DadCentric

Family

Dusk blew gently in past her fluttering curtains, filling her bedroom with light like ash. It was bedtime and we had almost come to the end of the ritual--me sitting next to her bed, stroking her brow, telling her I love her, I'm proud of her-- when she asked, "Daddy, what's family?"

A very good bedtime dodge. 

"(First try) Well. lessee, what's a family hmm. Well, it can be, like, anyone related like blood related--like mommy, daddy, you and Pumpkin Man are all related so . . . but you don't have to be blood related its just'--"

She knows what a family is, on some level. She refers to us as her family. I felt like maybe she was looking for a more complete explanation. And I wanted to give her one. Ijust didn't happen to have one handy. 

"(Second Try) Well, families are like his: you got your Addams family, Gotti family, Royal family, The Kardashian family, The Manson Family . . . no, wait. Scratch the Kardashians."

From the time I was a very young man, I've sort of chosen my family. It wasn't until my wife and then the kids came along that I found myself bound by something bigger. 

"(Third try) What a family really is is any group of people who no matter where they are or how busy they are love you and are thinking about you. Like when you 're busy at school or gymnastics or over at Auntie's house we think of you and you think of us. And when the Pumpkin man starts school and he's busy and--"

"When Pumpkin Man goes to school he'll run away when he's not supposed to and the teacher will say Wait, not until you're done with your paper."

"Yeah, that's true." 

She was right. That was another pretty shitty explanation. 

"Your family are the people you can always go home to. (sigh. What the fuck is that? Yeah, your 4 year old daughter will totally get that.) Your Mommy and I and your brother will always love you and always be here for you. No matter what. That's what family is (I guess? Hope.)"

"Hnn. Good night daddy."

Must've finally worn her down. 

 

DadCentric Asks: "What Do You Want For Mother's Day?"

Sunday is Mother's Day (right?), so we thought it would be fun to ask some of our favorite moms what they hope to find under the Mother's Day Tree. What? There's no such thing as a Mother's Day Tree? Ok. Well, here's what they hope the Mother's Day Bunny brings.

Tanis, the Redneck Mommy: "I want my kids to sit by my feet and pluck my toe hairs one by one while singing "The Bitch Is Back" by Elton John. Short of that, I will accept handmade cards, cereal in bed, and for them not to roll their eyes when I ask them to clean their rooms. I'm fairly easy."

Erin Kotecki Vest (Queen of Spain): "I want the same thing I want every day...TO RULE THE WORLD...oh, wait...I mean...um...diamonds and a puppy, and to sleep in."

Jett Superior: "This year my fondest wish for Mother's Day is a month of amnesty from a common practice in our home: It is the one where I, exhausted, remove my bra at the end of an asschewer of a day, rub my tired and somewhat achy boobs and my husband becomes all lecherous and involved like I'm giving him a private show or something. Are you reading this, Maxim? What I want for birthing and not doing away with our children is one month of rubbing end-of-day boobs (much, much different than Saturday night party boobs) without drool and clever remarks."

Kristen Chase (The Mominatrix) "Time. (No bottle necessary - unless it's Dom P). There's just nothing like the gift of a few quiet hours without any appointments to wait for, soccer games to drive to, or children singing their 400th rendition of Wheels on the Bus. So grant that special mother in your life some peace and quiet this Mother's Day. Ship her out the door with a credit card in her hand or a spa gift certificate tucked into her purse (with a pre-scheduled appointment, of course) and consider your work done. And if your George Constanza wallet has gone on a diet this year, just take the kids somewhere and let her enjoy the peace and quiet of her own home. Just make her promise that she won't lift a finger, except to call for take out."

Megan (Undomestic Diva): "For Mother's Day, please skip the kitchen appliance aisle at Target and forget the mani/pedi gift certificate from the local salon. Instead, I'm longing for something hand-crafted and sloppily painted, preferrably made of dyed, uncooked pasta shells and yarn in pretty pastels and on construction paper that has been unevenly cut by chubby fingers and good intentions, wrapped clumsily in tissue paper and secured by an entire roll of Scotch tape addressed "To Mom" via a wide Ticonderoga pencil, the contents of which I'll know far before I get it open thanks to an overzealous kid who is so! excited! to give me his gift."

Sugar Jones: "Tulips in a vase. Crepes drizzled with chocolate sauce. A morning in the sun with my kids. All very lovely. But what I really want for Mother's Day is one more afternoon with Rico Suave."

Kristine (Wait In The Van): "I'd love to tell you that I am not the type of woman that hopes for jewelry, spa-treatment, or a gift card to the plastic surgeon. But that would mean that I don't have two *lovely* boys that like to build weapons of mass destruction in the backyard. So this Mother's Day, remember that a journey of a thousand miles is better when there are shiny things to distract you from all. that. love."

Marsha Takeda-Morrison (Sweatpants Mom): "What do I want for Mother's Day? I know I should say something profound like, "The unconditional and everlasting love of my children," but I've got that already. What I really want is a big, shiny, new Breville 800 espresso machine. That big hunk of stainless steel would make me really happy, and with a strong shot of espresso in my hand you can bet I'd appreciate that unconditional, everlasting love even more."

Tricia Honea (DadCentrician Whit's wife and the mother of his children): "I would love to have breakfast with the family and then the rest of the day to myself. No laundry to fold, no dishes to wash and no demands on my time."

Beth Avant (DadCentrician Jason's wife and the mother of his children): "One day - just one - of not having to deal with the crying, the whining, the pouting, the moaning, the refusing to eat veggies, and the tantrums. That's just from my husband; if the kids would do this, hey, bonus."

Jenny, the Bloggess: "I prefer homemade gifts. Like a two-hour musical based on my life. Something simple."

The Hot Topic: Would You Raise A Kid In The Big City?

 I just flew in from New York, and boy, are my arms tired! But seriously, folks - we spent a few days in New York City (courtesy of the fine folks at VTech Toys and Ogilvy PR, for whom I do some consulting work; this time - full disclosure! - we spoke with a few good bloggers about trends in electronic toys and how kids and adults are adapting to new technology) and whoa. I'd never been to the Big Apple, and I'm still trying to sort out everything we did and saw. I'm pretty sure I ate at Da Marino on 49th (pro - a killer house-made macaroni in a lamb ragu; con - the cheesy piano player belting out "New York, New York" to a crowd of drunken Canadians), I think we walked through Central Park, I recall wandering through Times Square (where it was so cold that the balls weren't dropping, they were retreating back up into the pelvic region), and I believe I avoiding befouling myself while atop the Empire State Building (I'm not a fan of heights). There was pastrami and pizza and beer and martinis (yo! Nathan and Matt! How you doin'?) and taxi exhaust and cigarette smoke and eau du 6 Train and damned if I didn't fall a little in love with the city. It truly is all that and a potato knish.

We were exploring the Met (aka the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and while I was complaining to a docent about the lack of Thomas Kinkaide paintings I watched as a group of schoolkids gathered in front of one of the Greek statues ("HE'S NAKED!" we they all said in unison, as we they pointed at ancient marble Hercules' ancient marble junk and laughed). Two conflicting thoughts ran through my head. First, how fantastic that these kids are being immersed in the worlds of Van Gogh, Rodin, the pharoahs, the ancient Chinese emperors, the natives of Oceania. I thought of my local museums and shook my head; this was culture on a scale that my kids, if they're lucky, will only get a taste of.

But then I thought of those taxis, subways, all that noise, all those skyscrapers. When I was a kid I had meadows, forests, streams, lakes, mountains, and oceans. Nature's for kids. The city's for grownups. I wondered what it would be like to grow up and not take running through the grass barefoot for granted. (Stupid question, but do Manhattan high schools play football? Where?) I wondered for a brief moment if I could ever raise my kids in the big city. So the Hot Topic question for today: would you raise your kids in a big city? And for those of you who do, what are the challenges, rewards, and regrets?

Your Vasectomy and You: A DadCentric PSA

As some of you know, I recently had a vasectomy. I've been fielding a lot of questions about it, from many nervous dads who are considering getting The Big Snip. We fear what we don't understand (along with midgets and monkeys) and so I've put together an informative video that demonstrates the procedure, and what you can expect. Be warned: it's not for the faint of heart.

Is Santa Real?

 I was hanging with my boys the other day when I heard my youngest, a lackadaisical 6-year-old who was with his older brother cruisin' the net for JabbaWockeeZ videos on YouTube say, "Google 'Is Santa Real.'"

Oh shit.

Here we go again.

I'd been down this road before.

I managed to escape that one, cursing modern technology in the process.

But then there was the time Mother Nature saved my ass when I had to pull over and show my kids a dead deer carcass just to prove it wasn't Rudolph. Because they seemed to become unhinged at the thought of Rudolph being dead on the side of the road and unable to guide Santa's sleigh.

And then it happened again...

But, ironically, internet saved the day. 

When they pulled up the string of answers to the question on whatever site they had chosen, they had been deleted. The next link wasn't much better and I finally dragged them away with thoughts of a PlayStation video game marathon.

Phew!

But I'm sure I'll still have to address the anxiety over the home invasion by a man dressed in red. Why do we let strangers like this into our house as we sleep?

It begs the question: with knowledge at your fingertips with just the touch of a keyboard, how will we be able to maintain family folklore like tooth fairies, Easter Bunnies and Santa Claus?

Loss of innocence comes quick these days, doesn't it?

What to Buy Dad For Christmas: DadCentric's 2009 Gift Guide For Dads Who Are Awesome

This year, as we've done in the past, we're offering up some suggestions on what to get for that special dad in your life. Some of the things listed below were sent to us for review, some we purchased ourselves (don't worry, People Who Worry About Disclosure, we'll sort it all out at the end of this post), and some are just things that we dream about (those will be painfully obvious, like last year's Scarlett Johansson Robot Maid). And now, with the wonder of cell phone Internet browsing, you can peruse our suggestions while nursing a tryptophan and Pinot Noir hangover and waiting in the line to get into your local Wal-Mart, a line that's approximately the length of the Great Wall of China. Happy Black Friday!

TV's Best Dads: The Very Special Clip Show/Ask DadCentric Episode

As the network shows are wont to do, we're going to wrap up our series on TV's Best Dads by giving you a Very Special Clip Show. You know the ones: the main characters all decide to go their separate ways for Christmas, and then Fate intervenes and strands them all at the airport or at some diner and they sit around and reminisce about Special Moments From Their Collective Pasts (cue the wavy lines fading into scene from previous episode). So imagine us sitting around a snowbound Denny's, enjoying our Moons Over My Hammy sandwiches, and talking about those very special TV Dads....

Remember that time I said Don Draper was a great dad?

How about when cIII said that he thought Hank Moody was a good father? 

Or when CroutonBoy waxed poetic about Frank Reynolds' parenting skills?

Or when Whit talked about proud patriarch Tracy Jordan?

Or TwoBusy, diving deep into Dexter's daddyness?

Or when The Holmes dug up Nathaniel Fisher, Sr.?

Or Mr. Big Dubya's ride-along with Jax Teller?

Ah, good times. (Dabs eyes with tissue.) So there you have it - our take on TV's Best Dads. We now open the floor for discussion. Who'd we leave out? Let us know in the comments!

Ask DadCentric - Movies We Like That Our Wives Hate...

...which may or may not be porn. Ahem.

So how many of you married or previously married or co-habitating or otherwise long-term-relationship-having peoples out there, when you were first a’courtin’, went out and saw a movie together? Show of hands? Most of you, I see. And tell me, as time passed and your relationships continued to grow in depth and profundity, as you continued to learn more about each other and discovered each other’s adorable little quirks and annoying little habits, and as you explored new realms of intimacy and tried out various new positions and locations and consented to each other’s deepest darkest never-before-revealed desires and fantasies, how many of you ever rented a movie and watched it together? Perhaps you wandered hand in hand through Blockbuster, occasionally stealing a kiss as you perused titles? Or maybe one of you went alone while you consulted with the other on your cell phone? Were you one of those people in the video store on the phone with your significant other? You were, weren’t you? You disgust me.

The point here is that movies are a significant component of the modern relationship experience. You go out to watch them, you stay in and end up making out during Taxi Driver and it doesn’t seem weird until much later. “Holy shit, we made out through Taxi Driver. That’s just fucking perverse!” It should come as no surprise, then, that as the relationship continues and the people involved reveal more and more of their true selves to one another, that certain movie tastes that both parties don’t share would fall under the heading of Shit You Just Accept Because You Love This Person. Myself, I have a whole host of titles set aside that I know there’s no way in hell my wife will ever have any interest in watching, and so I’m just waiting for those ever so rare times when I have 90 - 120 minutes alone where I have absolutely nothing else pressing to do. The funny thing is, you would think she would trust my judgment in this arena. You see, a few years ago, when the good people at Netflix delivered unto me, via our socialist postal service, the pilot of Battlestar Galactica, my wife read the title and said, and I’m quoting here, “You can watch that by yourself.” And I started to. Except that about twenty minutes into it, she walked into the room. She stood watching the screen for a minute. Then she sat down beside me and whispered, “What’s happened so far?” From that day forward, BSG was one of our shared favorites. Just think she almost missed out on the joy of that incredible series (we won’t talk about the finale), and yet our Netflix queue is peppered with films that I may never see. Mostly, it’s horror, which she pretty much refuses to watch. Something about nightmares or can’t sleep or...but wait, how can you have nightmares if you can’t sleep?!?! AHA!

Anyway, I was just gonna write a post about this all by myself, but then I started to wonder if perhaps any of my fellow DadCentrists might have anything to say on the matter from their own experiences, so I tossed out the question at our weekly meeting. And of course, we’d love to hear what you the readers have to say. That’s what them there comments are for.

Dadalogues #1: Video Games

Dadalogues 1 from BH Jesus on Vimeo.

Remembering Those Who Fathered the Dads of DadCentric

Sunday is of course the Best Holiday In The Galaxy when Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny converge to shower Dads everywhere with shiny electronic wonders and the weather calls for a storm of raining beer. We can't be bothered to mow the grass because it's raining beer and Dads everywhere just look into the sky with open mouths until our wives call us in the house to fuck us all kinds of limber ways like slutty porno girls.

In honor of this Wondrous Day, the DadCentric guys all pondered memories of their own Dads to make a single post that speaks about the Dads of the Dadliest Dads on the internet.