Michael Lewis and Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer...

I've received a few emails asking if DadCentric is planning on reviewing Michael Lewis' "controversial" new fathering memoir, Home Game. You'd be amazed at the number and scope of review requests I get from various PR, marketing, and publishing types - I'm not sure that I'm qualified to review Replens Long-Lasting Vaginal Moisturizer - and I do get a of requests to review Dad Lit books, but there was nothing from Mr. Lewis' people.

Just as well. Full disclaimer - I have not read the book, but after watching Mr. Lewis' recent appearance on The Daily Show, I'm not entirely sure I want or need to. I'd read his series of "Dad Again" columns on Slate, from which the book derives much of its material, and they'd left me a bit cold. "Seventy-six nights and I'd spent zero in the same room with him, unless you counted the night of his birth," he writes in one piece, "and the few times I stayed up until midnight to feed him a bottle of pumped breast milk before handing him over to his mother...His diaper needed changing about as often as he ate, yet I'd done that seven times, and remembered each event." The new book's most oft-quoted line is a revelation that Lewis has after several months with his newborn: "It's because you want to hurl it off the balcony and don't that you come to love it." 

Whatever. I'm no real-life Ward Cleaver, and I don't pretend to be when divulging the details of my parenting life for public consumption. But something about Lewis' tone, in that interview and in his written work, got me thinking. We live in the age of Public Parenting, and for many of us, the curtains are willingly left open so that friends and strangers alike can get all the details of how we raise our kids. The blogosphere is a stock ticker of throwing up all over the brand new minivan, dropping f-bombs in the schoolyard, diaper contents that resemble (insert foreign food here), sleepless nights and anxiety-filled days. Parenting is hard. You don't really know until you've had kids, and when you think it's gotten as hard as it can possibly get, why, then the bad shit really happens. And if you don't have any clue how hard it is, there's a gazillion parenting books and blogs out there written by Honest Parenting Writers, who are more than happy to fill you in. Doctors, psychologists, educators, and parentbloggers, all lined up to make sure you know exactly what you're getting yourself into, and what the stakes are. 

I thought about Michael Lewis all day today, a day that started, as many of them do, with me changing a diaper. Zoe was with me in the afternoon; we didn't go to the zoo, or Disneyland; we didn't sit down and have a tea party; I didn't read to her while she curled up in my lap. Instead, we went to Target; she sat in the stroller and watched me buy socks, milk, and a jar of popcorn. Then we went to Trader Joe's - milk, some lunch meat, some dried mangos (she loves those). She cried after emptying the little sample cup of apple juice. When we got home she got some pretzels, and ran around the yard chasing Lucas and the dog while I fired up the barbecue. I was beat - I'd gone for a run while she was napping, after we'd gotten back from her swimming lesson - and somewhat dejected, for I had a list of things that I needed to do (talk to my insurance provider about life insurance, get some tax and business stuff taken care, write a post for another website, write a post for this website) and none of them had gotten done. And after I put Lucas to bed I finally sat down to write this.

The day had started with a diaper change. It was a good one - last night's pizza was involved, but inexplicably, this particular dump smelled like sweaty gym socks - and while I cursed the Kirkland people for making the worst wipes ever (I swear that they spot-weld every third wipe to the next one), Zoe was making things that much more difficult by kicking her feet and laughing. And that made me smile. Shits and giggles.