstances by simply putting a piece of plastic in their mouths?  The person seems to have it right, though.  I’ve yet to throw that magic piece of plastic a problem it couldn’t solve.  In fact, against all medical advice, I can see myself using the pacifier well into my son’s teen years.  I envision a scene like this taking place weekly in the Starkey house.

Setting: Father and Son sitting in the living room on a Friday night watching television.

Son: Dad, can I borrow the car?

Father: No

Son: You don’t love me!  You never loved me!  I hate you!

Father produces pacifier from breast pocket of his olive green t-shirt and places it in mouth of son.  Son immediately becomes demure, sits on couch next to father and rests his head on father’s shoulder.

End Scene

Now, I have to admit that I haven’t always shown the pacifier the respect it deserves.  In fact, I used to refer to it primarily as a “binky.”  That’s like calling Superman “Bob,” it’s just disrespectful.  I now only refer to it in extreme reverence; it is THE PACIFIER.  However, my binky transgression is nothing compared to the dishonor the British pay THE PACIFIER.  The ingrates actually call the thing a dummie.  What dummies!

If you are as much an admirer of THE PACIFIER as I am, you should know that there wasn’t always such universal love for THE PACIFIER.  As recently as 1926 the French Chamber of Deputies attempted to prohibit sale of THE PACIFIER, claiming it brought sexual pleasure to infants.  One German chap even made the leap to associate thumb sucking (and perhaps, then, pacifier sucking) to masturbation.  Sigmund Freud was apparently all on board with this theory.  The more I learn about Freud, the more I question the wisdom of Bill and Ted for including that dolt in their Excellent Adventure.

How We Know When Our Boy Wants a Bottle in His Gob

1. The Ray Charles/Stevie Wonder - While held against a chest, he cranes his neck back, produces an odd smile, closes his eyes and bobs his head from left to right.
2. The Motorboat – Again held against a chest, he buries his head in said chest and rummages back and forth as quickly as he can.
3. The Chipmunk/Corn Cob – The same basic premise as the motorboat, but the back and forth is measured as he nibbles his way through the process.
4. The Baby Bird – Mouth open wide and staring straight up, like a little magpie awaiting a worm.
5. The Billy Goat – He’ll nibble on anything in his path; his bib, wrinkles in a shirt, his hand, my nipples…

How We Know our Boy is About to Make Room for More Food

1. The Bucking Bronco- This involves vigourous flailing of the legs and arms until something emerges from an orafice.
2. The Raging Bull- He holds his breath until his entire being is a shade of red that makes you sure he is so angry with you that he could rip your head off in an instant.  He farts and all becomes right with the world.
3. The Ski Jump- With his body completely stiff and angled forward, arms to his side and fists clenched, he strikes a pose that would cause a Nordic father to weep tears of pride into his vodka.

How our Boy Makes Room for More Food

1. The School Yard Bully – He puts his head back, gazes into your eyes until you’re so taken by how adorable he is that you just have to lean down and give him a kiss.  As you near his face, he unleashes burp that curls your eye lashes.
2. The Hiroshima – A massive eruption of gas.
3. The Nagasaki – Follows the Hiroshima and is, disastrously, larger.
4. The Bikini Atoll – (http://www.bikiniatoll.com, for reference) Only a wasteland remains by the time he drops his legs at the completion of this explosion.

 Some Not-So-Proud Habits of The Boy

1. The Alka Seltzer – Formula bubbles from his mouth and continues for an uncomfortably long time.
2. The Exorcist – The formula issues forth from his mouth and nose so rapidly and violently that you aren’t sure if you should clean him or start praying for your soul.
3. The Vagrant – Sometimes, with an embarrassing amount of formula remaining in his bottle, he nods into sleep and can’t be awaken by any means.  With the bottle dangling from his lips, he looks like a bum in a warehouse doorway who couldn’t manage to get the 40 out if his mouth before passing out cold.