Dear Markos: We know that this has been an eventful time for you. After all, it’s not every day that a man becomes a father. This week you and your wife and son have experienced the joy of welcoming a beautiful baby girl into the world and into the loving embrace of your family. Congratulations, and know that our best wishes are with you all.

Still, I want to remind you that the stress and excitement of these happy days can quickly take a toll on even the hardiest individuals. Hazy judgement and temporary departures from logic happen frequently to parents suffering from sleep deprivation in the first weeks after a baby is born.

We understand, Markos. We know that there are good reasons why you might blurt out a stupid thing or two during these hectic days. You’re tired and not thinking clearly.

Oh, sure, some people have gotten a little riled up over the comments you made the other day. The word “misogyny” was floated around today and that led to a big squabble over whether you had actually been called a misogynist or not, and if you had, was or wasn’t that an even bigger issue and an even stupider comment than the one you made.
Some people defended your endearing, eternal cluelessness vis a vis gender issues, while others complained about your all too blatant dismissiveness towards women. Many wondered just what the hell a proposed blogger code of ethics has to do with death threats against women bloggers and increasingly pervasive online misogyny? Or wondered what you would do if it were your daughter or your wife who was the target of online intimidation and death threats? It was a loud, sometimes bitter discussion and it lasted all day.

Well, Markos, my advice to you is to take every inch of slack that’s being cut for you right now. Take all of it, and then take even more. You’re a parent of a newborn. You ‘ve got all the responsibilities you can handle right now and you need all the rest you can get so that you have the strength to become the well-informed and reasonable father your children deserve.
Go get some sleep!

Posted: April 12th, 2007 under Children, General, Loco Parent.
Comments: 5

 

The caller ID reads “US MARINE CORPS”.

I reach for the phone, and in the fraction of a second it takes for the words “US MARINE CORPS” to register in my brain, I become every mother who has ever existed. Or at least every mother who’s ever existed since that first fateful day when Moonwatcher showed up at the cave door, recruiting for the Great War Against the People Who Live On the Other Side of the Sand Dune From Us or whatever the hell it was.

 

CALLER: Hello, may I speak to [my eldest son; the one who graduated from high school last month]?

 

ME: Uhh, hello. Is this the Marine Corps?

 

CALLER: Yes, ma’am. I’m [whatever he said his name is]. I’m assigned to the High School. And, despite what you may have heard…

 

He sounds tired and a little bit defensive. How many times today has he launched into this little spiel?

 

CALLER: …we actually have spoken face to face with only a third of the seniors.

 

There were 801 students in the EPHS Class of 2006. One third of 801 would be 267.

 

CALLER: Still, by the end of this year I’m required to make contact by phone with everyone in the class I haven’t spoken to yet.

 

Required. He’s required to contact everyone. He’s just doing his job, after all. He’s just following orders. I wonder how much time this statement buys him before the mothers start slamming the phone down or start screaming NEVER! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! Or maybe I’m imagining that every mother in Eden Prairie would react to this call like I’m reacting.

 

CALLER: Is [Eldest Son] home?

 

ME: No. He’s at work right now.

 

Eldest Son is actually in the next room, simultaneously eating a bowl of Cheerios, playing Battlefield 1942 online with seven of his buds, text-messaging a (female) friend, and watching an mp4 of “Downfall” on his iPod. He doesn’t have to leave for work for another 45 minutes.

 

ME: I realize you still have to talk to him personally, but please let me just shorten this process. All you really need to know is: This is not going to happen.

 

I don’t know how to put it any more emphatically.

 

Bessie to the sexton: “Curfew must not ring tonight!”

Gandalf to the Balrog: “You. Shall. Not. Pass!”

 

ME: And I want you to know that I have all the respect in the world for the people in uniform; the people who are laying their lives on the line for all of us every day. You deserve better than what you’re getting. A LOT better. We owe you so very much… The least — the LEAST we can do now is to get you out of harm’s way as soon as possible. I stand with Jack Murtha on this: if I could bring you all home tomorrow I would. And that’s all I have to say about that.

 

I hope he liked the little Forrest Gump flourish at the end there.

 

CALLER: Ma’am, I understand what you’re saying, and I do appreciate it. I will ask you tho if you could please do one thing for us.

 

What? Bake them some cookies?  Send body armor?  Arrange for a soul transplant for Donald Rumsfeld?

ME: Sure.

 

CALLER: Ma’am, will you pray for us?

 

ME: Absolutely. Doing that already. Every day.

 

CALLER: Thank you. Well, I won’t keep you. I’ll have to catch [Eldest Son] another time then.

 

“Catch him” ? You’ll have to “catch him”? Hey buddy — I’m praying for you all, no question about it, but try “catching” any child of mine in any other way than by phone, and you might have to “catch” the bag containing your nuts which I will be throwing in your face. Trust me, you do not want to mess with me in this regard. Hoo-fucking-ya.

 

[End of phone call]

 

Yeah, I’m good at bluster — especially the internal, unspoken kind as just illustrated above.  But don’t think for a second that I don’t know just how empty all that tough talk is. We still have a volunteer army and he’s 18 and if he decides he wants to join, there’s not much I could do about it.

But, the chances of him or his brother wanting to enlist are roughly equivalent to the chances of Dick Cheney winning the Nobel Peace Prize, so I’m not too worried.

I’m also not terribly worried–yet– about the draft being reinstated. It won’t happen until the administration can figure out a way to include a loophole exclusively for wealthy Republicans so they can keep their own precious children out of it ; their kids being so much more valuable than ours and all.   Hoo-fucking-ya  indeed.

 

Posted: July 19th, 2006 under Chez Tild, Children, General, Military, War.
Comments: 4